If Microsoft made FitStiks
they'd cost a thousand bucks... 

or

What DO bikes have in common
with PCs, anyway?

Back in the mid-70's, the FitStik's inventor was a "pioneer" of the personal computer industry. PCs weren't called "PCs" back then, they were called "micro computers" (as contrasted with  "mini-computers" and "mainframes" which cost more than most people, and some countries, made in a year).

Back then, real computers had their own room. And not just any room. This room had its own power source, so its lights would stay on when the outside world fell into stygian darkness. And this room had a controlled climate; a Silicon Shangri-La no matter the weather. And this room had its own fire detection and control system to protect it should some conflagration befall the worker-servants in the office next door.

Back then, to "experts", the computer was much more important than its users. 

Most of these "experts" (let alone bankers and MBAs) considered the micro-computer a mere novelty, a fad, a "hula hoop". 

But the micro-pioneers believed that computers for people, amplifiers for the mind, were as fundamentally important as the electric light and the printing press. 

For every Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, a hundred others whose names you've never heard stood shoulder to shoulder with them, inventing bits and pieces of the PCs we use today.

The FitStik's inventor, Chris Rutkowski, was one of them. 

A computer on a desk? "Why on earth would anyone want a computer on their desk!?"  (A banker actually said this to Chris in 1976. Wonder if the similar event depicted in a recent TV movie about the early days was based on that event?).

Chris' specialty wasn't computers per se, it was a marriage of marketing, psychology, biology, physics, and technology called human factors engineering.

He dreamed of computers so simple that virtually anyone could use them without a manual (a goal still not realized). Many of his innovations are pretty much standard today: in fact, the ubiquitous PC keyboard, standard on most computers, is based on his design.

Back in 1979 or 1980, Chris succinctly expressed the emerging user-centric world of the personal computer with the phrase:

"The most important component in any system is the user."

This spoke volumes about the real difference between micros and mini/mainframe computers. The user was, for the first time, an integral part of the system. And the system's reason for being was to serve the intellect and intention of the user, rather than the other way around.

Here's what Chris discovered:

A tool can be defined as a device which extends or expands the native capabilities of its user. Tools enable users to transcend their limitations.

In this light, a "television" is a tool for seeing at great distances, the "electric light" a tool for seeing in the dark, and the "computer" a tool for imposing order on symbols (numbers, words, sights, sounds, etc). Any invention which expands on the native ability of its user will be around for a while. That's the difference between fads like hula-hoops, and, well, computers (or bikes for that matter). 

And every tool has a handle. 

The handle connects the intention of a user and the functionality of the tool. It joins with each, and so, they become one.

                          USER -> HANDLE -> TOOL

But good handles not only connect the user to the tool, they disappear. That is, they need to mate so seamlessly that they aren't given a second thought (If you have to think about how you're holding a hammer, the result will be sore thumbs and bent nails, not assembled stuff).

In short, a tool's handle must "fit" the user.

See where we're going?

               =============================

Chris started riding bicycles in the mid-nineteen eighties. It didn't take him long to realize that the bicycle was an extraordinary  "tool" for efficiently covering great distances at high speed. And it was equally clear that the "handle" of the tool, like all other handles, had to fit him. 

Eventually he got his bike dialed in just right. But then he bought a better bike.

He fiddled and fussed, measured and adjusted, even bought a new yardstick and a level. But he couldn't get that bike dialed-in like the old one. Was it, he wondered, because one was steel and the other aluminum? Or because of different head and seat-tube angles? Or a longer top-tube? 

Well, as they say, necessity can be a real mother. He reasoned: if the "fit triangle" (a term coined by engineer Osman Isvan to describe the relative position of the handlebars, saddle and pedals) were the same on two bikes, they should fit the same.

The problem wasn't that the bikes were different, it was that they weren't adjusted the same. He needed a tool to duplicate the position of his old bike on the new one.

But where to get such a tool?

No bike shop he spoke to knew of such a thing (although one mechanic said to let him know if he found something). Then one day he saw a picture of a jig to help set saddle setback, height and angle in Greg LeMond's Complete Book of Bicycling. 

Of course, no one in any bike shop he visited had ever seen one of these either, let alone knew where to get one. So he made his own. 

But rather than attaching it to the top tube, he indexed it off the bottom bracket for consistency. And he built-in a level to get it vertical. And added a crude hand-drawn scale so he could make changes and return to prior positions accurately. And he used it to measure reach to the handlebars as well as seat setback.

And it worked. Once the fit triangle was duplicated, his new bike "fit" like the old one. The differences had been just a centimeter here and there. Too small to see using yardsticks, tape measures and a level, but big enough for his body to feel.

Chris used that first tool for years. And improved it. He taped on rulers to measure the positions accurately. And he attached straps so that he could take it on and off easily.

Tens of thousands of miles and six bikes later, Chris finally quit the computer biz for the bike biz (His first gig was as president of White Lightning Chain Lube. As just about everybody knows, it became a best-seller).

In 1999, prompted by a few friends (and having free time after White Lightning), Chris spent seven months building and testing ever-more advanced prototypes of his tool, culminating in "The FitStik" shown here. 

So, really, it makes sense: a designer of "handles" for computers became a born-again bike geek and got religion about "handles" for bikes, culminating in a tool that measures the dimensions of the bike's "handle".

Of course, Chris is pretty happy. He's doing what he loves, in an industry he loves. And Bill Gates is not in the bike biz...