4 ms·
There are professional "bike fitters" that know how to adjust all these things (those that can be adjusted) and more in such a way you get everything set up the
by matsemann 6y ago
There are professional "bike fitters" that know how to adjust all these things (those that can be adjusted) and more in such a way you get everything set up the best given your body and goals.
For instance, given a bike and a rider, one can adjust seat height, seat position, stem length, handlebarhheight, crank arm length and possible more things to get the correct reach and stem height. However, all that also has to be adjusted to account for body size (limb lengths), mobility etc, in order to level the hips, get the knees correctly over the pedals, aero position, correct weight on the hands, no chafing in the butt etc. It's really an art to adjust everything at once, as fixing one thing affects the others.
So while a bikefit can cost about $300, it's money well spent if one is serious about the biking (and one has then probably spent ~20x that on bike+gear anyways.. ). I'm about to head out for a ~120km ride today, so I've found a bike fit invaluable.
- TopHand 6y agoI agree with you a 100%. Your bike should help you maintain good riding posture even when you are becoming road tired. Just be careful about who you pay to fit the bike. Most shops claim to be experts, but I have had bad experiences with some shops. It doesn't show until you've ridden a great many miles.
- usrusr 6y agoMoney well spent if the fitter is actually good. I've seen some rather unconvincing results.
- loeg 6y agoProfessional bike fitting is sort of a sub-discipline of physical therapy, at least in the US. (That might not be obvious to people who haven't had a professional bike fit; it wasn't to me before I did.) To the extent your health insurance covers PT, it covers PT bike fits.