When purchasing an upscale bicycle a buyer often picks out a frame size, picks out some components and then opts to get a fitting. This is much like buying a suit or a wedding dress, where an item is made to fit you. But PK Cycling of Fairfax, California takes the custom fitting to the next level, and it offers clients the option for a truly customized bike that will fit riders like a tailored suit.
Christopher Kautz of PK Cycling was kind of enough to describe his company’s unique process.
KineticShift: How did you devise the bike studio concept?
Christopher Kautz: I started working on fitting with a good friend of mine while we were in our Ph.D. programs and racing as Cat 2 riders in the late 90s. Fit back then, particularly as it related to TT bikes, was very much a black art with no data to indicate whether improvements had been made to a set up after a fitting had been done. After struggling with our own fit issues we decided to make proper fit a research project so that we could be better riders ourselves. After a couple years of R and D we had quite a lot of data and had developed some pretty sophisticated protocols and tools, such as our groundbreaking Virtual Wind Tunnel, which allowed us a degree of precision people hadn’t seen in the fit world before. We set up a number of athletes who went on to win national and world championships, and people started contacting us for fits.
With the in depth nature of what we were doing, we needed several hours with each client and thus could only work by appointment. As the business grew and needed a dedicated space of its own it was only natural to continue to operate on an appointment only basis with our clients, so when we moved out of the garage and opened our dedicated space the fit studio was born. By this time I was also working with several custom frame manufacturers, most notably Serotta since I was one of the lead instructors at their fit program, so the concept of an appointment only studio for custom bikes came right along with the fitting side of the business.
While in hindsight it’s remarkable to look back and see that we were among the pioneers of that concept, at the time it never occurred to us to do anything differently. Having open hours never made any sense with our business model, and it still doesn’t today since our interest is in taking perfect care of each client which requires closing the door behind them when they come in.
KineticShift: At what level does a rider need to be to consider a custom fit bike?
Christopher Kautz: Any level of rider who wants to get the most out of his or her cycling will benefit from a custom fit bike. Cycling is a sport where better equipment helps athletes achieve higher levels of performance, and a perfectly fitted custom bike is designed to work specifically for the needs of the athlete for whom it’s built, whether that athlete be a cyclist who gets out occasionally with friends for a casual ride or a triathlete looking to qualify for the Hawaiin Ironman. Many athletes think they’re not good enough riders to benefit from a custom bike, but that’s simply not true. Anyone who has driven a high performance car such as a Porsche or BMW knows how much better it responds, performs, and feels than driving a Kia, regardless of their skill as a driver.
There is so much more to a custom bike than simply its fit coordinates that go into making it perfect for an athlete that people who have never owned one can’t understand the improvements available to them, even above and beyond very nice stock bikes. The handling characteristics are tunable, as are the ride characteristics in terms of drivetrain and torsional stiffness relative to overall compliance, not to mention the subtleties of getting the right stem and top tube length combinations, and the right stiffness and offset of fork – and those are just the big picture aspects of the frameset, and not even myriad of other details such as selecting each and every component on the bike. And let’s not forget the custom paint jobs, on top of all of that.
KineticShift: How much time goes into a custom bike fitting, and what are some of the basics that are involved?
Christopher Kautz: We allow three hours for an appointment with a client to insure that we have all the time needed to cover every aspect of their set-up, and that time allotment is the same whether we are fitting an athlete for a new custom bike or retrofitting their existing bike since in reality the process is the same.
We start with a 30 to 45 minute interview to assess an athlete’s goals, what is and isn’t working with the current set-up, injuries, etc., all of which essentially helps to paint us a picture of what we are working on. From there we measure and document the current set-up, look at the fit on the current bike, take a “before” motion capture video clip of the athlete, and then measure flexibility and range of motion. We then talk the athlete through everything we’re seeing, what we’re going to address, and why. In terms of adjustments we start by setting up the shoe/cleat/pedal interface, work our way to the saddle, and then to the bars, all the while helping to insure that the athlete understands how to sit and why we’re making the changes to the fit that we are. Once through we then document the new set up and go over everything, answering any questions the athlete has, as well as take an “after” motion capture video clip which we compare to the “before” clip.
When sizing an athlete for a new bike, or if we cannot make the existing bike fit, we fit the athlete on our Size Cycle, allowing us to find the perfect setup independent of the existing bike’s geometry, and then use a software template we have to either draft a custom frame or match up stock frames to the fit.
KineticShift: We see that you work with Serrota, Guru and Titus bicycles, so what types of frames and materials are offered to customers?
Christopher Kautz: Between the manufacturers we work with we have the ability to have frames made from all of the common frame materials – carbon fiber, titanium, steel, and aluminum, as well as mixed material bikes (meaning frames incorporating more than one material, usually titanium and carbon fiber). The vast majority of the bikes we build are either carbon fiber or titanium since those materials have the most potential. For example, when durability is the primary concern such as in a bike that will see heavy off-road use or be flown frequently, titanium is the material of choice, whereas if the aerodynamic profiles of the tubes takes priority carbon fiber is the material you’ll generally see the bikes built from.
Having a large number of options with frame materials allows us to meet the needs of our clients regardless of what those needs are, and never have to tell our clients that they will need to compromise.
KineticShift: And custom fits aren’t just limited to road bikes anymore, you’re doing mountain and even cyclocross bikes. Do you see this as a growing market for custom bikes as well?
Christopher Kautz: Absolutely. Custom bikes were originally only the purview of road and triathlon/TT bikes, but as athletes have come to experience the benefits of a custom fit they are no longer willing to compromise on the fit on their other bikes. Manufacturing capabilities have advanced significantly, as well, allowing for more potential in this area. We can even build fully custom full suspension mountain bikes, which is something no one would have thought only a few years ago.
Thank you to Christopher Kautz for taking the time to chat.