why my friend James is a bike fitter with over 20 years of experience in
today's episode we're going to go through 10 more things that he hates
Long Reach handlebars made worse in this case by abysmal control location nice one Halfords so when
I'm talking about reach we're talking about this metric here it's the distance between the center
of the handlebar ball and where the controller is located this particular example is also an
anatomic shape 2001 called it wants its handlebars back which basically means that you can only put
your hands here or here there isn't really any in between point the problem with this type of
handlebar in my opinion is it all it adds or can add quite a lot of unnecessary reach to the front
of the bike meaning that the reach the controls is made more difficult and typically resulting
in hand issues neck and shoulder issues saddle issues replace it with something like a data
rhm or a zip short reach or a specialized short reach and you'll lock off a lot of reach from
the bottom front of the bike negating a lot of these discomforts bars that might be worth
avoiding or anything that's got an anatomic shape sorry track but the The vcls Handlebar shape was
actually quite a nice handlebar shape but does have an incredibly Long Reach most products from
3T it's also worth noting with reach that when you look at bar geometry on websites I'm not sure that
these manufacturers are are being consistent with them everything because we've seen handlebars that
are supposedly 75 millimeters in the reach don't have other measuring them because they come up a
lot longer than the known 75 millimeters of a data rhm so just be cautious with [Music]
Brooks leather saddles this is potentially an unpopular one with many of you the concept is
not a new one it was thought up hundreds of years ago the the hammock design of a brook
cell although very very comfortable doesn't really offer anything in the way of support
as a result it tends to transfer a lot of that weight and lack of stability into the front of
the bike most people using Brook's style leather sorry Brooks leather style cells particularly on a
road bike are typically predisposed to having neck shower issues hand issues as well it's
worth noting that for short distances and in some cases on more traditional kind of touring
orientated bikes they might not cause quite so many issues particularly with the handlebar and
the saddle are more level but certainly in a road bike scenario I would try and steer clear of them
one and a quarter inch steerers although technically this is better and it's been
it's been adopted by the likes of giant Canyon for their front ends it does afford you technically
lighter weight and more stability however it brings with it a Litany of uh incompatibility
issues namely for stems and cockpits so there there are only two or three brands
that offer one and a quarter inch steroid stems and furthermore there isn't a great
deal of range in terms of length so it just frankly it causes problems and the industry
isn't quite there yet it's too soon just stick with one and eight it works best it works just
fine I question whether you even need to have it that light and that stiff [Music]
this is one of my most hated products because it it flat out frustrates the hell out of me this
was a bike that was designed for the people it has all of the makings of the perfect bike it's
light it's stiff it's functional it's easy use it's got uh external cable routing for instance
rather than having all it having all integrated inside of the cockpit which I know is very trendy
but it's a mechanical nightmare however the geometry is exactly the same as a Tarmac sl7
why it's too long and it's too low it doesn't fit many most consumers and it's just frankly
not fit for purpose it's stupid it's a bike for the people that doesn't fit the people it fits
Pros who are not normal people the freaks sorry boys can somebody please just make I mean so so
if they if they take if they use the ethos if they design the Athos around rube geometry then
it would be literally the perfect consumer bike because it would be a bike that was light stiff
and fun and agile to ride but also fits well as well all right and also wasn't you know wasn't
sluggish and heavy because of all the suspension gadgets and gizmos could somebody please just
make a bite like this this is why I sell so many custom bikes because we built bikes that are light
agile but they fit as well stop what you're doing we're interrupting your normal scheduled
programming to tell you about brand new podcast which we're doing right now the Wild Ones podcast
what's the Wild Ones podcast so in the latest episode we are talking about Cav going into
retirement why the cycling industry is in turmoil why pro bikes are a lie and asking
why are we also obsessed with bike weight Pro Bikes rely well we're about to find out head
over to our YouTube channel there's a podcast section where it's on there you'll also find us
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[Music]
sorry specialized you're getting it from me again specialized shoes the bigger problem here is the
non-neutrality of a specialized branded shoe something this is something that nobody tells
you when they do tell you they make it sound like it's a good thing so specialized as a
built-in forefoot which this is not a specialized shoe uh it has a built-in forefoot wedge in the
front of the shoe what that essentially means is that this is a left shoe the medial side the
right side of it is elevated it counts the foot like so it's intended to treat what's known as
a virus deformity emphasis on the word deformity which is what it's known in medical terms in the
cycling industry it's thought of as commonplace although in in the last 500 bike fits I've said
I've observed two well the fourth of virus deformity refers to is a skill lethally fixed
elevation of the first line of Bones you know this is my hand but basically it's your big toe and all
of the bones associated with it up what that means is that it usually results in that first Ray of uh
bones being elevated and without sufficient support it results in excessive pronation of
the ankle joint the problem being here that most people don't possess this it's it's relatively
uncommon so what we tend to find with uh with a specialized brand of shoes is applying uh
support where it's not warranted not needed what a typical resulting is supination of the foot or or
just applying additional or excessive pressure through the ball of the foot cue foot problems
ankle problems knee problems and quite often saddle issues as well by neutralizing it I.E by
putting a four foot wedge inside the shoe reversed then a lot of those problems can go away however
that starts to encrypt on the uh the space that's inside of the shoe what we tend to find ourselves
doing is actually removing the shoe from the equation altogether and more often than not
the problems disappear uh I'm not saying that these shoes necessarily cause these problems
there are however correlations between the use of these shoes and the problems that
we've Associated it's just something to be aware of that it is a non-neutral shoe
the oversimplification of stack and reach so to be clear stack and reach are two metrics
uh quite often found in Geometry tables on bike manufacturer websites they refer to the vertical
and horizontal distances of the center of the head tube to the bottom bracket right essentially they
are the front end coordinates of the bicycle and they're typically used to dictate Optimum
size of bike it's a bit too simple there's not enough that it doesn't take into a consideration
a number of other parameters for example the seat tube angle of a bike will influence the
overall reach of the handlebars the stem length will also influence the overall reach of the
handlebars as will The Handlebar rotation the control location let's handlebar type even the
shifters themselves will influence the reach of a bike so and this is kind of my problem with
the whole stack and reach concept is that it's a good starting point but it's just it's been
massively radically oversimplified bike fitting unfortunately is quite complex it's why I have a
job we find stack excessive or insufficient stack causing less problems than excessive reach stack
can be massively influenced by applying headset spaces something also worth considering is the
bottom bracket drop I.E if the bottom bracket is dropped below the line of the wheel axles
you increase the stack without necessarily increasing head shift length so it's worth
noting that head tube length itself is not a an exact representation of how high a front
end the front end of a bike is this is kind of why stuck and reach even exists my gripe
is not with stack and reach my gripe is the the oversimplification of it and how and how it's used
integrated suspension systems in road bikes this is something that we found from uh the
likes of track and specialized they are using now using sort of suspension systems in the front end
but also the couplers as well to isolate the rider from vibrations uh on the road now it's
all well and good using it for power rube the vast majority of people who are buying these
products aren't riding pair of bay and furthermore what they typically result in is increased weight
added complexity and what we found come to find more often than not is this South Creek uh I just
personally don't see the point in these systems use large Tire volumes run at lower pressures
it's going to offer you loads more compliance particularly When comparing to an Era where we
only had like 23 millimeter ties that were pumped up to 130 PSI it's I just don't see a great deal
of need for it and as a result you start you you will see that these bikes are massively inflated
in their cost everything now is getting more expensive even more so when you're starting to
introduce unnecessary heavy expensive suspension systems [Music] the Shimano 2300 shifter recently
reborn as the tourney shifter I thought these had died but unfortunately that's not the case this is
an eight-speed shifter which has some say a cam pack like thumb shifter at the top here there's
a difference with cabbage shifter you can use the thumb shifter on the drops with this one you can't
unless you got films like Edward Scissorhands they are [ __ ] although these newer ones do
have reach adjustment they aren't functional when we're in the drop it's just something that
frankly I thought had died it should have died a long time ago and there are much much better
alternatives to this system the 2300 shifter was historically replaced by the Claris lever or the
Clara's transmission which is an eight-speed much more functional and much more ergonomic uh
shifter that draws design cues from the higher end Transmissions you know namely Jaguar 105 ultegra
and Dura eight it has a functional downshift button which you can use on the drops still
has the the reach adjustment but fundamentally it's just a much more functional system this
track this this Clarence transmission can be found on bikes as cheap as how much is this
Carrera 430 quid for this bike uh with with this transmission on it and and there are
other Alternatives from non-shimano Brands namely micro shift again has all the added functionality
from from the drop in this in this case it's it comes with a rigid brake lever and you've got uh
two two different buttons uh again eight-speed functionality this one doesn't have any reach
adjustment but frankly reach adjustments less of a problem if you handlebar width optimized
so there you go there are alternatives to the crappy morning lever stick with either the micro
shift or if you can push to push your budget to the Claris go with that one instead in my
opinion that is the better one the Clarice is the better one [Music] flat bars on a gravel
bike geometrically grave bikes derived from road bikes as a result they typically place a little
bit more weight through the front of the bicycle so there are a number of ergonomic complexes sorry
there are a number of ergonomic issues associated with using a a flat handlebar or on a gravel bike
typically it results in cameras on wrist drop which leads to typically complications with the
ulnar nerve uh Q numb hands or pins and needles or even wrist pain but that typically resonates up
through the neck and the shoulders ergonomically a drop handlebar is simply better now there are
some of you out there who are probably thinking well flat handlebar offers me more control well
again it's a gravel bike it's not a mountain bike so if you're using or needing more control I would
suggest you're probably using the wrong bike flat bar on on a mountain bike makes perfect
sense does offer you more control typically due to the more Dynamic nature of riding a mountain bike
you know you're going through bulbs and jumps and routes and rocks from and whatnot whereas
gravel bike is typically designed to be written on slightly smoother less technical terrain if
you're using if you're needing more control then I would probably consider the bike usage
the misleading nature of sizing structures within bicycles my great with this is that uh the two
don't seem to correlate like a medium-sized bike is usually too large for a medium-sized human
being Francis and I are both we're five nine five ten and we were both right a small size bike 52 53
centimeter and you know logic dictates that if you know we're both medium-sized people I would say
and so you know if you go and buy a t-shirt in a shop you probably I would normally buy a medium so
logic dictates that I would buy a medium bicycle if I look at like a medium basically medium
anything from major bike brands they're talking 55 centimeter top tubes which are just way too long
for me uh so I feel that there needs to be a bit of a shift in terms of power sizing bikes but I
think mostly consumers need to look at more than just the size you need to understand how to read
geometry tables particularly I mean look look at things like stack and reach we talked earlier in
this video about the other simplification of stack and reach but also look at the top tube
length have a look at the seat tube angle the with the C2 angle the bigger the number the the shorter
the bike is going to be essentially because the steeper the seat angle the the bike's going to
be shorter uh there are now some manufacturers that are namely Canyon and but also we're talking
about tri-band have a component geometry table on there on their website which gives you an
outline as to handlebot widths and stem lengths these things usually aren't commonplace on on
bike manufacturer websites like I say there are some that are doing it thank you Canyon thank you
trivand all of these things will influence and contribute to your overall Comfort on the bike
pay more attention to other metrics Beyond just the size of it because the size itself can be
very misleading if you think about pinarello the way they size their bikes they size their bikes
based on the seat tube length so a 50 centimeter pinarello which many would say okay well that's
quite really quite a small bike it's got 52 and a half centimeters top tube which is almost long
enough for me my bike's to all 53s so I I think there needs to be more attention paid to other
metrics than and jump for table rather than just small medium large extra large a Rider's layout
will will typically dictate how long the bike needs to be so if you've got someone who's got
a long torso they're going to need a longer top tube short torso short stock true this is all the
more reason to have a bike fit before you buy a bike so that you take out all all you extrapolate
all of the guesswork from the equation and you buy something that's specifically for you not much the
end of today's video please put any questions you have in the comment section down below and
I'm sure James will do his best to answer them if you want to book a fit with James or check
out his shop link is in that description thank you for watching And subscribe for more [Music]
everybody