bike fit tuesdays is back and in today's episode five tips for setting up your gravel bike
oh my neck hurts come on
this is actually really uncomfortable this is um potentially quite an unpopular statement
i don't like wide handlebars so there's this thing with uh gravel bikes that supposedly
you need to have really really wide handlebars to improve control now it's true wider handlebars do
improve control but shouldn't be carried out at the expense of ergonomics i also kind of question
like if you need that much control you're probably riding the wrong bike like if
you're not tearing down single track on a gravel bike there's a hint in the name of a gravel bike
gravel bike it's not called a single track bike it's not called a downhill bike it's got a gravel
bike so why we're riding really really wide handlebars for more control typically if the
bar is wider than you are and this isn't just specifically related to gravel bikes but if
the bar is wider than you are you end up reaching around the handlebar to get to the brake lever so
you have more difficulty braking which means less control you tend to roll wrists which
results in quite a lot of pressure or perceived pressure going through the the hands it results
in neck and shoulder issues and individuals look ahead resulting in less control they're always
getting around it there are now flared handlebars handlebars that are at a narrower width at the top
and they're wider on the drops which can give you that more that perceived improvement in control
particularly when on the drops something i found uh from our bike packing adventures that it's
with a flared bar it's easier to kind of get a handlebar bag in there which is very popular these
days you see a lot of people riding aero bikes and handlebar bags negating all the error benefits
flared handlebars 38 at the tops and 42 at the drops there are there are a number of handlebars
out there on the market that will do this so like i said you can kind of get the best of
both worlds with the flared handlebar uh frankly most most gravel bars tend to be flared anyway
apart from this one which is a 50 centimeter nice one bike industry thanks for that cue your
neck and shoulder issues have a think about the handlebar width in general uh it's going to be
you're kind of looking for it to be the same width as your shoulders we've done
previous videos that will show you how to measure how to make your shoulders and and all
the skeletal landmarks that are required and also to how to fit your the halo bar to your shot with
what's a 650b type of ice cream isn't it nobody bobbly that's not an ice cream is it yeah sounds
you've never had a knobbly bobby that sounds like a schwalber tire schwaber that's what you should
be calling your next mountain bike time basically 650b wheel it's slightly smaller it's 27.5 inches
instead of 28 and you the the the thinking behind it is that you get more tire clearance
because it's a smaller wheel therefore you can use a larger tire then the net result is that actually
the overall diameter of the tire because the tyre on 650b wheel is bigger you actually end up with
more or less the same size tire but it's wider so i think in in my humble opinion i think 650b can
typically be better for wetter riding i found it to be better certainly when we were riding through
the winter and i think we had like two feet or a foot of snow and i was riding a 650b wheel
and because you've got bigger knobbly bobbers got bigger knobby probably the 650b wheel is
arguably a little bit stronger shorter spokes which you can put more tension through this is
why i ride 650b mountain bike ultimately if you need if you want some more if you want more grip
the 650b is a better way to go quick little note to add to this section some bikes aren't
officially rated to use 650b wheels so this added gravel officially you would void your warranty if
you rode 650b wheels in it the same goes for quite a few production frames because it lowers the
bottom bracket but you can get away with it anyway do this at your own risk to one buy or to two by
one bar is really popular in gravel isn't it one by means you've got one chain on the front which
uses a narrow wide chainring profile which is all about keeping the chain on the chainring better
it's got better chain retention to it without the need for like a chain device or anything
like that to keep the chain on the chainring so when you're like clattering down a trail the chain
doesn't bounce off the chamber historically uh one by transmissions tended to have a clutch uh
rederailleur which basically locks the chain down stops the chain from from slapping more recently
though with two by chain transmissions you you can still use a clutch rear derailleur on it so
it's still relatively quiet one of the problems with one by system in my opinion is the jumps
between the gears are pretty huge and it's certainly if you're riding longer distances
like you know if you're looking at bike packing for instance and you're going to be doing you're
mixing up your your um terrain going from road to off-road to gravel to the middle of the the jungle
the jumps between the gears can be a little bit too great so you go from sort of 80 rpm cadence
all the way up to 100 just in the change of one gear particularly running a really wide ratio
because you go from like a 10 to sprocket all the way up to waters it's a 50. 52 yeah so crazy so
you know you're talking very big jumps in in the differences of the chain of the the cassette rings
uh per gear whereas with a 2 by transmission you can typically get a wider spread of gears
and and the jumps between them much smaller so i guess for longer distance more road orientated uh
riding a 2 by transmission works a little bit better this is the crank that i've just bought for
my um my gravel bike which i'm going to be riding when we do our next trip that we're not talking
about i'm a big fat slug these days so i've got to go down to a 31 tooth uh in a chain ring basically
is that getting up the mountain passes place that we're not going to it's going to be made a lot
more easy especially when you've got like bags and stuff on the back the bike's loaded up and it's a
lot heavier particularly also like me you don't really get to ride your bike anymore and you're
not quite so fit arguably add complexity more gear ranges well that's pretty much it so it can be a
little bit louder and yeah that's it having now ridden this setup which is a actually a mullet
setup so the rear derailleur is from a mountain bike one by system uh it is fantastic and best
suited to the stuff that's closest to mountain biking so if you're doing loads of technical
gravel uploads of really really steep climbs then 100 one by works really well there's nothing wrong
with either of them at the end of the day neither is better or worse they're they're suited to
different types of riding different conditions that's the thing though with modern group sets now
having so many gears on the back compared to years ago where it was like eight speed seven speed
all of it is really good so you can't go too wrong there are two distinct types of
footwear to be used sandals for stop it what's your name luckily morton or something there
are two types of footwear there are gravel shoes and there are mountain biking shoes
yeah in case you haven't noticed the same shoe typically we use a gravel a mountain bike style
shoe with gravel riding it because it has a recessed cleat makes it easy to walk around
on when you're pushing your bike up those really steep climbs better mud shedding ability from the
pedal system there is no such thing as a gravel shoe it's it's a marketing thing you know so
even even my beloved lake brand they do it they do a shoe that they mocked as a gravel shoe it's
the same as this shoe but it looks different they're fundamentally the same thing they use
a recessed spd cleat we can also argue that the stiffness of the sole is a little bit more
important on a gravel shoe on the ground that you've got a smaller contact patch so typically
unlike francis gravel riders tend to use an spd system or a mountain bike system which is a little
bit smaller has a smaller contact patch having a stiff carbon sole is a little bit more important
because it's going to provide a little bit more support and stability to your feet
this is the most important part of your equipment it's more important than your
carbon wheels more important than your electronic group set
this is where all the power goes or doesn't as the case usually is for you
something in road cycling stems vary in length they go from sort of
uh 140 ml to down to 60 millimeters and this is a very effective way of
getting the fit of the bike correct or comfortable at least and having a short stand can typically
alleviate hand and neck and shoulder issues but it's worth noting historically road
cycling when you put a stem that looks like this onto a robot it makes the handling feel
quite scatty and erratic particularly at high speeds with a gravel bike geometries are quite
different so on a gravel bike you have typically a slacker head angle so the angle of this of the
the head tube here is typically stacker which tends to slow up the handling somewhat so
the bike's a little bit more stable uh the front center is usually longer they got more trail on
the floor they've also got a long wheelbase than a road bike so you can actually get away with
going quite a lot shorter without negatively impacting the way that a bike rides so furthermore
there are some and i can't mention this because i can't actually remember them but there are
some brands out there now that are starting to make very very long bikes but that are designed
around a very very short step but we're starting to see certainly in the bike industry as usual
the lines are starting to be blurred so we're starting to see uh gravel race bikes something
that's a bit more race orientated certainly with the rise in in in gravel racing uh you know five
years ago that wasn't even a thing historically i mean historical gravel bikes have sort of
um were sort of derived from endurance bikes geometry was very very similar for a long time
and we're now with obviously with the the shift to different wheel sizes and wider tires the geometry
has to change to allow for that typically on a gravel position you don't generally want it to
be as long and drawn out as you do as you're doing a road bike you want probably a little bit less
weight over the front of the bike on the grounds that you uh are less likely to kind of watch the
front wheel out and low sided you kind of want the front end higher and the reach a little bit
shorter again this car dramatically depends on the type of writing that you're going to be doing
if you mean gravel race then you know okay maybe maybe what i've just said isn't actually correct
but i'd say for the vast majority of the viewers i suspect we're all just going to go out and want to
have a little bit of fun off road rather than some you know getting a 4x4 trying to murder us on the
roads experiment with short stems shorter stems what's the shortest stoma you would go for depends
on the size of the bites and depends on the head angle unfortunately like all things bite fit
related it depends on the needs of the individual 80 mil that marks the end of today's episode of
bike fit tuesdays i hope you're enjoying this new series i think this will be the first video
to go out if you have any questions please put them in the comment section down below if you'd
like to book a bug fit with james i'll put the details in the description down below or any of
my stuff or any of his stuff bicycle in richmond thank you for watching see you guys next episode