by Jeff Alpert
Introduction
The best bike racers have long femurs.  I have short-ish femurs.  Of all the body parts that could potentially be shorter than average, it could be worse.  But still, add the short femurs to my curved spine (a condition called kyphosis – think scoliosis turned 90 degrees so the curve is front-to-back), and you get a body that’s a pain in the ass to fit on a standard frame.  Which is how I found myself in Easthampton, Mass, getting measured and fit for a made-to-measure frame at Spooky Bikes HQ.

The shop, the company, and the man
Spooky Bikes HQ is housed in the basement of an industrial complex.  It’s not a bike shop – it’s a machine shop.  There are no fancy salespeople, no uniforms, and no frills.  The owner, Mickey, interfaces with clients primarily through his website, so there’s no real reason for the place to be anything other than utilitarian.  It’s definitely not Cadence Multisport.  It is, however, practically outfitted with what you’d expect in a machine shop – a few mills, lathes, bike stands, and a load of parts.

Mickey is a lot younger than I had expected – he can’t be older than 30.  He tells me his background is in mechanical design and exercise physiology.  He’s been building and racing bikes most of his life.  I come to find appearances are deceiving.  Within 15 minutes, it’s obvious Mickey is a mixture of intensely knowledgeable bike nerd and badass thrill-seeking athlete.  He speaks in concise language devoid of the veneer of a marketing pitch.  His command of the technical aspect is impressive: I’m a mechanical engineer and half of what he says is flying right past me, filed away to be pondered and made sense of later.

Spooky is primarily a mountain bike outfit.  Mickey shows me a storage room with at least 50 different MTB tires in it.  He say every aspect of the suspensions must be tuned – compression and rebound characteristics are controlled by re-building the innards of the shocks, which are also paired with the ride characteristics and hardness of various tires.  He explains that it’s necessary to research and fine tune the performance of his bikes for the pro teams he sponsors.  Downhillers are bombing down mountains in highly variable conditions.  Slalom riders need to be able to grip the ground at high speed while banking so hard their knees touch the grass.  Mickey is seeking the best combination of damping and stiffness in his suspensions so his bikes are responsive in whatever situation the course throws at the riders.

After all this, I say ‘so building road bikes must be a sort of joke for you.  Where’s the challenge?”  He responds that road bikes have to be precise in ways mountain bikes need not.  The geometry, stiffness, weight all need to be perfect.  The conditions are less variable on the road, so consistency and precision are king.  And with that, we start the fit.

The fit
Mickey spends a good deal of time over the next few hours laughing at my current bike and shaking his head.  It’s a Cannondale CAAD 9 with a zero-offset post jacked way up out of the frame, the SMP saddle slammed forward on the rails.  “You know it can’t be right when it looks so fucking wrong,” he says.  “Bicycles have been perfect for at least 60 years.  If a bike setup looks this different from every other bike you see, there’s a good chance it’s wrong.”

Mickey tells me proper bike fit involves only two essential dimensions: weight distribution and touch points.  “All the rules of thumb – that your knee needs to be over the pedal spindle, that your cleat should be over the ball of your foot, stuff like that – are NOT how you fit a bike.  Your center of mass needs to be as close to the center of the bike as possible, and as low as possible.  Your touch points – hands, feet, ass – need to be aligned so your knee gets the right bend, your back is flat, and your frontal area is reduced.”  Apparently the issue with my current fit is that I’m rotated way too far forward.  Yeah, my knee is over the spindle at 90 degrees, but my center of mass is way too far forward (making the bike handle like crap), and my leg is extending way too much (raising the center of mass and robbing me of the ability to use my quads).

There’s no stationary trainer, but it doesn’t matter because the hallways at the shop are a couple hundred feet long.  He sets me up on his stock 56cm Spooky Skeletor, watches me ride along the hall, then pedal backwards while a local Spooky-sponsored MTB racer named Matt holds the bike up.  There are no plumb bobs at my knees, no protractor, no need for that stuff.  He makes an adjustment to the saddle or bars, watches me ride again.  This goes on for a good half hour.  All the while he’s thinking out loud, quoting numbers for tube lengths for the custom frame.  Matt says “if you can’t tell by now, Mickey’s totally whacked.  He’s a bike dork.”  Finally, Mickey declares we’re finished riding.  He knows what he wants to do.  “It feels like I’m on a low-rider,” I say.  “That’s how a road bike is supposed to feel.  Wait ‘til we get you this custom frame,”  Mickey says.

He mocks up the frame using a program he refers to as Bike CAD.  Apparently I need an extra-long top tube, a ~73 degree seat tube angle, a 30mm offset post, and 170mm cranks.  Mickey pontificates on bike frame design.  “All that really matters are seat tube angle, trail, and wheelbase.  Those parameters determine fit and handling.  Stuff like chainstay length is less important.  Other things like bottom bracket height and top tube slope don’t matter at all.  We’ve created some ‘golden ratios’ that make our bikes fit and handle just like we want them to.”

At the end, Mickey sets my current bike up as well as he can.  He gives me an offset seatpost.  For free.  I tell him my SMP saddle is the only one I’ve ever owned that didn’t give me saddle sores or make me numb.  “First of all, your saddle was so goddamn high, it’s no wonder you had saddle sores.  Second of all, you’re a cyclist, your dick is going to go numb sometimes.  Don’t worry about it.”  He says that a few years ago, some urologist made a big stink about dick numbness, and Specialized hired him, in turn making a big stink about dick numbness themselves.  Ever since, they’ve been selling all sorts of expensive solutions, when all you really need is a good fit and a saddle that’s the proper width.  He looks at my ass and says “Fizik Aliante.  Or this narrow Selle Italia I’ve got.”  He then gives me the Selle Italia.  Again for free.

First ride on the new setup

I admit I was skeptical.  I’m about to put down some cash for a custom frame, and the fit is radically different from what I’ve been riding for months?  It’s a plunge. The day after the fit, I took my new setup for a ride to Piermont.  By the time I got there, I was ecstatic.  It’s hard to describe my enthusiasm without the help of a gospel choir.  The bike handles like it’s on rails now.  This is what every other cyclist gets to experience.  It’s stable and smooth.  No wonder my low-speed handling was crap.  No wonder I couldn’t descend well.  No wonder I never spent any time in the drops.  No knee pain.  No dick numbness.  The thing rides so well, I’m actually upset it fit so poorly for so long.  I can’t wait until my body fully adapts to the new position, and can’t wait until the new frame comes in.  A huge thank-you to Mickey