me and james have been making bike fit videos on this channel for a long time
now but we've never really put all the information
into one place today's video is going to be the basics on how to get a perfect bike fit with you
pretty much every bike i get through here the handlebars are too wide so if you consider that
the averages in in the bike industry 52 54 56 centimeter bikes they all come with 42
centimeter handlebar 90 of the men that i fit are when we measure them we're going to show you how
to measure in a minute measure between 39 and 41 centimeters this renders a 42 too wide the
problem with a handlebar that's too wide is it creates a plethora of issues we can link numb
hands to it neck and shoulder issues an inability to reach the brake levers because you're reaching
around the handlebar the ball is wider than you to get at the brake levers gonna get chris in
so we're gonna measure across a chromium process it's the distal part of the scapula
measure across that point and chris measures 34 centimeters so he's a really skinny guy
most men like i said a minute ago are going to measure between 39 and 41 centimeters very very
broad individuals as wide as 44 46 to 46. women tend to measure anywhere between 32
very very narrow so a very slight individual all the way up to generally 38 is about as
broad as you as women tend to get and what we're looking to do and it's pretty simple
is align the shoulder width with the handlebar on the ground that nobody walks around like this
so why do we want to ride our bike like this typical symptoms of a handlebar that's too wide
are rolling the wrist so this is a means of aligning the wrist with the shoulder blade
so typically uh most riders tend to roll the wrist like so what that results in is a perceived amount
of excessive pressure on the hands typically results in numb hands pins and needles and uh
and also neck control risks handlebar you can buy for as little as 20 pounds something that is worth
noting is that the reach on all handlebars is not created equal so the distance between
where the handle where the control is mounted and where the center of the bore is so a data
a data rhm is 75 millimeters you can get i mean there are certain oe handlebars particularly the
bontrager uh vrc bar there's like over 100 ml in the reach so it's worth looking at the reach of
the handlebar before you buy them i would tend to recommend you buy a handlebar that's got a shorter
reach because it's going to result in a reduction in in the overall reach of the bicycle generally
speaking i find myself having to reduce reach rather than increase it furthermore how you mount
the control on the handlebar will have a massive impact on on the overall reach of the bike get the
drop absolutely vertical and what that means is that you've got your handlebar set make sure the
bike is level on the ground as well and you then want to set your control up so so that it's got to
have such a slight um slope to it you don't want the drop flat because what we're trying to do is
avoid you having to roll the wrist in order to sit on the hood properly okay handlebars sorted
most consumers saddle heights are too high a lot of bike fitters tend to have saddles too
high uh we'll have physiotherapists thanks for that but don't get me on that soapbox basically
saddle height is a bouncing act between not over extending the leg through the bottom of the stroke
and not impinging the hip through the top there isn't really a rot a general rule of thumb in
order to set saddle height the many methods that you'll read online about most of them are
massively flawed basically what we're looking for is fluidity and smoothness to the bottom of the
stroke with the saddle set as high as possible without you having to reach through the bottom
of the stroke by that i mean you're not having to point the toes saddle height or excessive
saddle height is probably along with excessive reach which we're going to cover in a minute
is the single most common cause for pain and cycling i'm talking knee pain saddle issues weight
on the hands basically i can relate almost foot problems i can make almost any cycling ailment to
saddle height and like i said i would say 70 to 80 percent of the people that i have coming through
here the saddle is too high millimeters don't make a difference a difference of a two millimeter in
saddle height reduction is the difference between you sitting here and you're sitting there having
said all of that i'm starting to see strong correlations with problems at saddles that
are excessively low as well because what you do is you typically impinge the hip through the top
of the stroke it becomes very difficult to get over the top of the stroke this more often than
not results in an asymmetric interaction as does excessive saddle height usually human beings have
one hip that is tighter than another and as a result that tighter hip serves a precedent to
push a rider over to the of the opposing side there is there's a window there
nobody has a one millimeter perfect saddle height but it is worth experimenting with it
has a massive impact on like say comfort on the bike muscle optimization and also
how the bike rides when it's too high it tends to result in lots of way in front of the bike as well
when it comes to choosing saddles they aren't as subjective as they're made out to be
in fact there isn't just one saddle to rule them all i've got six bikes they're all different
sounds saddle fitting has become problematic uh i have quite i quite often find saddles are too wide
my best selling saddle is this actually which is a cell italia slr boost s3 this is the narrowest one
contrary to what you might read about measuring sit bones i think the fundamental with saddle
choice is that it should have a pressure relief channel not 100 of the time but nine times out of
ten if you think about how we were intended depending on your religious beliefs we were
intended to run jump and climb trees we were not on intended we were not intended to sit on our
genitals on our pieces of fire when you have a saddle that lacks any pressure relief what tends
to result in is we either posteriorly rotate so we roll pelvis away so common is this compensation
that a certain saddle brand has developed a marketing strategy and self-selection system
it's called spine concept posterior rotation of the pelvis is a means of getting away from
getting your soft tissue or erogenous tissue away from the set from the saddle
or we sit rotated or we sit off to one side cue saddle swords saddle saws are almost exclusively
driven by some height though to be totally honest with you but um but yeah ultimately it needs to
have pressure relief channel secondly this is my opinion i don't believe in measuring setbacks the
way in which set bones are measured typically you go in a bike shop and this is in my opinion this
has been driven by a big american bike brand who will remain anonymous to make the sale of saddles
feel a bit more sciencey what they do is they measure your sit bones or issue your tuberosities
the problem is they measure them like this and you don't see the white lines they're taking the
measurement when the pelvis is in a posterior state what happens when you ride a bicycle is
in an anterior state which means that you aren't actually loading the area
that you're measuring almost always it tends to result in happening inside of being too wide now
consider this if you've got something this wide in between your legs imagine how comfortable it would
be to walk around with it it wouldn't be so why we want to ride a bike with it sorry specialized to
call you out on this it's not not specifically related to this saddle um but when the saddle
is too wide riders typically gravitate to the nose as a means of trying to clear that width
because you tend to catch the width of the saddle the wings of the saddle on your thighs so like
i said it's human nature to kind of try to get away from that pressure away from that abrasion
as a generalization anything over 145 mil wide nine times out of ten i would say was too wide
personally but not always this is this is the problem with bike fitting is that there is no
rule of thumb there is no generalization it is all about the specific needs of an individual
just because one of you out there has got 155 mil salon you're very happy with it great good for you
but i'm telling you that the general rule is saddles being too wide tend to result in a
gravitation to the nose which on a saddle like this which is noseless is fairly problematic
forget about what the industry tells you this is the single most important part of your equipment
it's more important than your carbon wheels it's more important your electronic group set i will
almost go as far as to say it's more important than your bike this is where all the power goes
and frankly if this is wrong you're going to create a litany of problems all right the first
key to getting this right is you've got to buy a shoe that fits now forgive the glaringly obvious
statement the shoe does have to fit so when you're gonna buy a pair of shoes it pays to
go somewhere where they understand your feet and they measure your feet so for instance in in our
shop we uh we have a shoe fitting service where we assess measure and measure your feet and then
we provide a shoe that is specifically intended for that foot rather than just going oh can i try
these on in a size 10 but you're not 10 year old with wide feet if you can't get to me or
a similar business then one good way of doing it might be to just buy a load of them online
that's pretty difficult to get really good results with i have this preference with lake i mean i
i sell a lot of lake but on the grounds that uh every shoe model is different and this is kind of
a problem with lake it's the best thing about them but it's also the worst thing about them
in the uh this shoe the cx-238 is their widest tube the next model up tx-332 is
the narrowest shoe unfortunately with lake you can't just go out and buy a pair of legs
just because i say they're good and assume that they're going to be right because it requires
understanding in order to to fit it properly if you have wide feet by wide fitting shoe number one
golden rule do not size up to accommodate the width of your feet because what that means is
the [ __ ] location will end up further forward cue foot problems need issues and probably saddle
issues as well skinny feet by narrow fitting shoe wide feet by wide fitting shoe and secondly you've
got cleat location this is more a testament to how shoes are designed than it is my bike fitting
attitudes i find myself having to take the cleat as far back on the shoe as it'll go almost always
depends on the shoe depends on the foot but the safest way of getting this good and off loading
the the delicate structure of the forefoot and it's got a very dense capillary structure there
is to take the cleat as far back on the shoe as it'll go if your saddle height is too high
and you take your cleat further back you're extending your legs more so if you take the clip
further back and it feels worse and you'll settle the height your saddle feels worse guess what your
saddle's way too high so first and foremost get the clean as far back as it'll go if you are a
larger rider it might be worth pushing that cleat inboard this is the left foot
left shoe and we're pushing that cleat in to get the foot away from the bike stance is a really
effective way of of making your feet comfortable get a good pair of shoes i prefer carbon soles
uh get the cleat as far back as on the shoe as it'll go and you should be more comfortable
so particularly common in in road cycling because of the way that we like our bikes to look
we like long stems and we like the sun's light to look really high and all this kind of stuff
all road cyclers seem to be contortionists it's also something that i'm starting to find
in bicycle design is that bikes tend to be too long for consumers the reach of the handlebars
along with saddle height is probably one of the main causes for pain and cycling um particularly
with regards to hand neck and shoulder issues and also saddle issues so something that we
very commonly see in fact it's the most common compensation for an excessive reach is for a
rider to gravitate to the nose of the saddle now going back to what we were talking about earlier
with regards to saddle issues is that saddle issues have got nothing to do with saddles really
it's more to do with how you're interacting with them so if you're sat on the nose of it
that's dysfunctional it's off no it's not offering you support it's not providing you
any amount of stability and ultimately you're gonna end up with neck and shoulder
issues and hand issues because you're gonna be going in front of the bike
furthermore you're talking about sitting on a very very narrow portion of the saddle
which as i say massively dysfunctional so we want to be setting the reach based on your ability and
the satellite come to think of it on your ability to sit at the back of the saddle right we're
engaging with the widest portion of the saddle that's fundamentally it ways of reducing reach
we've kind of touched on it with handlebars you can reduce the reach of the handlebar you can
reduce the stem length and you reduce the setback in the saddle be careful with reducing the saddle
setback too much because what that can start to do is disrupt your center of mass and your weight
distribution you can have the negative impact of throwing all of your weight into the front of the
bike that was basically every bike fit tuesday's episode in one i hope you enjoyed that if you have
any questions please leave them in the comment section down below if you want to book a fit with
james he's based in richmond in london links will be in the description down below to his
website thank you so much for watching and see you guys soon for more episodes of bike fit tuesdays