Ok, how far OFF are you in this table??

[fa63]

Originally Posted by Banzai

This is interesting.

I assume by "reach" you mean what is often referred to as "effective top tube"? Because otherwise I'm way off of these figures.

Reach in this case is the distance from the tip of the saddle to the center of the handlebar.

[cderalow]

183, 74.25, 57

shorter legs for my height and gorilla length arms

31" leg inseam, 78" wingspan at 6' tall..

[NHAero]

How is reach defined here please?

Originally Posted by fa63

Hey, I made that chart I actually have gotten more data points so I should post an update.

Anyways, I am 183 cm with a saddle height of 77.5 cm and reach of 57.5 cm. So right on average for saddle height but below average for reach.

Keep in mind those data points are for pros, who typically ride with a longer reach than hobby riders.

[fa63]

See two posts above yours

[NHAero]

Oops, thanks
Much shorter reach due to creaky spinal issues, seat height right on

[Kontact]

Dead on. But saddle nose length and bar geometry is so variable.


This chart demonstrates why some things on factory frame geometry, like seat tube angle, should be universal across frame sizes.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

Interesting....

What are we using as reach? tip of saddle to bars? I wonder how easy it would be to also enter set back and drop. I'm not a big fan of saddle - bar measurements because the tip does not necessarily reflect the true position of the rider.

Very good observations. With bad knees I find the proper setback from the BB to be critical. True also for the saddle to bar drop have blown my lower back more than once. When I set up my bikes I set saddle height and setback first, then bar drop and reach. To me all 4 matter and I also take into consideration the crank arm length although that's only in the rare instances I'm not using a 172.5 arm.

[benb]

Did someone make a spreadsheet of this?

I solved some issues with my fit... I am still slightly an outlier but I'm running 2-3cm more reach than I was when this thread started...

Just curious as I'd like to go back and look at the spreadsheet.

I think I put something like 51cm for my reach, which is/was really short as my saddle height was around 79cm and I'm 185cm tall.

I'm running something like 54-55 cm reach now and my saddle height has come down about 5mm to 78.5 or so. Still on the short side of the lines in the OPs post but I'm not really particularly far outside the outer lines now. I'm at the upper end of the saddle height range and still at the lower end of the reach range.

I'm running more like 7-8cm drop now as opposed to 3-4cm when this thread started too.

I had a wrist injury that nagged for *years*. Fitters kept shortening my reach & removing drop and it never worked. I finally figured it out myself this winter.. a very slight change to balance my weight better + a cleat change to correct me ending up off balance to the left (injured) side and bam. I'm back to the drop I was riding in my 20s and I extended the reach back to a more normal area and the bad wrist is about 99.9% better.

These little changes were kind of mind boggling. We're talking about a 5mm change to saddle height, 5mm change to fore-aft, and probably no more than a 5mm change to cleat position. But the trick is the cleats were, and still are asymmetric..... figuring out what was up with my feet/cleats seems to have been very tough for anyone looking at me to figure it out.

I had videotaped myself on the trainer this winter and it was totally obvious I was getting pushed to one side as I rode, but all the fit sessions always involved video from the drive side of the bike only.

[fa63]

Here is the link to the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...5xU/edit#gid=0

[zennmotion]

I don't understand columns QRS are these measured or calculated, the only thing I know of "lemond method" is seat height. What is column V? Sorry for being dense! I also think that foot size comes into the variance as well. I have long legs for my height (87 inseam, 176 height) but very small feet (41) which likely has me with an optimal seat height a cm or more lower than someone with more typical foot size for the same inseam.

PS I also think it's interesting to make note of who, if you were stuck on a desert island with one other person and just one bike, would be most compatible. I could share a bike with RichTheRoadie despite the fact that he's 3cm taller. Good to know in an N-1 stash house emergency situation as well.

[fa63]

There is a note for columns QRS; those are calculated values using linear regression from a separate database I have based on reported measurements from professional cyclists.

There are many factors not accounted for in there indeed, but it is not supposed to be exact. Use at your own peril

[ultraman6970]

Benb... the problem you had is that the guys who fit you were putting fitting (fixing your problem) you backwards, getting you closer to the handlebar to get you in a upright position instead of taking weight off of the handlebar.

Good you figure it out. IME no matter how "deformed" the rider is, the fit has "lines or rules" that are common for everybody, always you see that guy that is off the chart time to time, but they are not that off the chart either. If the rider is not racing the fit 1st purpose of the fit IME and IMO is considering weight balance. Then address body unbalances like in your case that apparently you have a shorter leg.

The other big problem around is frames, some frames are so wackly made that you can't achieve weight balance on them, specially in the low end tear of some brands.

[benb]

I think it was really complicated actually, I don't think my leg is necessarily shorter, it might be something more subtle like one foot being slightly longer than the other or the arch on one foot being flatter than the other. Whatever I've got it's hard to see. Maybe if I'd gotten a Retul fit done (more $$$) they might have noticed.

But it did at some point get pretty frustrating that no one really even looked from the front even when I asked.

Half the thing with the upright stuff too is it forced my back into a hunched over posture somehow. That would make my back tire out because my spine wasn't neutral, and then I'd put more weight on my hands. It was a vicious circle. It also gave me saddle sores.

There was a lot of weird stuff going on where multiple people who looked at my bike fit might identify that something weird was going on, but no one person could recommend a complete set of changes to correct the problem, and the root of a lot of it was cleat position and almost everyone completely ignored the cleat position.