Originally Posted by schnee

Personally, I'd find a professional bike fitter, and get yourself fit to the kind of bike you want to ride, and bring those measurements in to the course.

Here's an example of the process on YouTube. I did one and it was revolutionary. I met the fitter through a road riding club, he was a coach for a local racing team and he was really good - he had lasers and a fully-configurable stationary bike. I used his recommendations on my then road bike (a Giant OCR) and a lot of post-ride tension in my shoulders and neck went away. He even identified the fact that my hips were so wide that I should put pedal spacers on my road bike - the Q-factor was too narrow. A lot of knee pain went away permanently after that.

I brought those numbers with me to Yamaguchi's framebuilding course, and Koichi used my fit as the basis for the handling I wanted, and we tweaked the frame design from there. Example: I wanted stability and comfort, so he lengthened the chainstays and head tube.

It's the single most comfortable bike I've ever ridden.