calamarichris

I had an appointment with a knee-surgeon, (and I quit running, which I also really loved), because I had chronic knee pain. I followed the usual fitment guidelines (from coaches, from books, and Dutch teammates), and generally felt comfortable on the bike. But my appointment with the knee surgeon was two months out.
So I made an appointment with Nate Loyal up in Santa Monica (I believe he moved north because the LA traffic sucked.) He spent three hours watching me pedal, pointing lasers at my knees, asking me questions, and making miniscule (like 1/4 centimeter or even smaller) adjustments to my saddle and cleats.

It became almost tedious for me: three hours of get on the bike, get off, make adjustment, get on, get off, make adjustment, and re-point the lasers again.

I felt like an utter tool paying him $280 walking out of the bike shop with my measurements written on a small card after driving all the way to Santa Monica traffic. Especially when he only shifted my saddle a half centimeter up and another half forward, and my cleats even less. I drove home through the traffic, feeling dejected and exploited.

I resumed riding and waiting for my appointment with the knee-surgeon. But after a week of increasingly long & hard rides, my chronic knee pain vanished!
I cancelled my appointment with the knee surgeon, and my FTP jumped another 8 Watts.

Consider a 60-mile ride, averaging 20mph
~3 hours x 90 rpm = 16,200 reps
If your measurements are off by just a few millimeters, you're very like doing soft-tissue damage. I also felt like less of a tool when I considered that the knee-surgery very likely would have been 100 times what that pro-fit with Nate Loyal cost.