The best bike shops, cycle cafes and events are listed in the Love London section of the London Cyclist Handbook. Today, I wanted to share one of the pages from that section that will appeal to road cyclists.
If you are having aches and pains while cycling, then the chances are it is not fitted correctly. A proper fitting session, whilst expensive, will solve these problems and set your bike up to maximise performance. Sessions tend to take a couple of hours. A special thank you to everyone on Twitter who recommended these places.
Cyclefit
Costs £250 for a two hour session to find your optimum riding position. Sessions can be booked online.
Camden, cyclefit.co.uk
Freespeed.co.uk
Fittings cost £195 from Monday to Friday and slightly more on the weekend.
Hounslow, freespeed.co.uk
Personal Bike Fit
Bike fitting sessions cost £140.
Kensington & Chelsea, personalbikefit.com
Comtat
£169 for fitting to existing bike, a geometry drawing for the ideal set up, shoe analysis and cleat alignment and a free follow up control fitting.
Hackney, comtat.co.uk/bike-fitting.asp
Roberts Cycles
Hand built bikes that are custom fitted around your measurements.
Croydon, robertscycles.com
Bike Whisperer
Full bike fitting sessions cost £195.
Ealing, thebikewhisperer.co.uk
Mosquito Bikes
£180 for a bike fit or can be completely free if you buy a bike valued at over £2500 from them.
Islington, mosquito-bikes.co.uk
Pretorius Bikes
£175 for a bike fitting session and £75 for follow up sessions.
Hackney, pretoriusbikes.com
Bike Lab
Costs £75 per hour.
Richmond, bikelab.co.uk
Le Beau Velo
Bike fit costs £169.
Hackney, Lebeauvelo.co.uk
Update!
New suggestion by alien8: http://cyclephysio.co.uk
I would strongly recommend Ben Hallam at Bespoke Cycling on Farringdon Road. He looks not just at the bike but at your body and can work with you to improve your posture and identify areas of weakness to help avoid future injury. They also offer cycling rehab and physio that is specifically tailored for cyclists. The fitting costs £200. I had a fitting there a few weeks ago and it is by far the best £200 i have spent in years
I’d happily recommend the guys at Cadence Performance in Crystal Palace. They looked after me brilliantly, including a coffee or two and spent as much time looking at me as at the bike (fewer replaceable components for the former, sadly), and massively improved my riding position. It’s comparable in price to those listed above, definitely glad I did it.
cadenceperformance.com
I know it’s not your target area but any suggestions for places in the South West? Specifically in or around Bath or Bristol.
stupid question maybe – is there much point in a proper bike fitting if you ride dutch style, ie you’re upright. I assume this could be money well spent for the roadies/atbs but not as essential for the more casual style rider?
Wouldn’t really be necessary Chris – a few simple adjustment to be sure you are riding in a good position is all that would be required. E.g. making sure when you are on the saddle you are touching ground with the front of your foot and making sure you are not straining to reach the brake levers.
nice one
Recently had a retul fit at Bike Science in Putney (who also have a base in Bristol as an option for Simon). Made a number of changes and suggested a couple of things I could switch on the bike but weren’t trying to flog me stuff from the shop upstairs.
Cost me £150 and took 2.5 hours.
Brilliant, thanks John.
OK, here’s my story…
I bought a bike (Ridgeback 503GS) about 5 years ago on eBay (£50) and used it occasionally for leisure.
I have been commuting approx twice a week on it for the past 2 years and, last month (after an article from our favourite London cyclist, Andreas), I bit the bullet and splurged £170 on new gearset and various other parts, with a full service (£65) from the very friendly (and highly recommended) people at Cycle Surgery on Waterloo Bridge.
I was close to scrapping that plan, and getting a new bike (had my eye on a nice Pinnacle Dolomite One), but decided that I was quite attached to ‘my baby’ and ‘she’ was far less likely to get nicked, and also quite up for a good thrashing ;oP
However, I get achey shoulders and also have a bit of a dodgy knee (slightly worrying, at 29 yrs of age…) so would love to get properly fitted. This article seemed perfect when it popped up in my latest newsletter – hurrah for Andreas once again! – but alas, having read the article, £150+ just seems crazy when my bike is barely worth that sum.
I’m now wondering if I should’ve gone for a new bike and got fitted as part of it…
I’d appreciate any advice!
Achey shoulders and dodgy knee don’t sound like a good bike fit / technique. You could try reading up on some of the basics of bike fitting (Covered in the handbook or search on Google) and try and make some adjustments yourself.
The dodgy knee could be down to a number of things. Such as using too high a gear and therefore putting too much pressure on it. Or it could be the riding position. We covered knees here:
https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/cycling-knee-pain-what-do-you-do/
If you can’t get the bottom of the problems yourself you could contact some of these bike fitting places and ask if they offer a more basic service for less high-end bikes. Perhaps they can do a deal if they don’t have to spend as much time on your bike fit.
Worth a try –
Andreas
Hi,
I used On your Bike on Tooley st back in April after a recommendation from a friend.
Denver, the fitter, was really friendly & helpful, and also gave lots of advice on techniques etc. I had the £100 full fit which took about 2.5 hours. We spent ages on getting the cleats fitted on the left side (combination of skiing and road accidents), as well as checking flexibility, fit etc. Afterwards it felt like a new bike.
(I have no connection with On Your Bike – other than as a very satisfied customer)
For anyone in the North London area, there’s Stephen James Cycles off of the A10 in Enfield. I went there because they were cheaper than cyclefit and closer to me and found the staff to be very helpful and knowledgable, taking body measurements, checking my range of movement and setting me up on their jig berfore adjusting. The bike felt so much better afterwards, I cound barely believe it! Reallly helped me keep up with my colleagues on the London to Paris ride, totally worth it!
http://www.stephenjamescycles.co.uk