On Monday, January 27, 2025 at 1:54:59 AM UTC-5 [email protected] wrote:
I'm curious about the collective opinion regarding professional bike fitting, and pose these questions as one who has been riding for 50+ years on mostly drop bar road bikes, without ever having been "fitted"... 1. Have you been professionally fitted, and did that result in a noticeable improvement in comfort? Enough that you would advocate for others? 2. I have three or four bikes, set up different ways (Homer with drop bars as my "road bike", All Rounder with Albatross bars for "adventure", etc)....if one is "fitted" to a certain bike, does the "fit" apply to different set-ups? I've also been riding pretty seriously for over 50 years, and I have spent a lot of time researching fit recommendations and playing with my position on the bike. I have never paid for a "professional fit", and the horror stories I read and hear unfortunately outnumber the success stories. Most of the success stories I hear/read seem to involve people with particular issues. Most of the horror stories seem to involve people getting very bad advice. I don't consider myself to be in the special needs category, at 168cm (66") tall and 57kg (125lb) weight. My annual mileage over the last decade has been in the 3000-7000 range. My longest rides are 600km. Last year I rode 177 times, 159 of them outdoor, mostly pavement with some gravel and dirt thrown in occasionally, an average of 54km (34mi), at an average speed of 26.0 kph (16.3 mph). I include all that because I think bike fit has to take into account what type of body you have and what type of riding you do. My riding position has been dialed in and tweaked over the years. In response to some Achilles tendonitis, I lowered my saddle a bit and found some relief, and never raised it back (until recently). I like riding with the tops of the bars pretty close to saddle height, and deep drops with a fair amount of reach, so when I change hand positions I have a wide range of body positions. This has served me well, but I have always had some low back issues that I attribute to a childhood sledding incident. I tried a _lot_ of upright bar positions on a few bikes, including a Cheviot, and never found any that I liked for anything more than fifteen minutes. That changed when we got a Hubbuhubbuh. I really like the upright position on that bike, but it doesn't translate well to my drop bar position (other than saddle height). Recently I was measured by a bike builder. According to his measurement and the popular formulae, my saddle height should be in the neighborhood of 740mm. I've been riding at 700 and even a bit lower. He also wants my saddle pushed back, recommending a 71.5 degree seat tube angle. Interestingly, the STA on the Sam Hillborne is 71.5, and I like that bike so much I bought 3 of them. I'm not convinced the laid back STA is why I like that bike so much, but it's interesting. Since that finding I have brought my saddle height back to 715mm, where it was 10 years ago, and I am very happy with it there. I tried as much as 725 and started to feel some strain at the front of my knees. One VERY important detail here is that I ride binding-less (flat) pedals with a forward foot position, and a neutral foot angle (not a toe dipper or an exaggerated heel dropper, though at 700cm I was dropping my heels a fair amount). Not fully forward to mid-arch, but well forward of "ball of the foot over the pedal axle" standard advice. With binding systems I slam the cleats as far back as possible. The experts don't seem to agree on how much to adjust saddle height for a given change in foot position, but it seems reasonable to me that where I place my feet could easily require 5-10mm lower saddle height. For what it's worth, the Rivendell recommendation is to put your saddle height at PBH - (10 or 11). Mine is exactly PBH - 11. Side rant - a popular formula is that saddle height should be (1.09 * PBH) - crank length, i.e. pedal to saddle top should be 109% of PBH. And, yet, another popular fit metric is to put your heels on the pedals and you should be able to pedal backwards without rocking your hips. Set your saddle to 109% of PBH above pedals, and let me know how that works out for you! By my math, in order to be able to pedal backwards with your heels on the pedals and not rock hips the distance should be 100% of PBH. What am I missing?? With regard to different types of handlebar setups, I find that the upright position on the Hubbuhubbuh feels compatible with the more rearward saddle position, which makes sense given Grant's evolution toward both more upright riding and slacker STA's. But the saddle height, for me, stays the same. Also, when I got my first Sam, I put a 1cm shorter stem on it than the geometry would have suggested to get the same handlebar reach as my other bikes, and because of the Sam's geometry the tops of the bars are right at saddle height. It didn't take me long on that bike to ask why I hadn't tried a shorter stem until then. I've had a couple of vertebral compression fractures in the last five years, probably losing about a cm or half inch of height, so shortening the reach makes sense. It has increased comfort with no apparent cost in speed. My torso position is the same; just my arm angles have changed. The difference is especially noticeable in my shoulders and neck, though my lower back seems to complain less, too. Also, last year I tried 165mm cranks (vs 170, 171, and 172.5) and I like them very much. And I recently found that I'd been tipping my saddle back a bit too much. So, sorry, that's a long rambling way of saying no, I haven't had a full pro fit done, but I've spent a lot of time researching, thinking about it, and trying different things, and I'm happy with how that's been working out for me. There is a huge amount of advice online. I have found formulas to be useful as starting points, but the most helpful advice for me has been descriptions of what to look for as you change dimensions. Ted Durant Milwaukee WI USA accumulating a pretty good collection of stems and handlebars that I'll be putting up for sale this spring! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/1ac01655-8404-40ba-a41b-829404f0645en%40googlegroups.com.
