Cristian-T
Retro Guru
also, the size you decide you need, is purely dependant on the way the bike is sized.
someone's 20" will be someone slse's 22"...
someone's 20" will be someone slse's 22"...
road bike sizeing
- Thread starter THWANG-666
- Start date
Cristian-T
Retro Guru
easy.
whilst riding a mountain bike, your postion is constantly moving all over the place, when you shift your weight everywhere, because of the constantly changing terrain. also, you spend much more time out the saddle, & in the attack postion..
on a roadbike, your either in the saddle, or occassionly out the saddle, when climbing. (sometimes, a lot, depends on the rider) but as a rule, you spend much more time on your ass. especially when you counter in the fact that (& i have to generalise here) you do more miles on a roadbike. thats the main thing, goin out & getting a good 20/30/40.. miles "in".
anyway, the postion on a roadbike is much more "extreme/stretched out" than an mtb, which is more upright (depends the type of mtb as to how upright)
sooo when it comes to fit, roadbikes have to be sized with much more care. regardless of how serious you are about your riding. it is quite geeky unfortunatly, but using systems like bikefitting.com (no i dont work for them!) have an amazing effect on a riders performance & COMFORT.
a common thing i see is people basing their opinions on their own experiances, which is fine, but not everyone is the same. when we measure people, we have to take into account injuries, flexibilitly, fittness, riding experiance, & most importantly application!
generaly, for a casual roadie rider who wants just get fitter, who medically is all good, we would set them up with about an 80mm saddle-to-bar drop. we would decrease that by 10-30mm for someone with back probs. for example..
at the other end of the scale you have time trial setups, which are pretty dam extreme & only safe for flat, short-ish courses. they tend to have about 120-140ish mm drop.
inbetween youve got cat. licenenced people that race-100ish mm drop.
one more thing, not every make of bike suits every rider. depending on how proportionate you are, against the averages for a male/female of your height. best example, i never sold many treks because they have horizontal toptubes (not slighty sloped/sploped/compact). its wierd, bikefitting.com's database is worldwide, & it was almost mad how so many english people have shorter legs than average!
is it true americans are averagly taller than brits??
anyway im done! i would NEVER put this info on a roadie forum, i really hope you guys are more laid back, & i dont get any crazy backlash!! i sell bikes for a living (duh) & i love making people happy about riding their bikes. simple.
also i like retrobike. a lot. my brains fried. laters.
Cristian.
p.s all this info is based on modern roadbikes, not your curly hetchins etc.
whilst riding a mountain bike, your postion is constantly moving all over the place, when you shift your weight everywhere, because of the constantly changing terrain. also, you spend much more time out the saddle, & in the attack postion..
on a roadbike, your either in the saddle, or occassionly out the saddle, when climbing. (sometimes, a lot, depends on the rider) but as a rule, you spend much more time on your ass. especially when you counter in the fact that (& i have to generalise here) you do more miles on a roadbike. thats the main thing, goin out & getting a good 20/30/40.. miles "in".
anyway, the postion on a roadbike is much more "extreme/stretched out" than an mtb, which is more upright (depends the type of mtb as to how upright)
sooo when it comes to fit, roadbikes have to be sized with much more care. regardless of how serious you are about your riding. it is quite geeky unfortunatly, but using systems like bikefitting.com (no i dont work for them!) have an amazing effect on a riders performance & COMFORT.
a common thing i see is people basing their opinions on their own experiances, which is fine, but not everyone is the same. when we measure people, we have to take into account injuries, flexibilitly, fittness, riding experiance, & most importantly application!
generaly, for a casual roadie rider who wants just get fitter, who medically is all good, we would set them up with about an 80mm saddle-to-bar drop. we would decrease that by 10-30mm for someone with back probs. for example..
at the other end of the scale you have time trial setups, which are pretty dam extreme & only safe for flat, short-ish courses. they tend to have about 120-140ish mm drop.
inbetween youve got cat. licenenced people that race-100ish mm drop.
one more thing, not every make of bike suits every rider. depending on how proportionate you are, against the averages for a male/female of your height. best example, i never sold many treks because they have horizontal toptubes (not slighty sloped/sploped/compact). its wierd, bikefitting.com's database is worldwide, & it was almost mad how so many english people have shorter legs than average!
is it true americans are averagly taller than brits??
anyway im done! i would NEVER put this info on a roadie forum, i really hope you guys are more laid back, & i dont get any crazy backlash!! i sell bikes for a living (duh) & i love making people happy about riding their bikes. simple.
also i like retrobike. a lot. my brains fried. laters.
Cristian.
p.s all this info is based on modern roadbikes, not your curly hetchins etc.
Stick Legs
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Hmmm...Interesting...
(goes out to shed with tape measure, then looks for stems on ebay
)
(goes out to shed with tape measure, then looks for stems on ebay
)Cristian, I do agree with you about getting the right fit, and if you're gonna do something like this then you should do it right. Not to the Nth degree or anything daft but I still think that getting it right applies equally to mtb's and not more in favour of road cycling.
Let's talk about the more serious cyclists not the leisure cyclists, the ones who go out to enjoy and increase fitness. I guess your saying that because mtbers on the whole do shorter mileages than their roadie counterparts that they are spending less time in the saddle and so it's not really going to matter? Not necessarily true, the terrain that mtbers travel over is slippery, bumpy, gnarly and loose etc, it can take 2 hours to do a 25-30 mile ride. Roadies on their smooth road surfaces with their skinny tyres will do well over 40 miles in that same time-frame.
When I go out on my mtb it's for at least 20 miles and as much as 50, I average more when I'm on the road bike (Yes, I know others do double that!) so I should really get the fit right too.
Let's take your point of moving on the bike. You may be shifting position here and there but in the main you are still sat on your ass and that's when any bad fitting will start to take effect on your body.
Personally, when I'm on my geared mtb for instance, I never (well, hardly ever
) get out of the saddle. On the roadbike it's virtually the same apart from hills as you so rightfully say. When I'm on my singlespeed well that's another thing altogether, you have to stomp when climbing the bigger hills or get off and walk.
True, you are more stretched out on a roadbike so that has got to be right, likewise most mtbers don't want to be stretched out over the TT so that has to be right too.
I'm not having a go, you've put your point across and this is mine.
Let's talk about the more serious cyclists not the leisure cyclists, the ones who go out to enjoy and increase fitness. I guess your saying that because mtbers on the whole do shorter mileages than their roadie counterparts that they are spending less time in the saddle and so it's not really going to matter? Not necessarily true, the terrain that mtbers travel over is slippery, bumpy, gnarly and loose etc, it can take 2 hours to do a 25-30 mile ride. Roadies on their smooth road surfaces with their skinny tyres will do well over 40 miles in that same time-frame.
When I go out on my mtb it's for at least 20 miles and as much as 50, I average more when I'm on the road bike (Yes, I know others do double that!) so I should really get the fit right too.
Let's take your point of moving on the bike. You may be shifting position here and there but in the main you are still sat on your ass and that's when any bad fitting will start to take effect on your body.
Personally, when I'm on my geared mtb for instance, I never (well, hardly ever
) get out of the saddle. On the roadbike it's virtually the same apart from hills as you so rightfully say. When I'm on my singlespeed well that's another thing altogether, you have to stomp when climbing the bigger hills or get off and walk. True, you are more stretched out on a roadbike so that has got to be right, likewise most mtbers don't want to be stretched out over the TT so that has to be right too.
I'm not having a go, you've put your point across and this is mine.
Cristian-T
Retro Guru
hey fella,
i completely agree with everything you said, you made some good points, but i was having to generalise..
when talking about such an open subject, you have to! i only feel im in a good postion to generalise because i sell bikes everyday (almost) & have done for a long time.
i didnt counter-in the more serious mtb'rs because i dont see that many. also, most serious mtb'rs who have been riding for a good while, know how to set their bikes up.
we do however use the fitting system on mtb's sometimes, but i dont think its as important as using it on roadbikes, but thats just my opinion.
oh, & singlespeed, well ive raced track events, but ive not ridden ss mtbs.. (yet), but then again i didnt/couldnt write any more in that post, my head was hurting!
i completely agree with everything you said, you made some good points, but i was having to generalise..
when talking about such an open subject, you have to! i only feel im in a good postion to generalise because i sell bikes everyday (almost) & have done for a long time.
i didnt counter-in the more serious mtb'rs because i dont see that many. also, most serious mtb'rs who have been riding for a good while, know how to set their bikes up.
we do however use the fitting system on mtb's sometimes, but i dont think its as important as using it on roadbikes, but thats just my opinion.
oh, & singlespeed, well ive raced track events, but ive not ridden ss mtbs.. (yet), but then again i didnt/couldnt write any more in that post, my head was hurting!
Cristian-T
Retro Guru
yeah, thats cool, i know you wasnt, you gave me food for thought about singlespeeding!
it had been on my mind, my mate got 10th at the last gorrick on one, fully ridged! respect. would def. be a bit different from my dh racing!
it had been on my mind, my mate got 10th at the last gorrick on one, fully ridged! respect. would def. be a bit different from my dh racing!
