Moisture

I believe that finding a frame which genuinely fits you is such a underlooked idea, which seems to really inhibit how or where we ride our bikes, for how often, and how much we enjoy doing so.

As some of you may already know, I was crazy obsessive over a bike I acquired this summer- a GT Zaskar LE. And while it was a fantastic bike indeed, me being 6ft3 with a 34" inseam (which may not seem like much, but I am a bit of a bodybuilding fanatic, and as a result am rather top heavy) resulted in me constantly feeling like I was hanging over the front axle of any bike I rode. After trying for months to get my Zaskar to work decently with a stem riser, different ridiculous stem attachments and even new handlebars, I realized that I am simply not going to enjoy biking nearly as much as I ought to be without getting a frame which genuinely fits me comfortably.

After doing some research and taking into consideration my desire for a fairly upright riding position, I've determined that a bike with a short reach (typically something designed to compensate for the longer reach of a drop bar set up) is going to work best for me, just converted to flat bars. I came across an absolutely fantastic website called bikeinsights.com which displays the frame measurements of many different bikes. This is ultimately what helps me determine a comfortable fit.

And so, I bought a new bike - a 1980 Norco Monterey. 63.5CM frame. I bought it already converted to flat bars. I bought this thing essentially knowing that is was going to the dump if I wasn't going to be the one who picks it up. Mechanically it works great, but is in very sorry cosmetic condition. I started by doing a basic tuneup -loosening out the lateral screw to bring the derialleur in closer to the cassette, cleaned and oiled up the chain, lubed up the pulleys, etc. I noticed that the chain was very saggy in the smaller cogs. Fortunately, I managed to fix this by simply tightening the bolt which held the derialleur to the hangar, this pulled the derialleur back and added tension to the chain.

Now, the bike feels noticeably faster and shifts very positively. But I know that I still have lots more work left ahead of me. For instance, the seatpost was very stuck. Everything needs to be restored, including the bottom bracket and the freewheel as well as the hubs front/rear. Once I have everything taken apart, I'll be stripping the frame and repainting it.

the rims are in surprisingly good condition, but the rear rim has obviously been bent before, as evidenced by the fact that I cannot tighten two or three of the spokes without severely bending the rim. This causes the rest of the rim to remain true for maybe a day tops even if I am gentle. Next up, I will be replacing the rear rim, as well as the cracked old rear tire and fitting a Shimano 7 speed cassette while I'm at it. Now, essentially all I have to do is rehaul the bottom bracket and replace the tired old chain.

As for the seatpost... I took the bike to a body shop. They took a blow torch to the seatpost and ended up ripping the old post with a hydraulic car frame puller. After smacking the clamp attached to the post several times with a hammer.

If you've stuck around to this point, you may be wondering how does the bike ride... and, well, absolutely brilliant. Its a lugged chromoly frame (the fork and rear triangle is made from hi tensile steel). I feel like I can balance my weight between the two axles brilliantly well. When pushing the bike hard through slippery paths, instead of wrestling the front tire for grip, it's the rear which begins to gracefully skid out. The 2x5 gearing works well on pavement and even gravel. Overall, the bike feels very fast and stable. Its great fun to thrash her around the turns and the cromoly frame feels wonderfully smooth. If you're used to aluminum frames, trying out a good old steel one is refreshing to say the least.

Here is a picture of how she looked when I first picked her up. I will upload another picture of her with my new mountain bike handlebars as well as the new seat/seatpost shortly.

Cheers!!

Koyote

I disagree with your premise.

hsuBM

I’m glad you finally got a bike that fits your body well.

———

I’m only 5’11” but my inseam is 36” regardless of any bodybuilding or lack thereof.

The journey through road and rigid mtb frames to find what works for me would take a lot of typing for one sitting.

I like 61-64cm antique/vintage steel road frames with their classic drop handles set such that the bottoms are level with level ground beneath the wheels and the stem set near max height. I’ll seldom be out of the drops on these bikes.

the contact points often are the same on those large bikes as the 55-58cm which I end up putting on a short stem and bullhorn bars (and sometimes a longer seatpost) slammed low to get feeling right. I suppose I could use drops plus a long and tall Technomic stem to get there... but then there’s another issue with the smaller frames: toe overlap.

I live somewhere where I have to have fenders mounted for 3/4 of the year. While the larger bikes do tend to have a steeper head angle (which I like, many don’t), they still have a larger distance from the BB to the back of the front tire/fender making it less likely to get stuck against one of my clipped in shoes.


My main summer bike is now an ‘85-ish Trek 770 57cm with Nitto RB-009 bars on a 70mm stem and my last winter bike frame was a ‘87 Bridgestone 300 61cm with stock handles. I’m keeping an eye out for another large frame with fender mounts to show up as right now my 3/4- year frame is a 70s Lejeune 58cm and the toe overlap is getting annoying.

Wildwood 

I'm old school and was a 15 year rider before getting my first expert fit assessment. Here's my two experiences.

1. Fitment - the ride it and tweek technique.
Visited the Calfee factory (back a few years ago) and Craig set me up for a long ride on his top of the line bike (with my saddle and pedals). He did so by measuring the bike I had arrived on. With a stem height and saddle position adjustment on the Calfee, I was gone for 2 hours. We talked afterwards about fit and frame geometry. He spent over an hour with me without asking for an order. I bought his bike about a year later after comparing it with Trek, Aegis, and others.

2. Fitment - the multi-technique approach
When buying my custom steel, Jon: a) spoke with me about how I rode and desired characteristics; b) took a short ride with me to observe technique/style; c) measured me; d) put me on my bike on a trainer for a hard 20minutes to see my position/technique as I tired. I got an input on tube selection, and it was my paint design.

Laughable by today's millimeter standard of exactment??? maybe, but I'm a 35 year continuous adult cyclist without a bodily usage injury. And I still own and ride these customs.

Moisture

36" inseam at 5'11" ? You must be very lanky!

I love the idea of having alternative grip positions when using drop bars, but during my brief time trying them out, I felt the flat bars give you a lot more precision when navigating more technical stuff.

When my handlebars are even slightly lower than my seatpost, I find it pretty uncomfortable. Its not unbearable, but I find that my balance becomes too affected to really have fun around corners. Im about 225lb which isn't extreme, but you can probably picture what its like to have all that weight hanging over the handlebars. I imagine that drop bars must work a lot better for somebody who is on the skinnier side.

I totally agree with you on the vintage road bikes. They are absolutely fantastic bikes. The quality of the steel being used and the lugged seamless tubing is superior to modern welded frames. I plan to stick with my Monterey as my primary bike for a long time.

Actually, I luckily don't have any issues with overlap on this bike, which is fantastic. Some fenders would be great though. I want to install some sort of bento box above the rear tire for transporting stuff.

In the future, im pretty eager to try some sort of drop bar setup and see how that goes. I like the idea of being able to hunker down in the drops for better power trasnfer as well as aerodynamics. Just not the entire time I'm riding. I'll probably use a short stem that you can raise up pretty high so that the hoods are above my saddle and angle them slightly upwards. I just don't understand these super bent over positions people go for on road bikes with the seat and bars angled downwards. I guess it makes sense when riding on pavement full of gentle turns, but I tend to ride in areas which have lots of lots of tight corners everywhere. The flat bars help navigating this type of terrain tremendously. My ideal riding position is fairly upright where I can hunker down a little bit whenever I must weight the front axle, such as going over bumps. This way, I feel like my weight is really biased toward the rear axle for super stable handling at the limit - although i can still easily balance myself front and rear depending on the terrain. This is an extremely important skill to master for.somebody 220lb or heavier.

You said you like to have your saddle slammed? Do you mean that you have it set lower than whatever would be your maximum height?

My previous experience with bikes involved newer design XC hardtails with long reaches. They are designed this way to weight your front axle for technical singletrack. Its uncomfortable and useless for the.majoirty of riding I tend to do. This is actually the reason why I felt so uncomfortable and bent over on a frame which I otherwise loved very much and didn't seem all that small for me. I just couldn't keep riding about with my ridiculous 60 degree stem attachment and massive stem riser. It totally neutered the handling.

Nonetheless, my GT Zaskar taught me almost everything I know about bikes and I had tons and tons of fun with that bike. After getting my seat height to the correct position on my norco, unfortunately I stopped riding it. I think I will have to sell it.

mstateglfr 

Look into leveling out that saddle, now that its apparently in the correct height. Prostate exams aren't what I like when riding.

Moisture

It was too low in that picture. Was actually set at a comfortable angle though. I'll upload a picture of how it looks with the new seat today.

Kapusta

Uh, this is news to nobody, and is certainly not “underlooked” (by which I think you mean “overlooked”).

Everyone in that other thread was telling you that your frame did not fit you.

The decision to go with a converted drop bar frame was a good one if you wanted a much shorter reach (which you apparently did want).

hsuBM

I am now that I’m back down to 160lbs, but my height & inseam weren’t any different when I was up at 230lbs. I just have a short torso.

I don’t find that. I find great benefit from the lower center of gravity gained by leaning as low behind the handlebars as my neck will reasonably allow while looking rather far up the path.

The only time I’ve experienced my weight feeling forward of the bars is if riding a frame with an extremely too short top tube and/or stem.

Having drops which are wide enough for your shoulders is pretty important. For road racing, slightly less wide than ones shoulders is okay. For venturing into the trails it’s really nice to have some which are slightly wider than one’s shoulders.

I’m definitely a lot more comfortable when the majority of my weight is between the rear axle and the handlebars. I try to spend at least 60% of the time tugging up & back on the bars. Even when braking hard enough that my rear wheel is in the air, my arms are still somewhat loose and I’m putting as much of my weight into the pedals as I can.

There are a lot of great quality large saddle bags on the market. I’ve got one which will fit a spare tube, a pair of CO2 cartridges, tire levers and either a large lunch or my favorite jacket. Pretty happy with that in the chillier months. sometimes wish I had one of the larger Carradice style ones.

this in addition to lower center of gravity are priorities to me for 95% of my rides.

Nitto Technomic. Worth every penny.



some people want to sit more than they want to pedal and don’t know 1) that they can hover over the saddle while pedaling nor 2) that the saddle should be near level 3) will be less uncomfortable with the saddle near level and at a height from the pedal’s lowest position 0.25-1.50” shorter than their inseam (depending on their intended terrain).



Having the place my hands tend to be being lower than my saddle by 3-6” keeps me from leaning so far back that I end up sitting more than I need to when there’s no couch in sight.



One of my bikes has the main grip area a smidge higher than the saddle, but that bike is for biking/camping The Rockies or other ultra relaxed rides.

fixed.



no, my stem when using a medium sized frame and bullhorn handlebars.



My saddle can be close to slammed-looking on anything bigger than a 64cm frame, especially if I’m using a Brooks sprung B17 (champ or flyer?).



I’ve gone through at least 20 frames and have only just gotten fitment somewhat figured out for do-it-all bikes for the semi hunched-down position I typically use. There are some routes I like to ride which benefit from frames & handlebar-to-saddle-heights which are vastly different from the other two I mentioned.

bruce19

I have always used the LeMond-Guimard formula .665 x inseam) to find a frame size. For me, at 32.5" inseam, that basically comes to a 54-55 cm frame. With a 55 cm TT. That has always worked for me.

subgrade

It probably depends on the conditions. For slippery surfaces, rearward biased weight means the front wheel will have less grip and tend to wash out sooner. I have done winter riding on a bike where where I was seated nearly completely upright, thus most of the weight was on the rear wheel, and riding it in the snow it was hard work, I had to constantly correct the sliding front wheel to maintain my direction and keep the rubber side down. Although that weight distribution also meant that there was more room for the front wheel to slide about before it reached the point of no return, it also meant that it lost traction a lot sooner.

Moisture

I actually bought my Norco with a stem which looked pretty much exactly the same as this Nitto you mentioned. It worked pretty well with the short flat handlebars I had. But, not my riding style. I was always doing everything I can with my two previous bikes, which were too small for me to get the riding position relatively upright, so it was nice to see that all I had to do was simply swap out the stem and handlebars off an old diamondback mountain bike I had laying around to get pretty much the perfect fit. This is why I really like quill stems, because they tend to be higher up than the stack of the frame itself, plus you can easily adjust the height by loosening and tightening one hex bolt.

Moisture

Conditions yes, but I have to admit it seems like it mainly boils down to the way your body is built and how well you fit on the bike. I have relatively long legs and am pretty top heavy, so a hunched over position absolutely ruins the bikes balance for me. I can feel it when trying to bunny hop over obstacles - the front end just comes crashing down too soon. I can feel the front tire being the first to lose traction all the time and it was really ruining the fun for me.

By getting this road bike which fundamentally has a short reach due to being designed around drop bars, my weight is now perfectly centered between the two front axles. You might find that as you ride, you subconciously learn how to balance yourself by weighting yourself over the pedals and leaning back, or leaning forward to weight the front axle, etc. With the short reach, I can do this without even thinking twice about it. When i am thrashing the bike hard it is extremely satisfying to feel the rear end start to skid out in a most graceful and controlled manner. You can carry some serious speed through the technical stuff with confidence this way.

For somebody who is built alot more skinny than me, obviously they require a different frame geometry to balance themselves correct and can really take advantage of a hunched over position without tiring themselves out.

I am keen to try out drop bars in the near future because there are times where I prefer the racy leaning forward position. Sometimes I will take my old bike, which has a dramatically longer reach and overall smaller dimensions to get that streamlined feel.

subgrade

I don't have to think about anything I do on my bike, it's pretty much all subconscious.

I just wonder what kind of technical stuff are you thrashing the road bike hard through? And how long do you expect the bike to last riding it in this manner?

Moisture

by technical i mean series of technical turns, usually over bumpy and undulating terrain, such as windy gravel or dirt paths, broken pavement, etc. The frame can definetely take some thrashing. The rear rim seems to be holding up alright too.

I didn't mean technical single track.

rydabent

Now that I ride a recumbent bike and trike, it is simple. Move the seat forward or to the rear to get the proper distance to the pedals. Then set the handle bars to a comfortable position.

redcon1

Moisture have you ever browsed the forums before asking questions, and just sticking them in the General Forum? Did you even notice that there is a Bike Fit forum? So of course, your premise that many cyclists are unconcerned about proper bike fit is false.

https://www.bikeforums.net/fitting-your-bike/

Reading the presented topics and the wealth of information shared previously first will educate you. For example, before you jumped in and bought your fantastic GT mountain bike, you might have taken a few minutes to research how to determine how a bike should fit and completely avoided that whole experience.
I have suggested this before, and it doesn't seem like you took my advice. But just trying again, and hopeful.

70sSanO

I bought a 56cm bike because they didn’t have a 54cm. A few years later the same thing happened. Now 30+ years later it is moot.

With a slightly longer torso and arms, it is probably turned out to be a better fit.

But with different stems and seatposts available you can make anything close fit.

John

Moisture

This is all fantastic advice. Speaks volumes with regards to your cycling experience.

By keeping your butt hovering over the saddle, not only will be crank out significantly more power, but you are also centering more of your weight towards the rear. This helps with stability and power trasnfer. When I set up the front axle correctly around turns and apply power accordingly, feels great to be quite literally steering with the rear axle - feeling that rear tire scrambling for traction.

Over very bumpy terrain, I tend to take some weight off my wrists on purpose and let my hands hover over the handlebars. This causes the front axle to go over bumps as if I had 2-3cm of suspension.

I've also learned to go down curbs (something I began to always avoid after learning of the damage im causing to the rear wheel) by sort of using your knees as "springs" as you go down. You end up hovering over the curb with very little impact to the rear rim.

alot of these techniques are best learned out on singletrack trails. Cant stress how much I've progressed, increasing efficiency, decrease wear, increased speed by learning the skillful art of balancing. Switching out the bent suspension fork to a shorter rigid fork on my old GT XC bike is what really helped me progress. By learning to do little bunny hops over obstacles, you are quite literally pushing your weight into the cranks, while letting the front axle float over the bump and applying pedalling power all at the same time. Really helps to use obstacles to your advantage by gaining momentum.,

burnthesheep

Unfortunately, that saddle angle tells me that the bike fit is still wrong despite the cool story. There are fit coordinates that could be altered somewhere that it wouldn't bias weight so far rearward.

And....I'm out. I don't know anything.

downhillmaster

This post and this entire thread seem to be about nothing more than the fact that you appear to struggle with the same normal riding conditions that the vast majority of other cyclists deal with easily and without even thinking.

Moisture

It was set at the most comfortable angle.. and not by me. Here's how it looks now:

mstateglfr 

These sort of threads are fascinating. A sociologist would be great to have by my side to explain all the academic terminology for some of the interactions I see.
Fascinating.

tkamd73 

I only have horizontal top tube CV bikes, so if I can stand over it without too much contact, it fits. Greater then 2 inches from contact, its too small. Different size quill stems for the horizontal fit, which is a constant distance from center of seat to center of handlebar where it mounts to stem. Also constant distance from top of seat to center of crank. Actually pretty simple for me.
Tim

Moisture

1. Have you seen how well I ride over obstacles before?
2. Do you see what sort of obstacles I tend to deal with on an average commute?
3. What makes you think I am struggling? I am simple stating what I have learned as a biker. This does nothing to gauge how easy or difficult it is for me.
4. By vast majority, you don't mean 220LB+ riders, do you? At least, I hope not. Let's rephrase what you just said a little bit:

Does that still make sense to you?