Featured Bike Fitter

I've been a bike racer and track specialist now for 21 years, with heavy emphasis on timed events. I seem to flip-flop between being better at Kilo (one kilometer time trial) one year, and Pursuit (3km and 4km time trial) the next. Probably my greatest accomplishments racing are a Bronze medal at the 1990 Junior National Championships in Houston, Texas, and 13th in the 1 kilometer time trial at the 1992 Olympic Trials in Blaine, Minnesota. Prior to racing I did a fair amount of loaded touring, riding the length of the Oregon Coast twice and the San Juan Islands in Washington once. Otherwise, I am an extremely dedicated bicycle commuter, getting most of my training mileage during the morning commute.

I am Fit Services Manager for the Bike Gallery's Fit Department. I oversee the training and standards for the Fit Specialists, as well as fit-related inventory for all six of the Bike Gallery locations.

I got the nickname "Rambo" my sophomore year in High School. At that time, I was on my school's swim team--not quite sure why, I wasn't that competitive in the water--going to school full time, working at the local bike shop after school and on weekends, and then three nights a week and Sunday mornings, I was working out with the Beaverton Bicycle Club. To that end, I was crawling out of bed at 06:00 for swim practice five days a week, in school 8+ hours a day, working an average of 4 hours a day, and the BBC practices often saw me staying up past 23:00. I wasn't getting much sleep, had dark circles under my eyes, five o'clock shadow all the time, and my hair got long and unruly. Then, one of the girls on the BBC commented to another team-member, "Wow, that guy who looks like 'Rambo' can sure lift a lot of weight," one evening while I was taking my turn on the leg-press sled. Pretty soon, there were more people in the state of Oregon that knew me as "Rambo" than by my given name. Then, something "snapped" and all of a sudden, I saw the humor in the nickname I was now, seemingly, stuck with. I've since embraced my nickname and have been Rambo on and off ever since.

December 24th, 2008 was my 10-year anniversary as a Fit Specialist.

My generally freakish build: I have extremely long femurs, torso, and moderately long arms, which always led to extremely compromised fit on my stock-geometry bicycles. When I first joined the Bike Gallery in 1998, they were in need of a fitter at the Beaverton store, so my interest in learning more about bike fit as well as opportunity came together quite nicely.

Big Meat! I even remember the wicked-cool pedals you made to set cleat rotation and determine the correct number of wedges! It wasn't until around 2005 when I first started trying the Cleat Wedges (then sold under the "LeWedge" name). In 2005, I had just taken over management of the Bike Gallery Fit Department and was looking to improve our technique as well as the experience of our fitting clients.

Expertise on lower-leg alignment, along with the fact that you could come to one of our stores to train the staff rather than having to send the staff out of town.

Having Bike Fit Education Training in-house allows me to stretch my training budget so everyone in my department was able to attend at the same time. I have had as many as 11 Fit Staff members at a time, so sending them all out of town for continued education is sadly out of the question. In-house training also allowed us to get training using the tools and facilities we actually have in-store.

I think perhaps the most relevant aspect I've taken from all the training I've received (in various fit systems) is that there is always something new to be learned about fitting and the human body. Current research is yielding lots of new knowledge about how the body moves on the bicycle.

Generally enthusiast riders (folks doing organized rides such as the local century or Cycle Oregon) with an average age around 40-45 years old, with a very slight majority (perhaps 51%) of these folks being women and often new to cycling. I have also seen a slight increase in 30-something folks (both men and women) looking to get their positions optimized for their first Sprint or Olympic triathlon.

Pain is the most common reason people come to see me. Most common complaints are: pain in the neck, lower back, knees, and numb feet--pretty much in that order.

Before administrative tasks required me to cut back one of my days fitting, I was performing as many as 11 fits a week. Right now, I currently average about 8 a week.

I've been working on developing a working relationship with some of the PT's that attended the Bike Fit Education weekend. We have met, exchanged ideas, and I am working on a referral form at their request, but the general craziness of working in-season in the bike shop has unfortunately forced me to place this project on the back-burner. Once the season slows down a little more, I hope to have more time to devote to this project.

I've had a fair number of fit customers ask about these saddles after reading about them on the Bike Gallery blog page, especially women. This saddle has been a huge hit among my female fit customers!

As a fitter, the first that comes to mind, is designing a custom bike for a former NBA player. He was just so big, it created all kinds of unique challenges. One of the biggest obstacles was the sheer size of his hands: standard grips were just too small. Ultimately, we set his bike up with the widest mountain bike bar I could find (I think it was 700mm) and running 1 and a half grips on both sides! I've also worked with a number of very petite women that really couldn't buy stock bikes off the floor; they just don't exist in sizes small enough!

It's hard to pick just one, but I do have a woman that I worked with on Cycle Oregon last year that was so inspired by what I did for her on her bike that she has opened her own business to help women shorter than 5'2" deal with their unique fitting needs on bicycles.

To risk sounding corny, I'm the proud papa of what has to be the world's smartest 27-month-old boy!

While Greg Lemond is the person that initially got me interested in cycling (and racing), I have to go with Lance as I feel he has done a lot more for American cycling.

As a track rider myself, I've always got to cheer for the trackies riding on the road. While I have a lot of respect for Theo Bos' accomplishments, I'd have to go with Bradley Wiggins right now, especially as a former track specialist--with multiple World and Olympic medals--who can mix it up with the big boys of road racing! Fourth place in the Tour de France is nothing to laugh at!

A couple of ideas, but nothing too concrete at the moment.

Never forget that the art and science of bike fit is currently in a constant state of flux. Don't be afraid of new knowledge and techniques that can improve the comfort and efficiency of our fit clients.

Longer steerer tubes, greater spacer-stack, and generally slightly shorter stems. While there has been a trend towards longer head-tubes among US manufacturers, many have been running less spacer-stack (generally 3cm or less as opposed to the 4cm maximum most modern carbon/alloy steerers allow). I know that the Specialized Roubaix and Trek Performance-geometry Madones have longer head-tubes and 1cm shorter stems than their Tarmac and Pro-geometry siblings, but it has been my experience that just about everybody could benefit from a slightly shorter and/or higher stem. Why limit these features to just the "comfort" models?

Getting to work with all kinds of interesting people both in and out of the industry. There are lots of characters in the bike business. Working with so many different personalities in all aspects of my job keeps it fun and far from ever being boring!

I was once dumbstruck by a comment one of my clients made as we chatted prior to her fit. I was getting her background as a rider and asking her about what was giving her trouble on her bike. She told me her general history as an athlete and as a cyclist and then went into her long list of woe riding and floored me with the comment, "It's just supposed to hurt, right?" I can't believe that anyone could possibly believe this about cycling!