What I did on my summer vacation, or my trip to Trek World HQ

A few weeks back, I took a trip. It took two planes, one big backpack, and repeated assurances to TSA that my Crank Brothers pedals would not detonate, to transport me from my everyday Sweetpea groove to the headquarters of Trek Bicycles in Waterloo, Wisconsin.

My bike fitting mentor, Michael Sylvster, was teaching a two day seminar for Trek University, and snuck me in. We decided it would be valuable to take apart my years of studying and learning bike fit with him one and one, and see what it looked like when we put it back together with a more formal pedagogy. Not everybody’s idea of a relaxing getaway, but it gave me what all good vacations do: perspective, self-discovery, and access to bad late-night television.

My hope was that I would learn what I know and what I didn’t know about bike fit, and find ways to deepen my understanding of the bike-body relationship. But to my surprise, I think I learned more the fitter-biker relationship than anything else. Stephanie, a bike fitter and massage therapist, taught us to grope one another’s greater trochanters with confidence. Sports medicine doc Mark followed up with his pep talk on trust and touch, and how to navigate the intersection between bike fitting and the medical profession.

My vacation wasn’t all stem angles and hip flexion, though. I took a behind the scenes tour the Trek facility and may, or may have not, have seen some secret stuff. I also got to ask some questions of one of the Trek Product Managers. I may have also stayed up too late watching baby pandas and some show about a bounty hunter.

Did I bring you back anything from my summer vacation? Why, yes ladies. I did. Some trek socks in size Extra Dude and a more powerful bike fitting kung fu.