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The Importance of Fit Services in Today’s Bicycle Retail Landscape

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This episode’s guest is Greg Robidoux, Executive Director at Serotta International Cycling Institute (SICI). SICI offers classes, bicycle fitting equipment, and consulting to bicycling retailers and coaches. Fit services are an excellent resource for revenue and ensure new cyclists find not only comfort but optimal performance while on the bike. Something for retailers to be focused on and talking about.

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The Importance of Fit Services in Today’s Bicycle Retail Landscape

Tue, 6/8

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

bike, fit, people, cyclists, bicycle, cycling, bike shop, retailers, person, shop, greg, rider, bit, fitter, pandemic, feel, coursework, local bike shop, walk, sport

SPEAKERS

Heather Mason, NBDA , Greg Robidoux

NBDA   00:10

You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.

NBDA   00:17

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Heather Mason  00:34

Welcome to another episode of bicycle retail radio brought to you by the MBTA. This is President Heather Mason. Thank you for listening. If you’re a first time listener, be sure to check out all the previous episodes. As always, the MBTA is thankful for our donors and association members. If you’d like to make a donation to the MBTA or become an association member, you can do so directly on our webpage. especial things to compare a gel. My personal favorite I’m a huge fan Canberra gel is a tea tree oil company that is well known to clean the air clean your body clothing pads, surfaces, you name it, they have an amazing Shammi cream. It’s my go to, you can learn more at Canberra gel calm. Today’s guest is Greg Roboto, Executive Director at serata International cycling Institute serata International cycling Institute offers classes bicycle fitting equipment and consulting to bicycle retailers and coaches. Fit services are something retailers should be focused on and talking about an excellent resource for revenue. And to ensure these new cyclists not only find comfort, but optimal performance while on the bike. It’s time to bring it front and center again. I’m so excited about this. So without further ado, welcome Greg. How are you? I’m doing well. Heather, thank you so much for having me here. Oh my god. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for being an awesome supporter of NBDA. And just a short time, you know, I’ve gotten to know you so well. So just to give our listeners a little bit of an idea. You’re in Massachusetts, right?

Greg Robidoux  02:03

That’s correct. I’m coming to you just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, from Somerville, Massachusetts.

Heather Mason  02:08

So we’re super close, we have to ride soon. That would be great. so eager for this call today. Since I started with the MBTA. In early February, Greg was one of the first that I reached out to and said hello and got to know a little bit more about and he’s an amazing person. He has an amazing family, his wife and I have fast become quick friends. And fitness something like I said earlier that everyone should be focused on especially now as we struggle with inventory, and ways to make extra revenue. So Greg, before we jump in all this information we have to share today, I just thought maybe it share with our listeners a bit on your path and industry, and how you got to become the executive durata, Executive Director at serata International cycling Institute.

Greg Robidoux  02:53

Before we jump into that, I’d really like to say thank you to you for all of the hard work that you’ve been doing. With the NBDA it’s been a really awesome experience to to see all the hard work that you put in and it is so appreciated by myself and others in the industry. So thank you for for what you do. As far as myself is concerned, my path to where I am today is felt like a relatively organic path. I grew up you know, like most other kids in a riding bikes most just because it was a way to get out of the house and do things and I was not someone that found cycling very early in my life from a competitive standpoint. I was a soccer player played division one soccer in college, got out of school and was looking for something competitive, something different. And I gotten into running and had run a couple of marathons, it was just beating up my body a little bit and decided that I’d get a bike to do some cross training. And I remember that first experience of buying a bicycle, like a real bicycle and nearly having heart attack when I realized what a bicycle cost because I think as someone in their early 20s, I wasn’t quite prepared for that. And then got on my first bike, and I got some mentorship from an early girlfriend of mine who was a very good competitive bike racer. And she said, You know, I started riding with her and she said I had potential to do well in this sport. And you know, at that point time, I never really looked back I got on the bike, I started racing bikes, I started having a lot of success racing bikes. And my professional path was at a physical therapy. So I’ve been a physical therapist for about, you know, for over 20 years at this point. So I had not only you know, the background of being an athlete, but also dealing with athletes working in orthopedics. And what eventually happened is as I got into the sport of cycling, I noticed that a lot of my teammates and friends and people that I would see every weekend through the bike racing community, know people we get hurt, people would have injuries, people would be like, hey, Greg, you’re a PT, right? Like what’s going on with this? And eventually there was enough of those people asking where I just started to say Well, why don’t you Come see me in the clinic. And that kind of grew into a cycling specific clinic. And I started treating cyclists almost exclusively there were enough of them that were injured, where they kept me very busy. And I started to get a reputation. People kind of knew me in my area. From there. I said, Well, how do I better treat these athletes. And so I started to kind of understand a little bit more about bike fit. And I had sought out several different education resources for bike fit. And when I landed at serata, for my own education, I was impressed with what they had developed. As far as curriculum is concerned, I liked the way that they taught, they were very agnostic with regards to how they fit bicycles, it wasn’t about fitting a particular bicycle to somebody, it was just improving that biomechanical interaction. And that resonated with me. And something in me must have resonated with the folks at serata. Because they asked me, after I had gotten my certification, if I consider coming back and teaching some courses, and I did a little bit of trial by fire was my real first kind of formalized teaching experience. And I really enjoyed it, and eventually became an instructor there. And then as the years went on, became the director of education. And then finally, about five or six years ago, now, I acquired the company from the previous owner, and we’ve been slowly growing it ever since we’ve done a lot of work to rewrite the curriculum, to bring it up to what I think are, you know, modern standards with regards to adult learning. And throughout the pandemic, we were forced to innovate a little bit. So normally all of our classes are in person, but what we ended up doing is splitting our class up. And instead of doing like a three day intensive, which was, you know, more or less like the industry standard, we’ve separated our coursework out and how to allow people to get the education get the background, so the didactic information is their intro course. And then they can decide whether or not they want to go on and become si ci certified. What that’s done is it’s actually brought more people in, which excites me, not everybody wants to use fit as a fitter. Some people want to use it to better understand the athlete and breaking the course up and allowing people better access to it has been a real boon for us, and has really opened up, I think, our coursework to a new generation of people, which is really great. That’s kind of been my journey with the serata International cycling Institute. And I believe that we can be better than we are today. And I strive to take the feedback from our students and take the feedback from the industry and do whatever we can to continue to improve and to continue to learn ourselves and make a better product and bring more people to bikes and have better cycling experience. That’s really what it’s about.

Heather Mason  07:56

What an interesting background and one that I mean, listening to your story I can tell was fueled by your your own passion and your desire to help riders be more comfortable on the bike and less injury prone. I don’t know if I told you I think I have shared with you that I grew up just outside of Saratoga Springs. So having serrata. So close, you know, the serrata fit cycle was, I want to say my first introduction to bike fit. And I always remember going into this one store as local store, seeing someone on the side cycle and listening to the fitter communicate, you know about the pedal stroke and the dynamics of the body on the bike, it wasn’t just about sizing the bike is about working with the rider to ensure that it was a cohesive unit. I’m sure you’ve worked with hundreds, probably 1000s of industry, folks. But if we start simple, like super simple, in your mind, in your terms, what is a bike fit? And who needs one?

Greg Robidoux  08:54

That’s actually a great question. Because I think one of the things that the industry struggles with a little bit is that people don’t really necessarily understand what a bike fit is. I mean, I think that you most of us that have been in the industry for a while, kind of just assume everybody knows what a bike fit is. But I think that if we look at the numbers of people that actually get fit, I think it’s a lot less based on how many people actually buy bicycles than we would like it to be. And so on the most basic level, really, anybody who rides a bike, it’s worth getting a bicycle fit, it’s going to reduce your risk of injury, it can potentially improve your performance. It’s going to make it a much more enjoyable experience to ride a bike. And it’s going to help to break a lot of the misconceptions that we see in cycling, one of the most common ones and one of my favorite things to do when I talk to the community and I go out there and talk about bike fit. As I survey a crowd and I asked how many people have had discomfort sitting in the saddle. This is one of those areas where everybody’s like, Oh, look at that bike seat, you know? Especially newer cyclists, and I get a show of hands, how many people have been uncomfortable sitting on a bike seat, and you see a bunch of hands go up in the crowd. And then I say, I want you to keep your hand up, if you think that’s a normal part of cycling, almost 60 to 70% of those people that have raised their hand, usually keep their hand up, always hurts me a little bit inside, because I’m like, it’s not supposed to hurt that way. You know, if we’ve got it right, and you’ve had somebody take you through that process, it’s gonna feel normal, it’s gonna feel natural to sit in the saddle, when we improve those contact points, you’re going to feel a lot better, it’s not gonna hurt. I mean, you could make it hurt as much as you want. We’re all good at that, as cyclists, right, but we don’t want our equipment hurting us, we want to put the hurt on ourselves if we can.

Heather Mason  10:44

I mean, as a woman who’s I’ve written bikes with hundreds of women, you know, we hear the pressure in the female area, you know, from the saddle, the pressure behind the shoulders, you know, in the in the top of the bag, and, you know, as a person who has some experience with fit, not a lot, some, I know that those touch points can be fixed, you know that that’s not you don’t have to ride like that. Alright, for all the retailers who are listening to this, is it enough just to adjust a saddle, you know, up or down and call it a fit? And what bikes are we talking about? Is it kids bikes to ride,

Greg Robidoux  11:16

any bike will benefit from a bike fit, let’s qualify a little bit, what a bike fit actually is, you know, there’s an idea of sizing a bike, which is kind of like make sure the bike is going to fall within the parameters of what that person’s body can accommodate. But a bike fit is actually collecting some data about that person understanding what they want to do with the bicycle, what their goals are, what any physical limitations are, injury history, and then digesting that information, using that data to then make educated decisions about how we adjust the bicycle underneath them. And so a bike fit really takes time, it takes attention. And it’s an individualized process. I feel as though Historically, the industry has always felt like or it’s always wanted to gravitate towards a formulaic way of doing this, where your arms are this long, your legs are that long, and the bike is going to fit this way. And unfortunately, it’s just not that easy. Human beings are adaptable, and they change over time. And bike fit isn’t a static thing. It’s a dynamic process that needs to be looked at repeatedly, someone’s fit will change over time, it will change with injury, it will change as they improve their fitness, it will change as they their fitness wanes, you know? So it’s a process by which you need a guide through it can fit be done by oneself, I think it can. The problem is that we all have lenses that we look through when we look at ourselves, right? The person that we see in the mirror, or that we think of that archetype of that person in our head is different than that of the person that we actually are sometimes. So for me, for instance, I’ll pick on myself, I was a former bike racer, I was a relatively aggressive bike racer was a good time tribalist, it was a good crit racer. And so in my head, I still think I can just do those things, right? The reality is, I’m 2530 pounds heavier than it was when I was racing. I’m not in the best shape that I’ve ever been because of some injuries. And I just don’t have that flexibility that I once did. So the reality of my body being in a position that I once was able to adopt, it just isn’t there right now. And sometimes you need somebody to take you through that process and objectively stand back and say, Yeah, I know that you might have the potential to be in that position. I’m not saying that you will be again in the future. But right now, we need to fit this for where your body is. And I think fit is a lot about kind of understanding the goals understanding where the person is, at this moment, and developing a fit around who they are now and who they are going to be over the next year or so not do this one fit and then you’re fit to a bicycle forever. It just doesn’t it just doesn’t work that way.

Heather Mason  14:14

Yeah. So it’s not just I’m Heather, I’m five foot six, and you adjust the saddle for me, as you’re telling us you know, I don’t know if I had told you I had a retail store for a long time and my father actually love serrata fit. He did a lot of research on what serata fit was and he also went to SBC you but he would make these appointments with customers and they would come in and it was a three hour long. And then he’d be like, Alright, see you in a couple weeks. And you know, I’m running around the store and they had cut off you know, selling bikes and he’s got this conversation developing and his relationship developing. He changed people’s lives. You know, he truly made their experience better. And I can see how fit when you find a good fit or when you find someone to work with. You find a store that is offering you this fit, it really becomes a relationship that evolves over time, as you’re saying, and I love how you looked at yourself in the mirror. Oh, God, we all do that, right? We all think we’re something but really helps to have another professional taking a look at it, right?

Greg Robidoux  15:12

It’s similar to my other profession, which is physical therapy, like, Can I do my own physical therapy? Yes, will I be more accountable if I have somebody else do my physical therapy and tell me what to do? I think I probably will, if I’m being honest. So I think it’s best practice to let somebody else be the driver of that. Now, we’ve been in a pandemic. And that has been a limiting factor for some people getting bike fit. And there have been some things that have happened, that I’m happy to dive into with regards to what my feelings are on doing fitting remotely. But when it’s possible, you want to be in front of somebody, and you want to spend that time and, and a good fit does take two hours or three hours to accomplish. And then there should be some follow up. Because, you know, I tell my students this, and it’s unless you’re from New England, I don’t think you always get this reference. But they have this place called the Yankee Candle shop in New England, and they’ve got like a million different sets of candles and you walk in there, and by the third or fourth candle, you’ve sniffed, they all smell exactly the same. And I think sometimes like fit can be that way where, you know, your body can absorb a certain number of changes, and then all the changes start to feel the same. And so you do your fit in a two to three hour window. That’s about what people can absorb. And then they need to ride it and feel it and live with it for a little while to see if it is in fact, what they thought it was when they were doing the fit. And then you follow up and make sure that any last little tweaks need to need to happen. And I think that’s an essential part of the process.

Heather Mason  16:41

Now I’m thinking about trips over Yankee Candle factory. Alright, so the reality is, I think that the percentage of retailers that offer fit is actually quite low. I feel like there was a boom there for a couple of years ago where we were talking about fit, and many were making the investments or even setting up extra rooms for fit or specific rooms for fit. But for those shops who don’t have fit right now, those bicycle retailers, some of the advantages of adding bike fit to their shop, Greg,

Greg Robidoux  17:10

this is one that I’d like to tackle in a couple of parts. I mean, I think that I come from a place that of course, I think fit is paramount. Right. But I think one of the arguments that’s made, especially right now with, you know, this kind of pandemic are hopefully getting to be posted endemic, kind of a boom in the cycling industry, because people are seeking it out for fitness, people are seeking it out for transportation. And just all this been this huge influx in because of you know, people can’t get ahold of things, and supply chain issues. What we’re seeing is bike shops are running around, like, like you were in your dead shop, like chickens with their heads cut off, right. And I think one of the pieces of pushback that I’ve heard is like, well, we’re super busy bikes are flying off the shelves, we just don’t have time for bike fit right now. And I can see that argument being made. And I guess in a certain aspect, I can understand it. But you know, here’s the thing, it’s super short sighted, it’s one of these things where if we take the time now, if we invest in the people that walk through the door, the reality is, these are people that are going to stay with the sport, if we make somebody more comfortable right out of the gate, because there’s a certain attrition rate that’s going to happen with all of these folks that have come to cycling in this kind of bike boom that we’ve seen. And to minimize that attrition rate. Things like bike fit are great not only for getting the person fit to the bike, but also that first layer of education for the new cyclist, right? You know, they’re coming to this sport, there’s all this potential, the local retailer has an opportunity not just to do bike fit. It’s not just about the numbers at the end of the day. And quite frankly, I think that’s the last thing that bike fit is about bike fit in a retail environment that we have right now is an opportunity, it’s an opportunity to educate. It’s an opportunity to create advocacy for the sport, it’s an opportunity to create community. And this is one of the opportunities in retail that I think, in my estimation needs to be something that people reach out and grab ahold of real tight right now, today. Because if we let it go, if we let it fall through our fingers, that level of attrition rates going to be pretty high. I don’t want to see people going back to business as usual. When it comes to that. I think that there’s an opportunity to step it up an opportunity to sustain some of those goals and grow our cycling community, not just for fitness not just for enjoyment. But heck for our planet. Let’s make us all a little bit healthier, right, providing that service is one of the ways it’s really a doorway for somebody to walk through a big open welcoming doorway to say hey, This is why we love this sport so much Come inside, let me tell you about it. Let’s sit down. And let’s make you a better educated cyclist when you walk out the door. And then not only you better educated cyclists, you’re better educated consumer. And that only helps the local bike shop. The reality is, they’re struggling with the environment of internet sales and different things like that. And again, bike fit is one of those things where it’s best done in person, and whether that person’s bought the bike from you, or whether they bought it online, especially if they bought it online, and they walk into your local bike shop. And I can see how somebody would be offended by that. But I think it’s an opportunity, I think it’s one of these things that we have to really capitalize on in the brick and mortar industry in cycling, to say, Hey, you know, it’s an option out there for consumers. And I can understand why consumers going to go there because they can see the value proposition, right. And we’ve all taken a step closer, because of this pandemic, to just buying everything online. The people that have now gotten really comfortable with that. And like, I’ll speak from my own experience, I hate shopping online. I’m a person that likes to feel things to touch things to have a tactile experience. And that’s what allows me to make my decision to buy something or not buy something. And I found that over the last year, oh click, and it’s my door and a couple of days when like, it’s not so bad, right? When that value proposition presents itself, I think especially now and in the future, it’s not going away, it’s not going to disappear. And the way that we capture some of that market back is to knock it out of the park with service to knock it out of the park with turning bikes around, you know, having excellent mechanics having excellent services creating community around your bike shop. That’s what does it.

Heather Mason  21:58

Yeah, I cannot agree with you more. I think this past year, many retailers have really stepped up and have dialed in, you know, every part of their working operation. And you sell someone a car, right? You wouldn’t sell a car to them and not teach them how to turn it on or not teach them how to use the paddle shifters on the steering wheel, right. That’s like a bike like you sell someone a bike, you really need to make sure they know how to fit it. You know how they fit properly, they know how to shift it, and they know how to work it. Alright, so you’ve convinced me maybe hopefully, some of our listeners. But what about the investment? So I want to set up an area and my store? I have nothing right now. Is it a specific area? Is it in a separate room front and center? Like how much what do I need? Do I need a fancy machine.

Greg Robidoux  22:43

So there are some really cool technologies when it comes to bike fit. And if you’ve got a good background and understanding bike fit and have a solid process down, then a lot of the technology that exists a lot of the fancy bells and whistles can make you even better at what you do. But the core of bike fit is understanding the rider understanding bicycles and understanding how those two things interact. And having a good methodology for looking at somebody who could kind of scientific process that should be your first investment is just let’s understand bike fit. And I’m not just saying that because I own a school, I honestly believe and I tell my students like when you come to the Surat international cycling Institute, like here are all the other courses that exist. Go take those, of course I want you to take my coursework, but invest in yourself invest in understanding and developing your own process. Don’t take my word for it, shoot holes through what I do. And invest in yourself enough where you can pick and choose the things that are going to work best for your market for your clients and develop your own, you know, fitting protocol. And I think that’s really important. As far as physical space is concerned, this can be difficult for some smaller retailers. It’s like you know, floor space is really valuable, but it doesn’t need to be a really big investment to get started. The reality is that if you’ve got a trainer, you’ve got maybe an adjustable stem handful of saddles and handlebars and some knowledge you can do really good bike fits, you know, there’s a handful of tools from an actual dollar standpoint, if your company is willing to invest two to $3,000 you can be set up pretty well to get started now, sky’s the limit there. I mean, we can add in, you know size cycles in motion capture analysis and pressure mapping technologies and you can spend 5060 $70,000 on a fit studio if you wanted to. The thing is that doesn’t necessarily make it a better experience for the person getting fit. It’s last year and there are a lot of people that walk in The door go, Wow, look at lasers and you know, machines that are get lights in there, you know, flashing things. And you know, the thing that resonates with me, I have a lot of that technology, right. And I love it Not gonna lie to you and say that I don’t, I don’t like that stuff because I do. And there’s a certain percentage of people that are attracted to the technology. However, the core of bike fit is the relationship that you develop with each person that walks in your door. And the thing that means the absolute most to me, is the feedback that I get from my people that I’ve done fit with. And they say to me, you know, I learned so much today, this was an awesome experience, right? I feel like I’m a better cyclist for having walked in the door. And if that’s the feedback, then you’ve knocked it out of the park, right, no matter what the tooling is that you have, you know, you could be doing it on the most basic Trainer with, you know, a couple of basic hand tools, and really find good results for someone. And so, spaces, I think, can be as small as a little corner in your shop that you know, a little nook that allows you enough room to be able to look at somebody and not make them feel like they’re going to trip over the clothing rack. From an actual space standpoint, it’s best if you can have about eight feet from the side of a rider and about six feet from the front of a rider. And if you can dedicate that kind of square footage to a fit studio, then that’s going to probably be enough. If you’re just using your eyeballs, it needs to be a little bit bigger. Oftentimes, if you’re going to use motion capture, I think one of the other things that’s important is, it doesn’t have to be in the same space, but actually having a quiet place where you can go because sometimes shops get busy, where you can actually sit down and talk to your athlete, talk to your client, and allow them to feel comfortable enough to discuss whatever they’ve got going on with their body with you. Right. And one of the things that you’ve been talking about, and that I’ve been really tuning into with regards to your organization, is the idea that we need more equity in this sport, one of the things that’s relatively near and dear to my heart has been this idea that women in cycling specifically, it can be really intimidating as a female to walk into a bike shop and talk about your saddle interface, like are you going to do that? Probably not, you know, getting more women involved in bike fit, and actually creating an environment that’s inviting creating an environment that allows somebody to feel as though that they can have these discussions with you. I mean, if you walk into a like a Forgive me for saying this, like a bro kind of a shop, and you’re a female rider, and maybe you’re having like a saddle sore, like, are you going to talk about that in a shop environment? Probably not. For those of us who have been in bike racing for years, we’re like, I don’t care, I change in parking lots. But for those of us who are newer to the sport, I mean, it’s really intimidating. And so there needs to be some thought put into where you’re placing your your fit studio, from a retail standpoint, is it nice to have it like a crown jewel to have it front and center? Maybe, but from the comfort of the rider. So if you’re, let’s say you’re not an athlete, right, and you’re putting on spandex for the first time. And now you’re in the middle of a shop with your back two people walking around shopping, and you feel like your butts on display that’s super uncomfortable. Are you going to have a great experience? You’re going to be willing to share the same way? Are you gonna feel comfortable on the bike? Just because you feel like you’ve got eyes on you? Probably not. So, you know, kind of taking some of those things into consideration. When we start setting up our fit studio, not just Hey, this is some cool tech that we’ve gotten. I want everybody to see it when they walk in the shop. But like, hey, how is this gonna affect the experience for the people that are actually getting the fit.

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Heather Mason  29:51

so many good nuggets right there. I mean, you know at one point I was like thinking as you were as you were talking I’m imagining okay, but here we have a retailer who does not have Fit setup anywhere in the store right now, they want to get into fit. And in this case, there’s no right or wrong. Like, there’s really there’s a lot to consider, but there’s no right or wrong. So it’s like find a spot, you can put a cyclops trainer mat down, you put a trainer on it a toolbox, a couple chairs, and, you know, a couple tools, like you said, and you can get into it in the process. And then there’s the other way of looking at it, you know, do we put it in the middle middle of the store, front and center? And do we, you know, make room for the laser beams. So much to think about. But if we go back, it’s making sure you’re offering fit, it’s so important to keep these new cyclists engaged, you touched on a point about spending time talking to get to know about them. And I remember when I was doing fit, that was a great time, you know, the whole store, usually very hectic and busy, we would take a moment we truly Connect. And I actually like I said, I hired my father as a contractor to come in because I needed a dedicated employee. So do you recommend that retailers have a specific employee? Should it be someone like on a contract? Should the person not be on the sales floor at the same time? Should it be scheduled? There’s some thoughts on that topic, Greg?

Greg Robidoux  31:07

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think part of making a bike fit in experience is making sure that it’s a scheduled event, right, it lends a certain amount of credence to an importance to what the bike fit actually is, as opposed to just somebody walking in the door going, Oh, yeah, come on over. And we’ll just throw you on this thing. And we’ll figure it out. I think making it an actual scheduled event is something that’s, that’s important. And I’m going to answer your other question in a couple of ways. Yes, I think it’s a good idea to have a dedicated fitter, whether or not they’re a contract person or not, that may be a shop to shop decision. I mean, that could be a really inexpensive way to get started, is if you’ve got a good person in your area that’s doing bike fits, to contract with that person and have a bike fit consultant, as opposed to having an in house bike fitter, that might be an option. You know, it’s one of the ways that I got a lot of business when I started is that I went into local bike shops and said, Listen, I don’t necessarily want to work for you. But I’m going to work for you for free, basically. And I’d have some very confused looks from the managers of a store. And I’d say, Well, listen, I’m a physical therapist, I treat cyclists I do bike fitting, and whether or not you’ve got bike fitting or not, let’s say the shop has bike fitting. And I said, Listen, I don’t want your bread and butter bike fits, I don’t want your day to day, I want the complicated person that really you shouldn’t be treating because they’ve got complicated injuries, or they’ve got something, it’s not that you don’t do good bits, but maybe that’s above your paygrade. Right, maybe that’s getting into the medical side of things. And the benefit for you is you’re going to be able to say, hey, we’ve got this medical fitter that we work with, Greg, I’m going to send you to Greg, he’s going to do your fit. And then he’s going to send you back with a parts list and all the things that we need to do. And the way that other local bike shops, even bike shops in my local area that had fit would send me people because they’d be broken, or they’d be the difficult person. And they’d send them to me, and I’d make my money doing the bike fit. But then I’d call them up and I do a warm handoff. And I’d say hey, I’ve got john smith here, we just did his bike fit, he needs this length stem, it would be great if we can get this new set of handlebars for him. We’re looking for this particular saddle, do you think you guys can get that stuff? And they’d say, Oh, yeah, of course. That’s great. You know, I’d have john sitting right next to me. And I’d be on the phone with the bike shop and say, you know, well, if you order that stuff now, where do you think it’ll be in when she bring his bike down, they’ll be like, oh, would be great to have him bring his bike down on Tuesday, we’ll get all that stuff put on. And he’ll be good to go. And that client felt like they were a rock star, because they’ve got, you know, people taking care of them. And they walk into the shop. And they’re like, Oh, you know, Greg called us, you know, it felt like much more white glove service, right. And for the bike shop, they just sold a whole bunch of stuff without having to do any work, right? There was a value proposition on both ends. And I think even if you don’t have a fitter in house, finding somebody like that might actually be advantageous. But if you are going to choose to have somebody in house doing your bike fits, I think it’s best to have a dedicated person doing it. On top of that, I think you also need to have bike fit as part of the culture of this shop. And all of your sales staff need to be educated on what bike fit actually is, why it’s important. And you need to have everybody on board. But you see if you have one, that one person going like I don’t really need it, then it really degrades the whole thing. You know, I think that can be difficult sometimes because people just people want people to be happy. And I think one of their thought processes in that it’s like, you know, people raise their hackles up a little bit if they’ve just bought a bike and then you’re asking them to spend more money on a bike fit. The phrase that I like to use is that You know, buying a bike is investing in equipment, buying a fit, is investing in yourself. And so if you’re going to invest in the equipment, you should also invest in yourself and make this happen. And it’s a service that’s worth something. And I think that bike shops that giveaway fit are doing themselves a huge disservice, especially if you give away fit after being educated on how to do it, because you’ve made an investment. And it’s a commodity, and it should be worth something. And I think that’s super important.

Heather Mason  35:29

I just sold a customer a bike I’ve got, you know, the whole bike is ready to go. Should I be scheduling the fit at that time before the customer leaves, like having them come back? Or is that pick up bike schedule fit same day? Like what do you suggest there?

Greg Robidoux  35:44

Yeah, so that’s one of those kind of logistical things that I think you have to kind of decide on what works best for you I have a lot of times, a lot of what I do these days is I do fitting before the person gets their bike, and then we’re doing follow up once they do. So they come in, they have interest in a bicycle, they want to buy a bike, and then we’re going to do the fit. Now I have the luxury of having a size cycle. So I can essentially just build any bike for them. And then we’re going to be able to look at that geometry and say, Well, these are the top three bikes that are going to work for you. I’m not bound by any particular shop. So I can just say any bike, you know, whatever bike is going to fit your body the best. But you know, in your shop environment, maybe you carry a couple of different lines of bikes. And you can say, well, based on what we have in our shop, this is what’s going to work best for your body. If you’ve already done most of that work up front, the delivery is much easier, because you’re essentially getting the bike set up ready for their body when they leave the shop. And then, you know, in a couple of weeks after riding it when the bikes get to come back for it’s, you know, a little tweak and tune up anyway, it’s a good time for the rider to come back and say, all right, well, now that you’ve had a chance to live with it, you’ve written it a little bit, what are the things that you know, you weren’t aware of when we started this process? You know,

Heather Mason  37:00

you know, I would always put a bike on the trainer and go through at least that, let’s say half hour long, you know, reach two bars sell for saddle height. And then I’d say, Okay, now in a couple weeks, we’re going to come back, and we’re going to go dive deeper into it. And then we’re, you know, maybe talk about petals and all that other stuff that we didn’t get to yet and souls

Greg Robidoux  37:18

and all that other stuff. So I think calling that kind of like a sizing and starting with that and getting somebody out there so that they can at least throw a leg over it may also give them a broader sense of what do they like and what do they don’t like, which may allow them to bring a little bit more information to a fit, especially if they’re a newer rider, I think is a very valid way to do it that way as well.

Heather Mason  37:40

So you mentioned a little bit about the value of fit and pricing and not to give it away. So are you suggesting the shops have like a fit service menu with like, packages ABCD, or

Greg Robidoux  37:51

that depends on your shop and on the fit market in your area. Me personally, I have one price in my price is what it is. And you know, if you’re going to do a fit, I’m going to do the whole hog, I’m not going to do a portion of the fit. This is one thing that I think it kind of has to suit your market and suit your model. Is there benefit in heavy tiered bike fitting? I think that for some folks there is because I think you’re going to lose some folks no matter what, because you’re asking them to spend a little bit more money. And there are going to be some folks that just don’t understand the value proposition in that. And having something less expensive to at least get them more comfortable. Give them a little bit of education, I think is probably a really valuable thing. So some fit is probably better than no fit. Right? So having a menu of options is great. But I also think you should be saying like, well, we have a menu of options, here’s a couple of different fits that we offer. This is why it’s best to do the whole thing, right? You know, we can if what you want to start off with is, you know, the $99 you know, little bit more than the sizing kind of a fit, and then maybe leave the option open to say, Well, if you decide that you want more than that, we’ll take that off of whatever the cost is for the more expensive fit or whatever. I think you shouldn’t give too many options, I think you should have maybe something basic and maybe something a little bit more intensive. And just because a rider is newer doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t benefit from a full fit. A full fit is not just something for bike racers. It’s not just something for people who are, you know, super avid cyclists. You know, if you’re just getting started, it’s a great way to really understand the sport a little bit more. It’s a great way to be much more comfortable on your bike. And it’s a great way to learn a lot more about the sport right from the get go and not have to learn it through attrition. You know, when I went through the sport, there was a lot of things that I had to learn the hard way, right. It’s kind of like that hazing where you have to you have to have that experience of like, they don’t Everybody has when they get into clipless pedals is to like, go to a stop sign and fall over at least once. Right? I think there’s been this tendency to keep things close to the chest, people say, Well, I’ve got this secret sauce, and I don’t want to let you in on it. There’s always been that sense. I felt that sense in bike shops where there’s almost this air of like, Well, I know a lot more about this than you do. Well, if you do, that’s great. Share it, let’s not create this little exclusive bubble of like, what it is to be a top tier cyclists like, hey, if you enjoy two wheels, you’re awesome in my book, so let’s just share everything right up front, and let’s make sure that people know it. You know, what I do, as far as bike fit, and bike fit education, it’s not a secret. And I encourage my students to seek out other bike fit education, and seek out other avenues of education with regards to understanding biomechanics and how human beings work. I don’t think it should be a secret. You know, in historically, one bike fit school will be like one this is this is how we do it, you can’t see our, you know, our menu of things. And, you know, I think it’s much better now, I think we, I think we’ve all realized that, hey, we’re all headed towards the same direction, we’re all got the same goal, we all have our own little flavor that we put on it. And it all has value. So like, that’s where it’s at,

Heather Mason  41:16

on the serata cycling institute.com website. So serata cycling Institute calm, and I was looking at the courses you offered different levels. I just wanted, you know, think about, okay, I’m a retailer, too, I want to take the course as the owner, do I want my staff to be engaged, I’m thinking that if my staff have at least gone through level one, it’s going to make them better salespeople, give us a little dive into your courses and who you think should be taken in and what the time, you know, commitment is?

Greg Robidoux  41:44

Absolutely. So as far as coursework is concerned, as far as our coursework is concerned, one of the things that we did throughout the pandemic is what we divided this course up into two pieces, it used to be, you’d have to travel to me, you have to take time away from your shop, and then spend three days here and then usually probably a little bit more than that, because you’ve got travel time on either end. And that becomes time and cost prohibitive for some folks. And so this availability to be able to get in and still talk to a live person. And do it virtually, it has been a real benefit for many of my students, is something really fun about just kind of going to a bike fit course and meeting other people in the industry and having that experience. However, from a pure accessibility standpoint, ability to actually get coursework completed. Even from a cost standpoint, it’s it’s way more effective to do it the way that we’re doing it now. And I think getting someone trained, it just getting someone started. I mean, what I’d love for, you know, entire bike shops to take my coursework, I think that would be great. But I think getting somebody that’s really invested in it that really enjoys the idea of doing bike fit. And then in servicing your staff, I think is really valuable. And then if someone decides that they want to be certified, then they can go on to our level two and actually dive into the hands on do the testing, do the practicum and actually be able to be endorsed and certified by the Surat international cycling Institute.

Heather Mason  43:17

Okay, all right. And do you have open? Like, when what if I wanted to come soon? Watch out, Greg. I mean, what’s what’s it look like as far as corps openings right now. So

Greg Robidoux  43:28

we are in the process of in the next week or two, we’ll be opening up our fall schedule. So that typically, we’re a little bit quieter in the summertime because retailers are super busy and historically, kind of run classes through April May timeframe. And then take a break for June, July and August. And then we start back up in September. So our September classes September, October, November, December will be up. You know, in the next few weeks, we’ll start adding in new coursework to allow people to sign up. And it historically we had only offered a handful of classes per year, but the demand has been such that we’re offering classes every month. So and those who’ve all been full, we’re grateful for that. I’m grateful for that for the cycling community at large. I mean, I’m obviously grateful that for my business but but it means that that people are paying attention to it. And it means that it’s it’s kind of back into focus with regards to the cycling community. And I think I think it should be I think it’s something that will benefit the industry as a whole and ultimately will help to improve the cycling experience and will give retailers something to sink their teeth into to feel like they have some ownership of the market again, I think that a lot of people feel like that market is slipping through their fingers a little bit. And your local mom and pop shop are feeling beat up by online retailers and by big box stores and all of the other things that that have been beating down the local like dealer over the past last 10 years, and I think taking ownership of that space flexing their muscles a little and saying, Hey, this is something that we can do better than anybody else. And we should, I believe that that should be part of the process.

Heather Mason  45:13

Lately, we’ve been talking about bicycle retailers taking part in the transformational process, you know, like when a person wants to become a cyclist, and now they are. And fit is definitely a very integral part of that, you know, I’m thinking, Greg, you’re like, I’m sure you’ve worked with hundreds of 1000s of retailers. kit, is there anything that you know, one unique moment that a retailer, someone who did something with fit services that really stood out to you that you would share with us,

Greg Robidoux  45:42

there’s been a few things over the years, you know, I’ve seen some really innovative things I’ve seen some people do really cool integrative things where they’ve brought in, you know, really create a community around around bike fit. And in coaching and making these kind of fun events where, you know, there’s just a real learning experience for new cyclists. I think that’s one of the things that really kind of resonates with me. And then there’s some other relatively small things that the one of the ones that sticks out in my mind, and this sounds like such a simple, simple thing. But I was working with a bike shop where one of the things that they did was they would, anytime somebody would come in for a fit, they had a big old stack of postcards. And as soon as that person was done with the fit, the fitter would grab a postcard, they all they already had stamps on them, they were ready to go, they would say, you know, we really enjoyed doing the fit with you today. You know, I hope that you, you learned something, I hope that you enjoyed it, it was a personal note, right. And that would be the second that person walked out the door, they actually had a mailbox right down the street, and they would drop that, that piece of mail in the mailbox, and then within the next day or two, that person would get a card. And it’s different than like, hey, it’s your birthday, here’s a card or Hey, it’s the holidays, here’s a card that’s just kind of auto generated. This is a personalized card, In a word, we’re used to getting emails, we’re used to getting all that kind of stuff. But the fact that somebody would buy a stamp, buy a postcard, write a personal message on it and send it to them. It was one of those things that I think it was one of the most powerful marketing tools that I had seen. And it just felt really good. Right? And it sounds like such a simple thing. But it was such a personal connection. And it was the experience was that, you know, people would walk in with that postcard a person that didn’t get it. And they said, you know, my buddy john gave me this postcard really good fit with you guys really enjoyed it, can I get a bike fit for you guys? And you know, it was better than a business card. It was better than just simple word of mouth, because it was this tangible thing that somebody could hold on to, and be like, wow, what, what a really nice touch what, uh, you know, it just made it feel like, wow, these these folks really care about me. And I think that that’s, you know, that’s one of the things that is just just those personal touches that really resonate with me that it’s so easy to forget about, it’s so easy to get lost in, you know, this, this digital community that we’ve we’ve built around ourselves just that it didn’t take any time. It really didn’t. They had had it set up so that they just had a big stack of these things. It was a quick note, it didn’t have to be anything more than that. But it was it was the nod. It was really that, hey, we care about you. And we appreciate that you spent the time with us. And we just want to let you know that. That was amazing. I just I love that. Super personalized.

Heather Mason  48:47

This conversation has left my mind like the thinking for all these great ideas. How can we be better? How can we be excellent retailers? I can’t believe we’ve been speaking for almost an hour now. I have a couple more questions. crystal balls, please. Any thoughts for the future? And how retailers can find success? I mean, you know, if you were a bicycle retailer right now, what would you be thinking about?

Greg Robidoux  49:12

There’s so much to be thinking about right now as a bicycle retailer. How do I position myself in this industry? What is my space actually look like? What is that retail landscape? And I think creating that cycling community, I think that reaching out and saying, you know, we have this opportunity to really bring all of these new riders into the fold, and retain as many of them as possible. We have that opportunity. that opportunity will pass us by if we don’t capitalize on it. And I think today right now, this week, is when we need to do it. I don’t think we can say all right, well, what you know, we’re really busy right now we’ll put it off until the fall. I don’t think you can. I think you need to grab the bull by the horns and I think you need to get it done. And I think you need to Find ways even if they’re small ways capture that community and to advocate for cycling into into be educators. There’s so many incredible bike shops out there. There’s so many really smart people in this industry, and share that knowledge, share that care for your fellow cyclist. Bring those new cyclists in. Allow that kind of exclusivity that sometimes creeps into cycling, be the pervasive attitude. Let’s open our arms to everybody that that wants to be part of this sport. Let’s make them feel at home. And let’s keep them. And if we can do that, I think it’s better for everybody. It’s better for our environment. I think it’s better for people. I think it’s I think it’s the way to go. Yeah,

Heather Mason  50:41

I guess I’m gonna roll that over to excellence and bicycle retail. And it’s the same thing, right? We’re saying the same message, Greg. I love that. Okay, I’m thinking that many retailers are probably thinking about fit now. Maybe thinking about their current situation, how they’re set up in store, how they could possibly have their store set up to start doing more fits and making it more of a service that they offer. Do retailers ever call you and just ask you questions, Greg, like, do you consult at all or?

Greg Robidoux  51:09

Absolutely, we’re a resource. Yes. If you want to take classes with us, that’s great. But you can also just reach out if you’ve got questions about fit, we are happy to answer them. You can get me directly at S II ci, get fit@gmail.com. If you’ve got questions about bike fit, I’d love to talk about bike fit, if you can’t already tell. You know, we encourage folks to ask questions to dig deeper to answer you know, we’d like to try to answer the questions that that are specific to your market to you the way that you want to practice bike fit, we look to try to facilitate you know, bringing more bike fit out there having more happy people on bikes.

Heather Mason  51:49

And Greg, this might seem a little a little silly, but you know, serata, you know, that’s in your name, but it is not a bike brand specific. So retailers who deal with track or specialized or giant or any brand can call you can it can take a class, correct?

Greg Robidoux  52:06

Absolutely. So even when this company was owned by Ben serrata, and taught out of this serata factory, the reality was that it was never about selling serata bikes, I mean that that was a byproduct. But it was about getting people on bikes in sharing the knowledge of bike fit. And now we have a legacy. And that’s in our name. Hats off to Ben for kind of getting the ball rolling. But we don’t care what you ride. We don’t care what you sell. We want to create a good process and give you the tools necessary to find the right bike for somebody regardless of what that bike is. Anyone is welcome with regards to fit education.

Heather Mason  52:53

Awesome. Thank you for clarifying that. So serata cycling institute.com there’s a Contact Us page Expo numbers right on there and it’s his email si ci get fit@gmail.com for like you are absolutely fantastic. Greg was gonna be joining us out of the big gear show in August and leading a seminar for retailers at the show. I can’t thank him enough. I hope you get out today and get a ride in. I hope so too. Alright, so that is it. I invite you to connect with me and come on bicycle, retail radio, share your story with our listeners. I invite you to contribute to our outspoken blog or become a feature on our member spotlight. Lots of love for our industry. There’s lots of great webinars coming up and lots of member networking meetings. If you’d like to support the show, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. See you back here soon. And with this we go.

NBDA   53:48

This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us@nbda.com

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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.

Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year. 

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