iPhone app to provide a virtual bike fitting room

Oh the joys of riding the bike in the mornings on empty streets and through the woods, it is all such a wonderful experience. Couple that with a badly fitted bike and you have an aching back, wrists, legs and probably every other part of your body. The Test Rides iPhone app is a virtual bike fitting room, which measures you up for the perfect-sized bicycle. You just have to click a picture of your self from the sides in a sitting position with the hands and legs properly exposed and then place crosshairs over your joints like elbows, ankles, knees and so on. Test Rides then computes this information and tells you what size and shape of bike you need, from the length of the forks to the drop of the bottom bracket.

This app however is just a number cruncher as the app has just a few bikes already input for demonstration purposes. However, you can find a detailed geometry specs online for many better bikes, but the problem again is that they aren’t always measured in the same way so you’ll have to do some work around it. Test Rides is a specialized and possibly single-use application priced at $5, but if it saves you from buying the wrong bike, then it’s well worth the money.

[Wired]