The Bicycling

a study at the University of Southern Mississippi, participants who suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and exercised at 60 to 90 percent of their maximum heart rates for three 20-minute sessions per week saw significant decreases in anxiety, sensitivity and fear after just two workouts. Further research has shown that

Ultegra, Force and Chorus will last as long and work almost as well as top-shelf parts

We did a summertime 50-miler once that left me feeling like a gutted deer. His body has been scientifically measured, and it turns out he is about 85 percent lung

Okay. Say the bike costs $3,000. If you ride it only once, then that ride will have cost you . . . $3,000. Yeah, that is a lot. But if you ride it again, your cost per ride just dropped by 50 percent. Four more rides, and you're down to $500 per. And it keeps going from there. The more you ride, the cheaper it gets. And if you keep that bike for five years, it works out to $600 a year, or less than two bucks a day. You can't even take the bus for that anymore.

But then you'll be so poor that you'll have to ride the bus . . . .

Exactly! And taking the bus sucks, so you'll ride your new bike instead. See how it all works out?

When I went to see Andy Pruitt at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, I had been riding pretty seriously for nearly two decades and, because of my job at Bicycling, had ridden more bikes in the past dozen years than most people will in a lifetime. I’d written numerous stories about bike fit and had been tuned by every major fit system in existence. I was confident my position was dialed in, and that I was just there to meet another deadline. When Pruitt administered his $450 “3-D Bike Fit,” he praised the way I’d fused my imbalanced body with my bike—except for one detail. A motion-capture computer analysis of my pedal stroke showed that neither knee tracked in line with my ankles. This defect never bothered me and, in fact, I’d come to think of the way my knees ran so close to the top tube as a kind of signature style. But Pruitt persisted in installing two angled shims under my right cleat and one under my left. A quick follow-up analysis showed that I was producing 20 more watts at the same heart rate—and for me that turned out to be the priceless difference between leading the slow group and hanging onto the fast one.”—Bill Strickland, Bicycling editor at large

TAKE THE BAR EXAM. A bar that’s too wide “forces you to lean further forward, so it effectively makes the frame longer,” Brown says. “Plus, it side-loads your wrists.” (Conversely, a bar that’s too narrow can hinder breathing.) To find your ideal bar width, have a friend stand behind you and find the bony bump on the top of one of your shoulders. Then have her measure the distance between that bump and the corresponding spot on the other shoulder

You may need short-reach brake levers or a bar with a shallower drop. Similarly, moving the saddle forward effectively lowers your seat height.

COMFORT IS FAST. “You may be able to hold an aggressive position for 10 miles, but after 40 or 50 miles it won’t feel comfortable, and you’ll get fatigued,” Brown says. He points out that aerodynamics are less important on road bikes than they are on tri bikes because you can draft on a road ride.

EVEN IF YOUR FRIEND IS THE SAME HEIGHT, WEIGHT AND OVERALL BUILD AS YOU, DON’T ASSUME HIS BIKE SETTINGS ARE THE SETTINGS YOU SHOULD USE. IT’S SIMPLY NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. HIS BIKE MAY RIDE LIKE A DREAM TO HIM WHILE IT RIDES HORRIBLY FOR YOU—AND VICE VERSA. ALSO, FITTINGS ARE FLUID AND DYNAMIC AND CHANGE OVER TIME. WHAT WORKS TODAY MAY NOT WORK, SAY, TWO YEARS FROM NOW. WHETHER IT’S FROM YOUR BODY CHANGING—YOU MAY LOSE OR GAIN WEIGHT, OR BECOME MORE OR LESS FIT—OR FROM GETTING OLDER, YOUR BIKE FIT WILL MOST LIKELY CHANGE.”—MATT LODDER, SEROTTA-CERTIFIED FITTER AND OWNER OF THE CYCLE SURGEON, CARY, NC

To get the most enjoyment out of your bike, you’ll need to budget for some accessories. Here’s our guide to the essentials. We give extra space to two of the most important components: the saddle—your potentially most problematic contact point with the bike—and tires, which are your bike’s only contact point (you hope) with the road

Look for supple casings—sidewalls flexible like a leather glove, not rigid like a car tire—and thread counts of 60-plus threads per inch. Tires with folding beads, rather than wire, are often lighter and easier to mount