Yesterday Jane and I drove out to Sammamish Valley Cycles with my bike in tow (yeah I was lazy). I was scheduled for a bicycle fitting.

Normally when you buy an Independent Fabrication, everything is customized to your body. The order is put out, and you get your bike a number of months later (depending on how long the wait list is). They do amazing work, and I had been wanting one for a while. I was in the middle of one of my many treatments and probably had no right buying anything that involved exercise. Regardless, I bought an off the shelf IF and called it my own. The fit was never quite right, and I bought a frame that was certainly too small. At the time, everything felt perfect though. The short top tube meant I didn’t need to hunch over too far to reach my bars. To be honest, I didn’t really have enough miles in my legs to know what I really wanted anyways. We were just out to get my dream bike because of all of the bullshit I had to deal with over the last few years.

The people at Sammamish were very nice in not calling out my mistake and went to giving me a proper fit using the best of their abilities. I still have plenty of issues with flexibility and fatigue, but I am a much stronger rider than I was a year ago. The IF isn’t going to cut it for the really long rides.

The bike is at the shop right now, in the process of turning into what I am assuming is somewhat of a frankenbike. My fork cut a little too short to get my handlebars high enough, and I am hesitant to buy a new fork that isn’t as pretty as my current one. I will probably end up with an extension on the steerer tube, or a stem with a really high rise.

The problem is, I have a silly little 400k coming up, and it is going to be a monster. I don’t need the bike to be pretty (it won’t be), I just need it to be comfortable.

The long term plan involves a single speed Salsa Casseroll. I’ve had my eye on this bike for a while, and planned on using it for my commute and the occasional recreational/training rides. What I am going to do instead is swap out the components on each. This will give me an awesome (and expensive) IF single/fixed, and a Salsa rando bike. It has a bit more clearance for fatter tires if I ever want to go that route, and the frame is pretty solid.

I am crossing my fingers that everything turns out for the best.