brainy day today and i've had it with being covered in mud
so i thought we'd go over in today's episode five bike setup tips that you need to know
and i've tried to choose things that aren't that obvious when you're just starting out
number one is handlebar rotation a lot of people will experiment with stem length people will spend
money on different length stems to experiment with but you can actually change the reach of your
bike just by rotating the handlebar now when we measure reach we measure to the end of the shifter
so you don't really want to be changing the angle of the shifter either if you've already found a
comfortable position for it ideally you want to be keeping this part of the control parallel to
the ground or tilted slightly up so your hand has something to push against so if you want to
experiment with handlebar rotation pull the hood back loosen it off loosen off at the stem here
as well and then if your goal is to reduce the reach you want to be pitching the bar forwards so
the shifter moves up and essentially towards you same goes the other way if you pitch the bar back
you end up with a shifter on a place on the bar further away from you handlebars differ in size
and shape and drastically differ in reach as well so you want to bear that mind if you have multiple
bikes but it's a fantastic way to experiment with reach without spending any money whatsoever also
don't forget there's another hand position on the drop so that will be influenced too as soon
as you start rotating the bar that's going to feel different over in the fit studio we found you can
change your reach to about 20 millimeters just by rotating the bar so it's a great cost free way to
experiment with your position before i move on to the next point link down below to our
dedicated video on handlebars and setup of your bars if you want to hear about it more in depth
cleat location set your cleats as far back on the shoe as they'll go now i'm sure some of
you have already found the best pleat location but if you're a new rider or you haven't really
experimented with it and found a good position starting as far back on the shoe as you can go
and in the middle is a fantastic place to begin the further back you place your cleats on your
shoe the more stable your foot will be this will mean toe overlap on some bikes what that means
is your front tire when you're going very slow speed and you're quite a big steering angle will
touch the front of your foot this is normal and you'll almost definitely experience it if you're
a smaller rider on a smaller bike it's worth learning to deal with it and pedal accordingly
so you avoid it because i think the gains in comfort and stability are worth the trade-off the
placement of the holes drilled in cycling shoes vary massively depending on what brand and model
of shoe you go for there are unfortunately brands out there where you just can't get the cleats far
back enough in our opinion i've been running lake and shimano shoes and had no issues at all getting
the cleats as far back as i need them it's also worth noting that the printed guides on the bottom
of shoes are often printed completely wrong so use a different reference point on the shoe
some part of the molding or something consistent in both left and right shoes
to get your cleats lined up properly don't trust the thing that's printed on there ridiculous i
know once again link down below if you want a more in-depth video about just setting up your cleats
don't put too much air in your tires banged on about this in videos before i'm a massive
fan of low tire pressures granted i'm quite a light rider at 65 66 kilos at the moment
and your perfect tire pressure will be pretty dependent on how heavy you are
i've just pumped these up to the recommended pressure of 95 psi these are hutchinson fusion
fives got 95 psi printed on the side of them but that's not a target it's a maximum these
are rock hard if i went out to ride these they'd be uncomfortable i'd have a bone shaking ride
especially on all the potholes around here and i wouldn't have much confidence around corners
especially when it's a bit damp at 66 kilos i run these at about 65 psi which is the lower end of
the range bear in mind these are 30 millimeters so you might want to go slightly higher pressure
if you've got a narrower tire for the same amount of squish scientific term that now if you're
a very performance focused cyclist and you're interested in the rolling resistance of tyres
at different pressures i'll put a link down below to my friends at aero coach who did some testing
in the grand scheme of things it's a very very minimal difference but if you were racing a time
trial or a road race that was really important and you want to be saving all the energy you can
then maybe consider adjusting your pressures but for general road riding i tend to run them low
comfort and confidence is what's important to me one last note here if you have a track pump
with a pressure gauge on it often they're not very accurate so consider getting an electronic gauge
if you really want to tune your tire pressures accurately i have a decent design pump here
it was showing me 20 psi when i pumped up my mountain bike tires and when i used the gauge
on it it was more like 15. so it's a fairly big difference i'm not sure how it translates
when you get to higher pressures but there you go consider a gauge if you want the accuracy
point number four buy and use a torque wrench now i'm a massive hypocrite here because i don't have
one with me i can show you it's over at the studio and because we're in lockdown i can't
really go and pick it up in simple terms a torque wrench measures in newton meters the force you're
applying when you're doing up a bolt you can get really expensive socket sets or you can get a
really really cheap hex key version just to do up most of the major bolts on your bike when you're
out riding fast you want to have confidence in your bike and using a torque wrench like this
makes it way less likely that your bolts are going to come loose because you can talk them up exactly
to what the manufacturers suggest now i think it's worth investing in a basic torque wrench
because it saves you money in the long run as well i'm speaking from experience here over
tightening components can lead to them breaking especially now everything's made out of carbon
fiber integrated cockpits are really expensive i mean replacing the integrated cockpit on the
villia back there is about 800 euros and you could crack the carbon just by over talking the bolts
that is an expensive mistake pick up a torque wrench for 20 quid and you won't have any of
those problems so particularly useful if you're using carbon components or titanium bolts i've
had aluminium stems with titanium bolts in before and they can pop quite easily if you over torque
them by a couple of newton meters so consider a torque wrench it'll save you money in the long run
what is this mysterious clear liquid i hear you ask i guess this might not be considered bike
setup but it's a really handy tip related to bike maintenance that i always use clean your brake
surfaces with isopropyl alcohol now this applies to disc and rim brakes at this time of year
your bikes get covered in [ __ ] there's oil salt and grit on the roads if you're on the mountain
bike trails naturally you're gonna get covered in mud anyway keeping your brakes clean is vital in
terms of performance and safety instead of using disc brake cleaner which can be quite expensive
i use isopropyl alcohol which is 99.9 pure alcohol you can buy a liter like this off amazon for about
eight pounds and it will last you a long long time this is completely safe to use on your brakes and
any excess will just evaporate you can't use a lot of degreasers that you use on the rest
of your bike on your brakes because they often leave behind a residue for example gt85 leaves
a very thin lubricant so if you ended up with that on your brakes they would just stop working so you
have to be careful what you use now with this a little goes a long way i tip it upside down
onto a completely clean rag because you don't want to be contaminating the brakes with anything else
so ideally a rag that's been through the wash then i use it to rub over my disc rotors get all
of the grime off and keep repeating until they're shiny and clean the same goes for rim brakes you
should see the dirt come off onto the rag this stuff is pretty aggressive so you're gonna see
a big difference doing this regularly will improve your stopping power rate of wear and slow down the
process of your pads getting contaminated too so it's gonna save you money for the price of
eight pounds it's also quite handy for getting little grease marks off your frame and stuff but
don't use it on your drivetrain because it will just strip out all the grease that's on there
that marks the end of today's video i hope you enjoyed it a style i haven't touched on in a
while but as we're back in lockdown i thought it might be appropriate to share some tips
and hopefully help some newer riders please put a comment down below if you have any bike setup or
maintenance tips especially as we're coming into winter and we want to get the most out of our gear
as always thank you for watching please like and subscribe for more and i'll see you guys soon oh