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Review content:
I was a little taken with the fitting process at ATA...and being a writer felt compelled to write an article about it. I posted a portion of it here (due to citysearch's word-count limit) and it is on my blog in its entirety at http://irunlikeagrl.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/farewell-maverick/ :\r
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Farewell, Maverick? \r
It seemed silly to schedule a bike fitting at Husam Sahin’s boutique shop in Concord, Mass. After all, I already possessed the perfect bike— a 54 cm Cannondale SIX. The SIX streaks across the frame as if the bike smeared it by sprinting away from the assembly line while still wet. Mostly pure white, it’s got delicious racy-red highlights—just like me.\r
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My Cannondale has a name—“Maverick,” after Tom Cruise’s “need for speed” character in the Eighties blockbuster Top Gun—and a track record. Mav and I typically average 20?21 MPH in races and often earn one of the day’s top female bike splits. We came within seconds of breaking the bike-course record in our second triathlon ever; in his saddle I was called an “effing speed demon” by a male racer as I effortlessly sprinted past during my first-ever Olympic-distance race.\r
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I thought it would be pretty tough for Sahin’s shop, Ata (pronounced A-T-A) Cycle, to improve on this dangerous duo. Still, a triathlete-friend swore by this accomplished-cyclist-turned-master-fitter who emigrated from Turkey 20 years ago; he called Sahin a “wizard” and said he could increase a cyclist’s wattage with a simple swap of a crank arm. Plus, I knew that none other than Jarrod Shoemaker had once dubbed Sahin his “go-to bike fitter”. Jarrod is a triathlete with whom I share a coach (the Marlborough, Mass.-based Tim Crowley) but little else. I am a two-season F 40-44 age-grouper known to erroneously execute 400s when my training plan calls for 200s simply because I still fumble my way around the track; at 29, Jarrod has graced Wheaties cereal boxes and raced in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.\r
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If this wizard, Sahin, could woo both my friend and Jarrod, then certainly I should give him and his FitLab a try. In full cycling regalia and with Maverick in tow as instructed, I followed my GPS system to his Emerald Palace in downtown Concord on an overcast Tuesday a few days short of fall.\r
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Unlike Dorothy and her ragtag heart/brain/courage?craving friends, I harbored no crazy big wish.\r
On second thought, maybe I did; it was gnawing at me that despite a winter’s worth of Kinetic trainer?induced suffering, my speed hadn’t improved much year over year. While I was quite good on the bike—better than most chicks, even—there remained a handful of women who rode at a level so far beyond mine that it seemed unlikely I’d ever get to bark “on your left!” at one of them. Case in point: At the 2011 Age Group National Championships on Aug. 20, I averaged 20.2 mph on the bike split. Coach Tim called this “very good” and pointed out I was “only” seven minutes behind him on that split. (Trust me, “very good” qualifies as high praise from my coach; in comparison, my swim earned a “solid” and my run a “good”.) But an impressive nine F 40?44 speedsters streaked through the streets of Burlington, Vt, at 22-plus mph that very same day after completing that very same swim. Granted, only eight of them were mere mortals; one was Susie Williams, the only American triathlete to bring home hardware from the Olympics, a bronze in Athens, 2004.\r
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How did those eight do it? More importantly, how could I?\r
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I didn’t expect The Wizard to be able to help me find the answers. From him I expected little more than a nip and tuck to my perfect ride. Maybe a new crank arm.\r
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So I was shocked when the slender-framed Turk in black Danskos that looked to be a size or two smaller than mine delivered his news. (to read on go to http://irunlikeagrl.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/farewell-maverick/ )
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