jyl

This topic came up in another thread, but I thought it deserves a thread of its own.

For a drop bar road bike, how do you determine the ideal reach - the distance from saddle to bars?

Here are various guidelines I've heard of:
- Place elbow on saddle nose, fingertips should just touch bar top.
- On hoods, look down, bar top should obscure front axle.
- In drops with forearms horizontal, elbow should be bent 90 degrees.
- In drops with forearms horizontal, knees should slightly overlap elbows.

One can find fault with any of these guidelines, I expect.

The ultimate answer is, you want the reach that allows you to ride for hours without discomfort, in your preferred position and pace. But let's assume you're faced with a bike that you will only be able to take a brief test ride on, before plunking down your precious green? What is the best advice we can give to ourselves or others on deciding if that bike has the appropriate reach?

And, related topic, how much should one be willing to rely on changing the stem, to correct the reach? Would you advise someone to use a stem as short as 50 mm? As long as 140 mm? What are the prudent limits?

wphamilton

There is one thing that's been bothering me about measuring reach, and since you have a thread for it can I ask it here?

It's measuring reach from the saddle tip to the bars that bugs me - I don't see the rationale. It seems to me that the distance we have to reach is from where we sit to where our hands are. Different size saddles, placement of the hoods, whether the handlebar is angled up, level or down, the handlebar width and the size and shape of the drops would each change how far we reach, but would not change "reach" measured this way. I could see it for ballpark reach within a couple of inches, but that's not how it's used.

So why is it measured from tip to handlebar, and not the actual distance our body reaches, from the wide part of the saddle to the hoods, or to the hooks in the drops?

jyl

I agree. Seems you'd measure from sit bones to hands, ie middle/rear of saddle to hoods. And even then, suppose your torso to arms ratio is quite different from the average?

gregjones

It seems to me that this measurement takes a lot of variables out of the comfort search. After all isn't from your butt to where you hold the bars one major item that we are trying adjust?

The "center of the saddle" seem a bit vague but it's one of the starting points for the measurement.

Saddle nose to bar seems fine if you ride like a flat bar bike with a real narrow bar, but the different shapes and reaches of bar styles could change the overall reach quite a bit. When trying to copy a comfortable setup wouldn't something like reproducing the measurement of this blue line go a long ways to matching the success of one fit to another bike?

CharlyAlfaRomeo

Only if the new bike had the exact same geometry and ETT as the previous bike.

FWIW when I transfer my fit from one bike to another i measure from the saddle tip to a straight edge pushed up against the hoods. Obviously this works best when using the same saddle as previously, or else it's just a good place to start. Before transferring the saddle tip to hood measurement I use a plumb line to match my saddle set-back to that of the previous bike. I also use a four foot level to enusre saddle to bar drop is consistent.

What you propose would work if say you were swapping out handlebars on a bike on which you already liked the reach to the hoods and needed to know whether or not to change the stem.

bikemig 

I think I read in LeMond's book on bike racing that a 120 mm stem is about right and so ideally you want a top tube that lets you use a stem of roughly that length. I think if you need a stem of 50 mm the top tube is probably not optimal for the rider. 140 mm, on the other hand, is not that unusual esp. with a taller rider.

jyl

Funny, I just checked and when the back of my elbow is touching the nose of my saddle, my fingertips can't reach the handlebar on any of my roadbikes. Misses by over 2" on the bike that I use for centuries, by 1" on the others. Maybe I have stumpy limbs. Actually my torso is long relative to my legs, kind of the opposite of a supermodel.

Leisesturm

I've had a bunch of saddles over the decades. Mainly OEM jobs, I used to be able to sit on anything, but recently I've dropped the coin for high end stuff like Terry and Specialized. They've all been 10.5" from bowspirit to poop deck. All of them. My guess is it ws just a quick and dirty way of judging things that didn't involve tape measures and formulae. My fit passed the 'cubit' measurement test but I was still not happy with it. When I got compact bend bars with 20mm less reach I became a much happier camper. My fit also passes the "bars obscure front hub on the hoods" test. The final two tests sound pretty hardcore road racer. As are the first two. I think in the racing community there is more similarity of equipment and bikes than in the general world of recreational riding and commuting. When I began to commute more like a road racer and use the drops and spin at 100rpm it became necessary to set my commuter up more like a road racer. I needed to get to true KOPS where I had been quite a bit back from it. I also found that I was sitting on the forward narrow part of most saddles. With a forward saddle I plop onto the proper part of the saddle without thinking. works for me.

H

wphamilton

The arm and hand to the bar is another one that doesn't make sense to me. The other ones, such as looking at the axle, even the plumb line from your nose falling an inch behind the bar, I can see a sort of sense to those. But I always stumble on this: what could it possibly mean to reach how long your fingers are, or how big your hand is? I don't really even see how the forearm length should be a determinate - maybe it does somehow matter but I can't see any logical reason why. So that one puzzles me.

I have a rather crude way of determining reach. And I'm so skeptical of the current bike fit "science" that I probably shouldn't even post in this subforum. Sorry, if I denigrate anyone's pet theory. But I just set my saddle to where my butt winds up most during and after various levels of effort and riding time. So it's forward of KOPS position (I don't believe in KOPS either) only because that's where I ride. Then the same thing for my hands. And then I search the internet for whatever system matches my setup.

jyl

That makes sense, you're an experienced rider and you judge fit by what feels "right" after a good amount of riding time.

What I'm trying to find out, though, is if there are tests or guidelines that can assess fit of a bike that you haven't ridden a lot (like a bike you are thinking about buying) and/or for a person who maybe hasn't ridden long enough to know what feels right and what doesn't (like a new rider).

jyl

Here is something we could do.

1. Come up with a list of guidelines, rules of thumb, folk wisdom etc about saddle to bar reach. Heck, about other aspects of bike fit too, like saddle height, saddle to bar drop, saddle to BB location, and crank length. I'm focusing just on the touchpoints here: saddle, pedals, bar.

2. Take our best-fitting road bikes, report how they measure relative to those guidelines, and post a pic of yourself on said bike.

3. Provide some basic info on what kind of riding you do on the bike (for example: race, tour, spin, mash, fast, slow, etc) and yourself (for example: height, age, bike inseam).

If we get enough data points, we might be able to study them and see which guidelines work more often and which work less often (for example, how do inseam and saddle-to-pedal relate, does bar-obscuring-axle make sense, how about KOPS or elbow/saddle-fingertip/bar, etc). By "work", I mean do these guidelines actually describe how our best-fitting road bikes actually fit?

What do you think?

I can put together a draft "survey" for points 1, 2, and 3, for collective review. Then I can start a new thread, the "Survey" thread, to collect the information.

Leisesturm

But that's exactly how the current criteria have come to be. Thousands and I mean thousands of riders have been measured by their coaches over decades and after awhile these "strange attractor" fit criteria seemed to come out of the background clutter of randomness. Skypilots cubit distance turned out to be bang on. So did that other poster who I suggested try it. And that old maxim of putting the heels (in shoes) on the pedals and pedaling backward with locked knees but no rocking of the hips. It has been time tested as it were. My commuter and folder both have quick release saddle adjustment. I play with saddle height now and then. It would be great if I could adjust fore-aft saddle motion, handlebar height and fore and aft with the same ease that I can adjust saddle height. How many cars still come with fixed steering columns? One ought to be able to fix their fit on the bike by how they feel that particular day and not by arcane formulary. What if you could adjust fit parameters while pedalling?? Bicycle evolution has scarcely progressed past the 'safety bicycle of the late 1800's. A wheelman from that time would need less than 10 minutes to deal with a Giant Defy, shifting included. For that matter, the owner of a Model T would have little trouble with anything considered road legal in the United States. I have a problem with that.

H

CharlyAlfaRomeo

Neither of these make any sense to me.

Why would you have a problem with that? Things should get simpler to operate as they become more refined, not the other way around.

The Model T was a ridiculously archaic piece of machinery that probably would never have sold if not for it's affordability.

https://https://www.caranddriver.com/f...a-ford-model-t

jyl

But many or most of the old rules of thumb were developed by road racers and their coaches, in the 1980s and before, for young, skinny, flexible athletes riding traditional (today: vintage) road racing bicycles very fast and hard. We are more like the average cyclist, and I wonder if what fits us is the same as what fit the 22 y/o Greg LeMond.

Also, if we collected a little information about body proportions (inseam, arm length, height?) we might see how the old rules apply, or don't, to people with proportions different from the average racer, or simply from the average person.

(I'm kind of attuned to the body proportion thing, because mine are not average and it affects my bike fit quite a bit.)

Kopsis

You have obviously never driven a Model T. The one and only Model T control that matches the modern layout is the steering wheel. Every other pedal and lever has a completely different function than today's standardized layout.

wphamilton

That would be very useful, and with enough data maybe we could make some analytic sense out of it. I'm afraid that getting useful data this way may be problematic though, since that's a lot of measuring and even "inseam" means different things to different people.

wphamilton

Because they depend on torso length, bar position and riding position. Those elements are at least related to reach, in my mind, so it's reasonable that a rule of thumb based on them might be useful.

ThermionicScott 

Waitaminit, guys. Isn't "reach" measured from the BB center? That eliminates saddle peculiarities from the equation.

CharlyAlfaRomeo

My problem is that a person with long arms and a short torso would have a greatly different bar position than one with short arms and a long torso which would change the relation of their head to the bars and the alignment of the bars and front axle in their vision. This is also compounded by differing levels of flexibility.

Caliper

I think the problem adjusting many fit parameters while pedaling is that we would likely fall off the bike trying to change all these things on the fly. OTOH, I carry a multi tool in my sadle bag and I do occasionally pull over and adjust fit during a ride. BTW, most car manufacturers technically tell you not to adjust the steering wheel while driving.

If you are unhappy that your bike looks the same as those from years ago, get a recumbent. Otherwise, ask yourself how much has the human body changed since then? Those guys weren't dummies, they made something which fit fairly well and should continue to fit well as long as people still have the same basic skeletal structure.

Caliper

That's frame reach. When riding in the saddle, I still have to reach from the saddle to the bars.
The idea behind frame reach is that a given rider typically has their saddle X distance behind the BB, so comparing frame reaches lets you cut through all the other geometry to compare multiple bikes on a level field.

chasm54

There's nothing wrong with any of these guidelines, because that's what they are - guidelines, not rules. They represent a reasonable starting point from which one can make adjustments to suit oneself.

If one thinks about it, the fact that we all have different proportions means that no simple formula is going to produce an answer that is right for all of us. In my case, only the fourth of the quoted guidelines works for me - I need slightly more reach than the others provide. But that doesn't invalidate them as approximations.

fietsbob

Lemond in his late 60s is likely not on the same set up as he was in his early 30's.. but we never have met to compare notes .