I love bike shops

I went to The Bike Lane in Burke today to get my bike fitted to me. I have to say, I am overwhelmed by the level of customer service in bike shops that I've found. The people at the Performance Bike shop in Charlottesville were always friendly and helpful and willing to spend time with me trying to figure things out. As a novice cyclist who has no idea what I am doing, that was great. Then the person at the Bike Lane spent an hour with me and told me to call him to tell him how the fitting worked after a bike ride even if everything was okay.

The fitting went really well. Basically I set my bike up on a trainer and spun for awhile while Adam checked out my positioning. Every once and awhile I would get off and he would make an adjustment. Everything got adjusted including the handlebar position, the handlebar stem, the seat height, the seat level, the seat position and my cleat. Adam would explain to me what he was doing along the way and keep me informed. I'm not usually so good at asking questions and for help but he made me comfortable to do so. He also gave me suggestions on how to loosen up my shoulders and hamstrings. After the fitting, one of the guys did a quick tune and discovered that one of my spoked was really loose (OOPS) so its a good thing I got it checked out.

I got to test out my new bike fit with another bike ride with my mom and her friend. Let me tell you, the proper bike fit and having fully inflated tires makes a world of difference! My knees have killed me after other bike rides but they feel so much better now. I had a problem with my foot and hands becoming a bit numb from the pressure on the pedals and the handlebars so I'm going to call up the bike shop tomorrow to get some minor adjustments made.

The most interesting part of the ride was when my contact fell out mid-hill. I could feel it coming out but because of the curvy nature of the trail I couldn't stop immediately. When I did stop my contact was on my cheek but when I tried to wet it in the hopes of saving it, the contact fell off of my finger and into the dirt never to be seen again. Two runners came by and asked jokingly if we'd lost a contact while we tried to find it and they were shocked when we said yes. The nice part about it was seeing all of the people who stopped or asked if we needed help.

At this point, we were less than halfway through our ride but surprisingly I can see pretty well with just one contact in so we continued. After the halfway point, I took the lead and got a chance to really see what my bike could do and to play with the cycling computer I finally got to work. I left my mom and her friend in the dust and rode pretty hard. It amazes me how much more comfortable I get on a bike every single ride.

Oh! I also got my housing research done. My mom (the reference librarian) told me to check out Google Scholar and I find 2 really great articles on housing in the 70s and 80s and then I easily found the city statistics I needed on another website. I think I'll look over it next week to really try to streamline the information so it's not so overwhelming.


Just 2 weeks until my trip begins!!