ejewels

Hey Guys,

I was reading a few things on figuring out reach on a road bike. I got a professional fit, but decided to try some of these "rule of thumb" methods after. One method was placing your elbow tip on saddle tip then extending that forearm to the stem/handlebars. One article said to see where your fingertips end up, another said add the width of your other hand and see where that ends up. The first method my fingers fell short about a cm of the bar. Second method, my pinky finger was actually further past the bars. So, using both methods seemed to tell me my reach was ok or that my reach was a tad short.

My question is, which method is right, and more importantly how accurate is this all? I'd imagine proportions of body parts and saddle to bar drop would affect this all.

mcours2006

As a rule of thumb, rules of thumb are usually very inaccurate and about as useful as using a cubit as a unit of trade.

ejewels

Agreed. But it's even harder when reading 2 different methods of it! One only uses the forearm and fingers of one arm, the other uses that plus the width of your other hand. Trying to find out which one is right!

philbob57

ejewels,

Why the experiment? Does some part of your body hurt? Do you think a different positition will make you more efficient of powerful? What makes you doubt the fitter?

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I ride differently over a season, from the start, when I can't comfortably ride more than 10 miles and have to stretch to reach the tops, to the end, when I can do 50+ and can be comfortable on the drops. And I ride a '73 MKM, so the stem is a PITA to change out, and I'm not about to mess with reach. So when is a fitting going to be valid for me, or for any other seasonal rider?

Further, my bet is that different fitters will give the same rider different fits (no pun intended, but a pun may be accurate here), and if that happens, there's no way to tell which is right.

Each rider needs to know him- or herself. For me, and I think for a lot of people, the first goal is to ride without pain or discomfort. Some - most? - of getting comfortable on the bike requires conditioning. I don't see how a fit can solve conditioning problems - and I think a whole lot of problems are due to lack of conditioning, in all likelihood.

Besides the fitting systems are based on probabilities or on the fitter's own rules of thumb. Either way, if you're an outlier, a fit may not suit you very well, at all.

If you're reasonably conditioned and in pain (or think you can get more from biking if you changed you position), a professional fit is definitely a worthwhile use of funds, if a good fitter is nearby.

If your bike is so uncomfortable that you can't get conditioned, a good LBS may be the answer. IMO, I can't see how fitting an unconditioned body is going to be valid for long.

BTWm by 'conditioned', I mean conditioned to the demands of cycling.

wphamilton

Hand size, finger length and forearm length are not the same proportion of body size for different people. Some people have longer or shorter torsos.

Saddle dimensions are not necessarily all the same. The tip maybe closer or further from where you sit.

Reach depends on where the hands rest on the bars, not where the bars meet the stem.

Reach varies according to how aggressive you want the riding position to be.

So I don't see how that method could possibly work, other than by accident, for setting reach. It might be helpful for checking whether the bike size is in the general ballpark.

Sy Reene

I imagine this is one of the more 'respected' mentions of one of these techniques?
Dave Moulton's Blog - Dave Moulton's Bike Blog - What does the length of your forearm and the price of fish have to do with stem length?

OTOH, this one was published a few years back on an April 1st but had a lot of folks missing that fact:
https://cyclingtips.com/2010/04/scie...-bike-fitting/

Maelochs

Only place I have seen people give that much credence was in a spin class where everyone was on an identical bike and the stem/bars were only adjustable for height.

The new short-nosed saddles certainly force on to question the system's validity.

dabac

+1

I've run a piece of string over the saddle, to help pinpoint where my sit bones go. Then I use that instead of saddle tip when trying to recreate a known working position on a new bike.

ejewels

Coupled with variances in modern geometry It sounds like this isn't a hard or fast rule. I was close, but still 1-2cm short of the bars. But, my fitter got me this position so I'd say trust that first?

wphamilton

Yep. I have two bikes set up for different positions, with different saddle-bar drop, different frame size and saddle position. When I get out a tape measure and check this, both have exactly the same distance from the flare part of the saddle to the handlebar center. But ironically neither one is set up "right" according to these rules, or the conventional "bike fitting" rules either.

Maelochs

We are wimps nowadays, with "fitters' and measurements and proportions ....

Back in the day if your finger extended beyond the bar they'd just cut off the offending portion. HTFU.

kcblair

Interesting thread here. I was of the old way, too, and "hands on the bars, looking down the hub is obscured" . So I decided to measure from the set bone impression on the seat to the center of the handlebars on l my bikes, and guess what, the measurements were identical.

My Concorde is custom measured and fitted, and I've used that bike to bike myself to the others. Only one bike, does my finger tips touch the handlebar. KB

elcruxio

Wait what? The fingertip should touch the bar? I have my fingertips just touching the steerer cap where it's another 10cm to the bar...

Maelochs

I generally ride with both hands on the bars. if i couldn't reach the bars, steering would be tough.

ejewels

That's kind of my point... I imagine many fall short with this method

Sy Reene

reading around a bit, some of the hypotheses are that elbow to fingertip = handlebar distance is what you'd approximately expect on a TT setup. Elbow/fingertip + hand width = approximately the rest of us.

Hardrock23

I had only read about the elbow to finger tip one before...It didn't seem like a reliable thing though when I tried it last year.
Now trying the other way mentioned here - Using the elbow to finger tip w/hand width - My pinky hangs over the bar.

Having tried KOPS, the hub one, and the finger tip one over the past year when fitting myself, I found none of them really worked for me.

jefnvk

I tried a few when setting up my bike the first time. I finally gave up, set things where they were generally comfortable, tweaked a bit as time went by, and have gone with that. Each new bike, I set up things relatively similar as a starting point, then tweak from there.

Rules of thumb are great if your particular situation is similar to the person giving the advice. My 215#, short leg long torso body doesn't have much in common with road racers, rules of thumb for how they'd set up their bikes is really not relevant to me.

flan48

Yes, that is exactly my situation and I'm very comfortable and "high functioning", for me(!) on my one bike.
For my extended fingers to reach the bar with elbow on the end of the saddle, I'd be ridiculously too close/too far forward.

Best regards