Gittin' a Fittin'

Johnny works to make me FAST....hope it works!

The Wife and I went to Tyler, Texas today to get fitted to our time trial bikes by the great Johnny Cobb! He's been in the bike business for, maybe, 25 years and is an expert on the aerodynamics of a bicycle (spending plenty of time at the Texas A&M wind tunnel) and position fitting for speed, comfort, and efficiency. He established the aero position of Lance Armstrong for his first three Tour de France wins and has worked with other cycling greats as Ivan Basso, Andy Hampsten, and Greg LeMond among others. Originally from Shreveport, he lives now in Tyler and runs a new business call CobbCycling with his first products being bike saddles which Paul and I took photos of back in October (I think) for his website and for other advertising.

We met JC at Elite Cycles in Tyler at 10am and left a bit before one that afternoon. Jonnene was fitted to her Kuota bike first, getting photographed, measured, and one of Johnny's new V-Flow Plus saddles installed. He also did some grinding on the aluminum arm supports of her aero bars to provide an angle that she wanted for her arms when she held the aerobars. There included an adjustment of her shoe cleats and by the time it was said and done, she was in a more comfortable and, hopefully, faster position. The bike is faster...now we'll have to see if Jonnene can keep up with it!

Next was me and I didn't get all the fancy attention that Jonnene did. JC took one look at my position and said, "Man, you are terrible!" Johnny has done this positioning thing for so long that he can just look at someone and correct any flaws without referring to cameras and computers like others who do this type of work. "I can fix somebody in a minute, then I have to justify what I charge," he laughed. There's places in Houston and Austin that have all these fancy setups with print-outs and animated position programs on computers...and they end up with the same result that he gets just by using his eye and experience. I ended up getting shims put on my shoe cleats since my right hip is lower than my left by a little bit and a new headset stem that was only 6 centimeters long which I thought would bunch me up. But it turned out to be very comfortable and surprisingly easier to turn the pedals. Maybe I'll break that hour in the 40K time trial this year?

So we got that done and drove back home. I finished painting the new carport door and installing a kickplate while Jonnene did some bill paying and did a home-made get-well card for one of her patients who got hip surgery last week. We took it easy tonight since she's still not 100% and I plan to get in a long ride in the morning.