Onetwothree

Hey Fam,

Over the winter I have been experimenting with my bike fit. During my professional bike fit, I was discussing reach with my fitter. Since reach is more of an art compared to say seat height, the fitter raised an interesting method for checking your reach or appropriate top-tube and stem length combo, which has to do with your body proportions, rather than angles or visual inspection of your riding position or the hub test as the list goes on.

He went on to say that a reach is pretty spot on when sitting on your seat, bend all the way down, keeping your back straight or leveled , and see where your nose falls in relation to the handlebars (got to physically touch). If your nose touches where the stem intersects with your handlebars, while supporting yourself obviously, you have a good reach or the right top-tube and stem length combo. He went on to say this will yield a good measure of reach.

It makes sense if you think about it, since it uses your body proportions rather than some other arbitrary method.

Anyways, I thought it was interesting. I find that reach is a very subjective topic. Basically, go by comfort is the answer. If you go online and look for how to set your reach, you will not get a real answer, just bunch of noise.

What do you guys think of this "technique" and how does it measure up with your current set up?

Kontact 

It seems somewhat similar to the bar obscuring the hub method. What both lack is reference to the bar reach, hood reach, arm length or flexibility.

These kind of tools can work for many people, but are so totally wrong in many cases as to make them almost like randomly selecting a stem.

Carbonfiberboy 

Interesting! Just tried it on my favorite single. Butt on saddle like I was descending, back as straight as it would be descending, nose exactly touched center of bars. But if I rounded my back like many people do, my nose was ~6" aft of bars. So that's going to depend on flexibility to measure out correctly. And interestingly, in my normal riding position, hands on hoods, my hub appears to be ~1.5" behind my bars. I never paid any attention to that when fitting. I look for a 90° angle between upper arm and straight torso, hands on hoods or in drops. But mostly I just go by what feels right.

johnny99

This "method" has been around for decades. Along with "the distance from your elbow to the end of your middle finger should be the same as the distance from the tip of your seat to handlebars" and "in your normal riding position if you look down at the handlebars, your front hub should be obscured behind it". These do work for some people, but obviously they don't consider enough factors to work for everyone. Someone with extra long arms compared to their height is probably going to want a longer reach than your method recommends.

berner

I think Kontact is right in pointing out that with rules of thumb, the rule will work for some but not for others. For example, a person with long arms will need a different reach than one with shorter arms. Furthermore, a person with a stocky build where a higher than average amount of weight higher up may not be totally comfortable with a long reach and higher weight on the hands.

IK_biker

Thanks for sharing, but this uses the wrong body proportions.

The actual body proportions which matter for reach are torso length, upper arm length, lower arm length.
The "nose" method takes into account neck length, which has nothing to do with the above parameters, and completely ignores the two arm length dimensions.
Same BS as the "hub obscured from view" method.

Road Fan

Not just what Berner said, but Carbon’s comment implies it’s not just variable with body proportion but also with posture, which may be a matter of mood, fatigue or even training.

Lenkearney

I am this person - never thought about reach being a factor - you may have just solved my problem..

berner

Hope it helps. Like the ancient Greeks have said, "It''s all geometry".

linberl

If you're perfectly proportional, it works. See Vitruvian man's drawing. Not many of us are perfectly proportional, however. It's a starting point - great place to begin to make those tiny incremental adjustments one at a time til you find fit nirvana.