JPman

Looking for any good threads, or articles on proper fit for bicycle touring. THanks.

BikeLite

Check out table 3 of this medical article. It seems to be geared towards drop bar bikes..guessing..from some of the measurements, but it is interesting. The reference for that must be Burke ER. Proper fit of the bicycle. Clin Sports Med. 1994;13:1-14.


https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues...515/p2007.html

veganbikes

Go see your local fitter ideally someone who does a dynamic fit and they can get you set up and as needed make recommendations. Mine recommended pedal extensions and some insoles and damn they worked really well in addition to the fit correction that was done on my bicycle. The bike felt new and I felt like I could have conquered anything after that fit and after transferring some of that to other bikes it has worked out quite nicely.

JPman

That's awesome - thanks BikeLite and veganbikes. I will be definitely getting a bike fit down in Sudbury this winter to prepare for next season. Appreciate the intel!

MarcusT

Be flexible with what a bike fitter recommends. Some do not recognize that touring is not the same as road racing or mtn biking. Comfort takes the lead over pedalling efficiency or flying down a singletrack
There is an ex-road racer here who owns a LBS and his tendency is to cut the steerer tube extra low for a racing fit on all his bikes.
Youtube is also a goldmine and a tar pit of bike fitting

Tourist in MSN

You did not say where you are located. Touring bike geometry has some variation based on regions. In North America, most touring bikes have drop bars but in continental Europe, flat bars are much more common. There is no generic touring bike, so before you get a fit, you need to decide what type of touring bike you plan to use and for what type of touring.

For generic touring with panniers front and rear, take a look at the bikes at this gallery. No new photos have been posted for several years, so this is somewhat dated, but fit has not changed much, only the hardware has. You will note that there is a huge variation in bar types and how different people have their bar set relative to their saddle position.
https://www.pbase.com/canyonlands/fullyloaded

I prefer drop bars. The tops of my bars are about the same height as the top of my saddle, and the reach is on the short side. I am in my 60s, younger riders often will have a slightly more aggressive position, but not by much. A decade ago my bars were about 10 to 20mm lower than now. It needs to be comfortable for 6 or 8 or 10 or occasionally more hours in the saddle, and the same the next day, and the next, etc.

And it is not a race. I spend more hours in the saddle on a randonneuring event than a typical day touring, touring is at a lower exertion level. My rando bike has a slightly more aggressive posture with a slightly longer reach than my touring bikes.

There are some former racers on this forum, their touring bikes will have a fit that is similar to a racing bike.

I have never had a bike "fit", thus I might be a bit biased here. But if I had some unusual characteristic like one leg longer than the other, I might find a fit is valuable. I have a lower back injury, my saddle is turned slightly to the left, I found it fit me better that way. I mentioned that to my physical therapist, she looked at my lower back X ray and said that she was not surprised that I had my saddle turned slightly. But I would be surprised if any bike fitter would understand why my saddle is not oriented exactly fore and aft.

JPman

I'm a newbie to touring, and just completed a 600km journey in southeastern Ontario. I decked out an old Miele mountain bike from the 90's into my touring machine, 700c tires, racks, fenders, and drop bars. I do prefer the riding positions available with the drop bars, but did have to play around with stem length and shorter reach drop bars to get a decent fit that was somewhat comfortable. Now that I'm hooked, I hope to purchase a proper touring bike this spring - and really am on the quest for getting a bike-fit done prior to making any purchase to make sure I'm buying the right size, etc.

Tourist in MSN

Several years ago I bought an adjustable stem on a whim. It proved quite useful for being able to adjust reach by adjusting the stem adjustment angle and with a stack of steerer tube spacers I was able to play with bar height quite easily. When I got everything set exactly where I wanted it, then bought the non-adjustable stem to replicate that position.

I have most of my bikes set up with a nearly identical fit, but as I mentioned before, a slightly greater reach on my rando bike. When I set up a new bike I try to make sure that my contact points (handlebar hoods, saddle and pedals) all are about the same position on each bike.

The exception is my folding bike, that has a much shorter reach, but I lowered the bars to compensate, so I lean forward at about the same angle on that bike as on the others. That bike was only built with one size option, so I did not have much choice in frame size selection.

You will find that most drop bar bikes have a shorter top tube than flat bar bikes. Thus, your former mountain bike that now has drop bars fitted might have a longer than ideal reach if that bike originally was a flat bar bike.

Bikes are usually sized by the length of seat tube, or since most bikes now have sloping top tubes "effective" seat tube length above bottom bracket. But it is easy to compensate by adjusting seatpost height for the wrong size. But, as you discovered, it is hard to adjust a bike that has a top tube too long or too short, as stem lengths and bar shapes make it harder to get the reach adjustment right. Thus, for the past decade when I have considered buying a bike or a new frame, I have focused more on the top tube length than any other measure to make sure that I can get the reach adjustment right. That said, stand over height can be critical for some people, thus that should be verified before purchase, but with the sloping top tubes that is less of an issue than it was decades ago.

stardognine

Don't worry about how fit your bike is, just make sure YOU'RE fit enough to ride the course. 😋😁😉

Plenty of good advice above. ✌️

Miele Man

Ah, a fellow after my own heart. I love Classic MIELE bicycles.

I have an old MIELE MTB that I've converted to drop-bar, V-brakes, interrupter brake levers and bar-end shifters and use for touring and/or dirt/gravel road riding here in Southern Ontario, Canada. I love the fact that I can put anything from 26" by 2.25" knobby tires or 26" by 1" slicks on it depending on where I plan to ride it. I like the adjustable stem because with it I can adjust the height and the reach of the handlebar.

Fit is quite important for long days in the saddle or for times when you're riding whist tired. Here are a couple of images of my bike after I installed the V-brakes.




Good luck.

Cheers

Yan 

I still have a Miele Tivoli in Toronto. It's bright orange. I believe they were made in Ontario.

djb

hey there mr big nickel (boy, haven't seen that for 50 years!) what I would strongly suggest is really thinking about how your Miele fits you. If you always felt that you were always a bit too stretched out, or the bars too low, whatever, then use these established measurements and compare them to either bikes you can maybe sit on in a real bike store, or at least compare measurements online.
I did this a bunch of years ago when I replaced my old touring bike with a new one, and it helped immensely as I had a reference. Used a measuring tape and a piece of paper, noted the old bikes dimensions, ie seat, seatpost to handlebars, seatpost to where the hoods were (because a lot of dropbars now are "compact" , meaning a shorter distance from tops to the hoods, and shallower drop to the dropbars)
This really helped buying a new bike.
Just remember that you can change stems easily, shorter, more angled up, etc, and a good bike store will have tons of stems to switch out onto a bike you are trying--but if you have a reference already from the old bike and can really relate to how the Miele fit you, or didnt fit, you're ahead of the game already as numbers don't lie when you measure stuff on a new bike.
Some bikes have higher front ends, so its easier to have a higher handlebar. I personally like my bars just about thesame height of my seat, but you'll see, small differences can make a big difference in your comfort.

anyway, good luck, and as someone else mentioned, be a bit wary about "bike fitting professionals", if they are racer types who never toured, or are simply either hardcore riders or clueless, you can pay good money to get set up for an aggessive position that really isnt suited to touring and or your body and fitness level.

from years experience with setting up bikes for myself, family and friends (I have over 30 years touring experience) all I can say is that it's pretty easy to lower or lengthen handlebars, but it's often tricky to raise or shorten bars if a frame is too big for a rider.
All that to say is just be wary of proper frame sizing and for touring, being able to easily get the bars to about seat height (a bit above is a safe bet) and with a. proper reach to your seat. Short stems in my experience are not an issue at all for handling. My most comfortable touring bike has a 50mm stem on it, rather short, and it handles just fine.

good luck looking
not a ton of touring bikes in stores, so hopefully you won't have to go to Toronto or somewhere to physically sit on a few.

and welcome to bike touring, its a blast.