Kevin Saunders

Triathlon is the fastest growing sport in cycling. The more triathlon events I attend, the more I see why. Today's article is about Donna Chapman, a runner and a triathlete. It is about performing in the real world. Everything is easy in life when things go well. When things don't, however, we see a differentiation of success, failure, winning, losing and exhilaration or exasperation.

Many triathletes are perplexed regarding the timing of purchasing a new triathlon bike and the fitting that preceded it. This is a very good question and of course the answer is, "When you think the time is right," which does not really help most people. What does help, however, is the knowledge of what is happening to you before, during and after the racing season.

I was riding in the Hill Country recently and on a pretty hard section of the course I looked over and observed a 66 year young rider who was hanging tough with the rest of us. It reminded me why my job is not merely designing and creating bicycles, but also helping people expand their limits.

I am constantly asked what the big differences are between road bikes and triathlon bikes. The obvious difference is the fact that one races a triathlon in an aero position, but sometimes we see aerobars on road bikes so what is the real difference? There is a smaller difference between UCI legal time trial bikes and triathlon bikes, though they look very similar. The short answer is, road bikes are designed to have three hand positions, triathlon bikes are designed to have one.

This is the second question I usually get, the first one being, "I don't need a bike fit or a new bike, because I fit my bike just fine." The question of whether a bike fits or not has been asked for decades and at the end of the day, the answer does not lie completely in the field of "art" or "science." For me, I feel that there is both a science to determining what is right for a person and an art to working with the person to get the desired results.

The hottest topic in bicycle retail is bike fit. Every shop recognizes the need to properly size a bicycle to the customer. It seems that almost every shop now has an expert "fitter" and they advertise perfection to all their clients.

A friend has been hounding me to participate in a morning ride and I always had an excuse to bail. This week, however, I decided to give it a try as I knew the group would be small and as such the potential for a super ride experience was very high.

How the KGS Bikes fitting system works.

The resurgence of a classic--fixed gear bikes. The New York City bicycle messengers have ridden fixed gear bicycles for years. The ultimate bike for them was a track bike; single speed "fixed" gear, no brakes. Movies have shown the messengers darting in and out of traffic, holding on to taxis and buses and portraying themselves as bicycle outlaws, if not scofflaws.

I had been riding "stock" frame geometry for decades and the possibilities created by the combination of an unlimited fitting system and true custom geometry did not exist for me, and thus for you, until fairly recently.