This blog is just for bike nuts. Harry and I spent a happy two hours yesterday while he got "fitted" for his new all-titanium Serotta. Part of it was like a college entrance interview…lots of questions about how you ride, what you want out of life and so on. Then lots of measurements of flexibility (Harry’s ham-strings do not flex. At all.) Then lots of riding on an adjustable machine with a computerized something or other that records your power at different parts of your stroke…stuff like that.

Paul Levine, whose Signature Cycles in New York is the largest Serotta seller, says that comfort on a bike is 95% fit, 5% materials and so on. And comfort counts for everything. He quotes Lance Armstrong as saying that he won’t give up a bit of comfort for added power. Think how much more true that is for us recreational bikers. He also says there is a linear correlation between windage and power…the more you sit up straight, the more work. But he also says it’s worth to be sitting at the best angle for you, regardless. Interesting stuff. And Harry probably has a bike that will last him another 26 years. And, of course, he has no intentions of throwing out the old one. After all, it’s only 26 years old.