w00hoo_kent
One of the 64K
- Location
- Maidstone or Greenwich
I know some here view Specialized as some great satan of cycling and therefore a trip to their HQ near Chessington akin to the stroll in to Mordor but I'm in the fortunate position of being a born again cyclist and with my 30 months experience am happy to take all comers on pretty much face value. As such my hybrid, that brought me back in to bike ownership is a Sirrus Elite Disk and when I bought it I registered it with Specialized, meaning I get mail shotted all sorts of stuff.
About two months ago I was emailed an invite to a lecture in Chessington by Andy Pruitt, part of the driving force behind Body Fit and as I'd also done the bodyfit thing and am generally geeky and interested in this stuff I thought 'why not'.
The evening was limited to 100 people, although I'd be surprised if there were much more than 60 of us there and started at 7pm in Chessington on the Friday evening. It was a chance to see bodyfit in action on some 'volunteers', have drinks and nibbles, talk to some of the experts about it and the main event, sit in on a 90 minute lecture with Q&A by Andy about the history and his general ethos.
The venue is pretty amazing, they are going high end corporate, and having signed in we walked through a few exhibits, including Nibali's stage 5 bike still with some mud on it. There was free food and drink which was nice and a couple of high tech fitting booths (that my LBS could only dream of having) with guys doing body fits for, I'm guessing, test riders of some description. A couple of tables were set up showing off the latest saddles and the new shoe technology and some specialists were stood around answering all sorts of questions. OK, they'd basically invited Specialized customers so we weren't really giving them a hard time, although it was a great opportunity to iron out some queries about the kit. All of this was done in a huge 'showroom' filled with 2015 kit. All the latest bikes from across the range, including the S-Works stuff, all of the apparel you could imagine, Basically like walking through a 2015 Specialized catalogue. All very shiny. I spent some time looking at the latest Sirrus range, all carbon, and deciding I didn't lust after any of them (I don't believe I could keep a carbon bike in one piece long enough to own one). Andy Pruitt was already around and chatting to people, mainly about saddles and feet.
After being plied with food and drink for a while, and in my case trying to avoid the TV screen showing the days Tour stage I hadn't seen the result of yet, we headed through to the lecture and were greeted with a still of Nibali, arms aloft, winning that days stage. Nibali, along with a number of pro riders that would be talked about, has had the full bodyfit treatment and Andy Pruitt talked about the changes that had been made to his riding set up because of it. There followed an entertaining lecture about the origins of the whole bike fitting idea, how this became a Specialized thing and then some case studies on pro riders that Andy Pruitt had worked with, some Specialized sponsored, some not. All through he proved to be an informative, engaging and genuine man and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, I suggest you jump at it. His frank assessment of some of the riders - "Cav, he's a fiddler, why is he riding a 49cm frame, shrug, we don't make custom pieces unless we have no choice, but Cav is like something out of Lord of the Rings, he has hobbit feet, as wide as they are long. So we give in, we go to Italy, we make him custom shoes. Fit them, he loves them. A week later I get a phone call, Andy, you know, I think I prefer the off the shelf shoes. He can't help making changes" was refreshing.
After the talk he stood around answering more questions and generally chatting. I got some advice for my Synapse, others about cranks, shoes, all sorts. At the end of the night I bumped in to the two body fit specialists from Wildside in Tunbridge Wells (my LBS) and saved them a train journey home. So all in all a great evening.
Specialized are talking about doing more, this was a bit of a toe in the water thing for them, if you get the chance I'd suggest going along, if only for an interesting insight in to that bit of the industry. I'll definitely be up for it again.
About two months ago I was emailed an invite to a lecture in Chessington by Andy Pruitt, part of the driving force behind Body Fit and as I'd also done the bodyfit thing and am generally geeky and interested in this stuff I thought 'why not'.
The evening was limited to 100 people, although I'd be surprised if there were much more than 60 of us there and started at 7pm in Chessington on the Friday evening. It was a chance to see bodyfit in action on some 'volunteers', have drinks and nibbles, talk to some of the experts about it and the main event, sit in on a 90 minute lecture with Q&A by Andy about the history and his general ethos.
The venue is pretty amazing, they are going high end corporate, and having signed in we walked through a few exhibits, including Nibali's stage 5 bike still with some mud on it. There was free food and drink which was nice and a couple of high tech fitting booths (that my LBS could only dream of having) with guys doing body fits for, I'm guessing, test riders of some description. A couple of tables were set up showing off the latest saddles and the new shoe technology and some specialists were stood around answering all sorts of questions. OK, they'd basically invited Specialized customers so we weren't really giving them a hard time, although it was a great opportunity to iron out some queries about the kit. All of this was done in a huge 'showroom' filled with 2015 kit. All the latest bikes from across the range, including the S-Works stuff, all of the apparel you could imagine, Basically like walking through a 2015 Specialized catalogue. All very shiny. I spent some time looking at the latest Sirrus range, all carbon, and deciding I didn't lust after any of them (I don't believe I could keep a carbon bike in one piece long enough to own one). Andy Pruitt was already around and chatting to people, mainly about saddles and feet.
After being plied with food and drink for a while, and in my case trying to avoid the TV screen showing the days Tour stage I hadn't seen the result of yet, we headed through to the lecture and were greeted with a still of Nibali, arms aloft, winning that days stage. Nibali, along with a number of pro riders that would be talked about, has had the full bodyfit treatment and Andy Pruitt talked about the changes that had been made to his riding set up because of it. There followed an entertaining lecture about the origins of the whole bike fitting idea, how this became a Specialized thing and then some case studies on pro riders that Andy Pruitt had worked with, some Specialized sponsored, some not. All through he proved to be an informative, engaging and genuine man and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, I suggest you jump at it. His frank assessment of some of the riders - "Cav, he's a fiddler, why is he riding a 49cm frame, shrug, we don't make custom pieces unless we have no choice, but Cav is like something out of Lord of the Rings, he has hobbit feet, as wide as they are long. So we give in, we go to Italy, we make him custom shoes. Fit them, he loves them. A week later I get a phone call, Andy, you know, I think I prefer the off the shelf shoes. He can't help making changes" was refreshing.
After the talk he stood around answering more questions and generally chatting. I got some advice for my Synapse, others about cranks, shoes, all sorts. At the end of the night I bumped in to the two body fit specialists from Wildside in Tunbridge Wells (my LBS) and saved them a train journey home. So all in all a great evening.
Specialized are talking about doing more, this was a bit of a toe in the water thing for them, if you get the chance I'd suggest going along, if only for an interesting insight in to that bit of the industry. I'll definitely be up for it again.
