Asking for some bike fit help please? (long post)

A few months ago I asked a question about something and it came up that I was trying 155mm cranks. Swapped in for 175mm cranks.
It was advised that I was probably countering a different problem and that I should ask for help on here about bike fit. So, this sounds interesting as I have always been uncomfortable on a bike. Pretty fed up after a mile or two and keen to get off. I would really appreciate help, if anyone is willing to help me, I would love to cycle more.

<b>Beware</b>, this is a long post as I am trying to get all of the info in the first post. Hopefully it covers all the relevant details.

My main discomfort is sit bone pain. So bad. I have pushed through it, but it is bad so quick. In the first mile or so. I have sorted my lack of blood to legs with saddle shape also, numb feet, different shoes and socks. Hand pain has improved with the shorter cranks.
I have manned through it in the hope I get used to it, but never have. I am now 55 yo.
I was always just holding myself back from the bars as I was constantly sliding forwards. It was translated as weight on the hands, but this is how I was basically cycling:
https://imgur.com/chyGFn0

I have tried all sorts of things, but now have some time to try and work on this. Whenever I relaxed my hands, I just slid forward on the saddle. I have spoke to plenty of people before and the conversation never seemed to make sense.

I currently don’t cycle much as I am fed up being in pain. I commute 2 miles each way with a bit of a hill coming home.

THEN, at last, I got round to trying the 155mm cranks.
Suddenly, I understand what people are saying about bike fit etc etc.
NOW I understand why they were saying what they were saying.
No wonder they didn’t understand, things now make a lot more sense.
Now, suddenly I am more planted on the saddle, I can go no hands (well, my skills are not good enough but I can if I lean against the wall with my knee.) I can lower my chin to the bars and hold it at any position no problems, I am not sliding forward on the saddle.

Well, only a little. It feels suddenly like I have more strength on the pedals.
Feels like I have more pressure on the rear pedal which means I can hold myself stronger on the front pedal.
I also wonder if the longer crank was pulling me forward.

Now, I have always wanted to sit further back, almost off the saddle before. Now it is MUCH better. One of the things that seems to have helped this is raising my saddle by 20mm which has pushed my saddle a bit further back which has helped.

On the comfort side, I think the fact that my knee is now 40mm lower at its top than it was before is helping. I think possibly that I was ‘scrunching’ putting me more on my pointy bits of my sit bones ? I have recently also found that leaning more forward reduces discomfort slightly, also sort of plants me more on the pedals????

I was riding my 175mm cranks before I got the 155mm and my knee popped when pushing up a hill. It never started to heal until I swapped in the shorter cranks and it started to heal. Then I thought I would use another bike as a test bed and popped the 175s back on and it immediately popped my knee again. I am still recovering from that one.

Body measurements. In cm.

I used a spirit level for much of this. Obviously will be some slight differences, but should give an idea of ratios? Happy to measure different ways if it helps?

Foot length: 25cm
Floor to top of knee (sat with back to wall thigh horizontal with shin vertical): 52cm
Thigh. (Well, I sat my back against a wall same as with above): 56cm
Back length (sat on a crate and measured height from seat height to shoulder (a bit vague I know, but decided against top of head as neck length and head height make no difference to a bike fit? (I sat with relaxed shoulders and measured to that bone lump on the shoulder))): 65cm
Arm length. (stood in the corner shoulders against wall, arm horizontal, measured to knuckles of a closed fist as I think finger length not relevant?): 68cm
Shoulder width (I wasn’t sure how to do this one, so I just measured overall shoulder width by standing in the corner, one shoulder against the wall): 50cm

I always feel like bars are too far away and too low. I think I might have a longer torso which might take my shoulders higher and shorter arms make it worse.
(I have compared to various shaped people 🙂 )

I currently am using a Specialized Roll frame (I wanted to try the relaxed sta as I always wanted to sit off the back of the saddle and that helped a bit.) I have some modolo dumbo bars which are super adjustable (I think currently a bit far away):
https://imgur.com/a/30w3Hsl

But the frame is too long I am sure.
My MTB is a Ragley Marley. Again, I think it is too long.
In the last year, I have bagsied a couple of other bikes. I can play with someones Raleigh CRX, a couple of other people were having a clear out and I have an old MTB steel frame to mess with and also an old Claud Butler Terino.
I am thinking with these different frames I can try different things. Someone also gave me a (I think partly broken) turbo. Which means I can set stuff up on it without worrying about changing brakes and gears etc. It still works as a simple roller.

One thing that feels like it would make sense is a road frame with straight bars and higher, but let’s see. I am very open to trying things.

Thanks.

Just book a bike fit with a proper bike-fitter.

OK, well I did try that, but they only used the bike i had which I knew was wrong.
I am posting this because it was suggested by someone on here to do so.
Over the last forty odd years, nothing has made such a difference as the shorter cranks.

OK, well I did try that, but they only used the bike i had which I knew was wrong.

That’s not a proper bike fitter then.

Go to someone who has a background in physiotherapy and the proper bike fitting rig and give your full medical history and a rundown of the things you’ve tried.

FWIW, shorter cranks is probably the next big thing in bike fit following a general realisation that the current use of 170 – 175 as standard is based mostly on “well we’ve always done it like this”.

I am not saying i won’t go for a bike fit, but I am wary of them.
He does have a background in physiotherapy, reviews were good etc etc.
I really needed a rig though in hindsight, yes. There weren’t any near me at the time.
Having considered it again many times, I am put off by all the negative comments about bike fits not working. About 50:50 with the amount of good ones would you reckon? Almost like a coin flip. If the standard process works for you, great.
I did some looking into frame geometries and it just seems that whatever the sta and hta are, they all seem to fit the same ratio of limb/torso.
Which I am not surprised, not much money in fitting someone who is not a common ratio.
Part of what this is about, seeing if I am just getting something wrong after all these years or if my ratios are different.
When I mentioned my crank lengths before on here, almost everyone said it can’t be that, it must be counteracting something else somewhere.

Just watch some of this for what a proper bike fit is like.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoITk4L2KbnSHwHwwiweNEQ

Work your way through Phil Burt’s ‘Bike Fit’ book?

There is also this (American?) app aimed at road and gravel riders:

MyVeloFit: The World’s #1 Online Bike Fit

A good start is posting a side on view of you pedalling on here. Whilst saddles can be implements of torture, the truth is you should be nicely balanced. Not tilted forwards taking weight on your arms. Once the saddle position is nice and neutral over the bottom bracket, with the fore/aft set depending on leg proportions, only then is it worth thinking about reach, handlebar drop and so forth.

saddles come in different designs, but you should be resting on your sit bones on the wider part of the saddle. Too wide will be uncomfortable, too narrow will take weight inside your sit bones on your perineum. Also bad. Could lead to numbness in men. The saddles with a channel help with this. But it’s normally due to saddle too narrow. It’s impossible to gauge from what you’ve said. I don’t do formulas, but I know how to make people comfortable. And basically it’s about saddle position first, right width, nicely balanced with weight through the legs (not arms) and then, as much or little reach and drop as you can muster from your inherent flexibility.

saddle height is not so important. I rode 100 miles today with a saddle more than an inch too low (hire bike with slipping seatpost). Too high and too far back is always bad. Too low, not so bad. Lemond’s is a good start fore/aft is set properly. Its not just 0.883x inseam as setback matters!

Having considered it again many times, I am put off by all the negative comments about bike fits not working. About 50:50 with the amount of good ones would you reckon? Almost like a coin flip. If the standard process works for you, great.

I’m going with no way it’s 50:50. Unhappy customers review way more often than happy ones. I think another issue is people not establishing why they are having the bike and making sure the fitter having the skills they need. Not that I’ve ever had a bike fit

I was always just holding myself back from the bars as I was constantly sliding forwards. It was translated as weight on the hands,

Jumps out to me, and you mention a long torso, if that’s the case it can be harder to set up the saddle to get your centre of gravity in the right place (through the BB or just behind it for a non-road race bike that’s set up for comfort)

This is good advice from TiRed, was going to say similar (I’m not a bike fitter, just some experience of general bike layouts for different impacts on average rider shape fit) –

A good start is posting a side on view of you pedalling on here. Whilst saddles can be implements of torture, the truth is you should be nicely balanced. Not tilted forwards taking weight on your arms. Once the saddle position is nice and neutral over the bottom bracket, with the fore/aft set depending on leg proportions, only then is it worth thinking about reach, handlebar drop and so forth.

Use the saddle fore-aft adjustment (a longer layback post maybe) to get yourself feeling in balance and avoid that tipping fwd weight on hands sensation, take a note of how far the saddle is behind the BB if you can. Then look at where your grips need to be and go from there.

Just watch some of this for what a proper bike fit is like.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoITk4L2KbnSHwHwwiweNEQ

Yes, I see that now.
Really need to trust that he is going to get it right at £330 eh?
Unfortunately I don’t have the money at all at least until next spring to be able to even think about spending that much.
Bargain (if you have the money) if you know it will work.

Just watch some of this for what a proper bike fit is like.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoITk4L2KbnSHwHwwiweNEQ

A good start is posting a side on view of you pedalling on here. Whilst saddles can be implements of torture, the truth is you should be nicely balanced. Not tilted forwards taking weight on your arms. Once the saddle position is nice and neutral over the bottom bracket, with the fore/aft set depending on leg proportions, only then is it worth thinking about reach, handlebar drop and so forth.

saddles come in different designs, but you should be resting on your sit bones on the wider part of the saddle. Too wide will be uncomfortable, too narrow will take weight inside your sit bones on your perineum. Also bad. Could lead to numbness in men. The saddles with a channel help with this. But it’s normally due to saddle too narrow. It’s impossible to gauge from what you’ve said. I don’t do formulas, but I know how to make people comfortable. And basically it’s about saddle position first, right width, nicely balanced with weight through the legs (not arms) and then, as much or little reach and drop as you can muster from your inherent flexibility.

saddle height is not so important. I rode 100 miles today with a saddle more than an inch too low (hire bike with slipping seatpost). Too high and too far back is always bad. Too low, not so bad. Lemond’s is a good start fore/aft is set properly. Its not just 0.883x inseam as setback matters!

Thank you very much for this. I have spent years trying to understand what this meant and adjusted all sorts of things all over the place.
I agree with you, getting that balanced feel seemed key. I could just not acheive it at all.
I picked up a specialized roll frame as it had a super slack sta.  This meant that i could put the seat much further back which meant i could bet my balance further back, but then whatever bike i tried, I was always sliding forwards off the saddle. Hence my need to wedge myself against the bars to hold myself back on the saddle. (this feeling is on any bike i have tried. Didn’t know others didn’t have it until recently)
Bear in mind that i was not ‘putting weight on my arms’ I was wedging myself against my bars to hold myself back.
Since I have put these 155mm cranks on, I can now actually have half a fighting chance of understanding what you are saying.

I suddenly can have weight on the back pedal for example, which gives me more strength on the front pedal.
which means I can hold myself up better. Not perfect, but I can’t tell you the difference. Night and day. I can now join in the conversation.

It will take me a while to sort out pictures, but I am happy to do it if it helps and you are willing to comment on it for me. I would appreciate it.
What bike would you like me to use? Does it matter as a starting point?

A good start is posting a side on view of you pedalling on here. Whilst saddles can be implements of torture, the truth is you should be nicely balanced. Not tilted forwards taking weight on your arms. Once the saddle position is nice and neutral over the bottom bracket, with the fore/aft set depending on leg proportions, only then is it worth thinking about reach, handlebar drop and so forth.

saddles come in different designs, but you should be resting on your sit bones on the wider part of the saddle. Too wide will be uncomfortable, too narrow will take weight inside your sit bones on your perineum. Also bad. Could lead to numbness in men. The saddles with a channel help with this. But it’s normally due to saddle too narrow. It’s impossible to gauge from what you’ve said. I don’t do formulas, but I know how to make people comfortable. And basically it’s about saddle position first, right width, nicely balanced with weight through the legs (not arms) and then, as much or little reach and drop as you can muster from your inherent flexibility.

saddle height is not so important. I rode 100 miles today with a saddle more than an inch too low (hire bike with slipping seatpost). Too high and too far back is always bad. Too low, not so bad. Lemond’s is a good start fore/aft is set properly. Its not just 0.883x inseam as setback matters!

I’m going with no way it’s 50:50. Unhappy customers review way more often than happy ones. I think another issue is people not establishing why they are having the bike and making sure the fitter having the skills they need.

This.

There’s a wide variety of “bike fit” stuff from the basic thing you might get in a bike shop to tweak the set-up of a bike you’re buying to full on performance and/or physio based system with jigs and lasers and who you go to will depend a lot on what you’re hoping to get out of it. Someone returning from injury or a long layoff from the sport has very different requirements to a Cat 2 roadie knocking on the door of Cat 1 / Elite and wanting to squeeze out every last ounce of performance.

Another vote for Phil Burt as mentioned above. Former Team GB physio, he’s written a couple of bike fit books and runs his own fit and physio centre now.

New Home

A good bike fit can make even a fairly cheap bike feel amazing to ride.
A bad bike fit can ruin the ride of even the best bike.

I’m not saying everyone needs a bike fit but there are a good number of people out there who’ll drop £1500 on a set of carbon wheels or £5000 on an aero road bike but not spend £300 on getting it all set up properly. And even Tadej Pogacar’s wheels won’t help a rider who has a bad position.

I’m going with no way it’s 50:50. Unhappy customers review way more often than happy ones. I think another issue is people not establishing why they are having the bike and making sure the fitter having the skills they need. Not that I’ve ever had a bike fit

You have a point about the unhappy customers. Hard to find how to find a fitter that has the skills that I don’t know that they need though?
I am not disagreeing with you, but i would be disappointed if a £330 fit didn’t help. I can’t afford one anyway, so the point is irrelevant 🙂

Use the saddle fore-aft adjustment (a longer layback post maybe) to get yourself feeling in balance and avoid that tipping fwd weight on hands sensation, take a note of how far the saddle is behind the BB if you can. Then look at where your grips need to be and go from there.

Thanks. The problem I have is that the closest I got was using what i think was a 68 degree sta, although it has a bend at the bottom, so not so relaxed as that. My mtb has a layback seat post and the saddle as far back as it would go. That has a 72 degree sta.
It then gets a bit complicated as I am then being pulled forward by the pedals and the reach 🙂

As I say, I now understand the words and can work with it since i changed the cranks.
Need a starting point now.

I am not disagreeing with you, but i would be disappointed if a £330 fit didn’t help. I can’t afford one anyway, so the point is irrelevant 🙂

Just bear in mind that you could easily end up spending more than that (both in time and money) on trialling out random stuff from any number of suggestions made online (most of which, while made in good faith and with the best of intentions, will suffer from the fact that we can’t see you on the bike, we can’t get instant feedback on what is and isn’t working and don’t really factor in how equipped you are to make the changes – it can be very difficult translating written instructions on here to actual physical changes made by you).

And if someone says “try this” which involves you buying new bars or “try that” which involves you buying a new saddle then you’ll quickly be at a fair chunk of money spent almost on spec.

A good bike fit can make even a fairly cheap bike feel amazing to ride.
A bad bike fit can ruin the ride of even the best bike.

I’m not saying everyone needs a bike fit but there are a good number of people out there who’ll drop £1500 on a set of carbon wheels or £5000 on an aero road bike but not spend £300 on getting it all set up properly. And even Tadej Pogacar’s wheels won’t help a rider who has a bad position.

Thanks. Yes, I completely agree. My world is very different. My bikes were mostly free. Or very cheap used. Or borrowed 🙂
I have tried quite a lot of bikes and they all feel the same type of wrong it seems.
I think almost everyone would benefit from a GOOD bike fit. Trick is finding it isn’t it?

Just bear in mind that you could easily end up spending more than that (both in time and money) on trialling out random stuff from any number of suggestions made online (most of which, while made in good faith and with the best of intentions, will suffer from the fact that we can’t see you on the bike, we can’t get instant feedback on what is and isn’t working and don’t really factor in how equipped you are to make the changes – it can be very difficult translating written instructions on here to actual physical changes made by you).

And if someone says “try this” which involves you buying new bars or “try that” which involves you buying a new saddle then you’ll quickly be at a fair chunk of money spent almost on spec.

I completely agree with what you are saying. I don’t have £330 at all.
When I have tried things out, I have bought well so that I can sell for the same, similar or more than what I pay.
I do agree with you about the time as well though.

OP, one simple test you can do for weight distribution adjustment, since you say you have a turbo trainer (very useful for things like this ime) –

Set the bike up on the turbo, pedal in a low easy gear, get comfortable.

Stop pedalling, keep pedals level and use your legs to raise yourself vertically off the saddle, gradually an inch or so then a bit more, while not really using your arms to do this.

As you do this you may feel yourself tip forwards – that means your CofG is naturally forwards of the BB. If you stay in balance or tip back a bit your weight is through or behind the BB.

neither is better, but knowing where your weight is is helpful.

But the frame is too long I am sure.

You don’t say how tall you are, or what size the Roll is. The geometry chart might be a good basic place to start.

OP, one simple test you can do for weight distribution adjustment, since you say you have a turbo trainer (very useful for things like this ime) –

Set the bike up on the turbo, pedal in a low easy gear, get comfortable.

Stop pedalling, keep pedals level and use your legs to raise yourself vertically off the saddle, gradually an inch or so then a bit more, while not really using your arms to do this.

As you do this you may feel yourself tip forwards – that means your CofG is naturally forwards of the BB. If you stay in balance or tip back a bit your weight is through or behind the BB.

neither is better, but knowing where your weight is is helpful.

Yes, I was pleased to nab the roller. It was on the way to the tip. As you say, makes this process much simpler.
I shall give this a go. I haven’t tried this. I am just pondering which bike to use as my test bed.
I want to set one up on the roller so that i don’t have to keep changing my work bike.

OP, one simple test you can do for weight distribution adjustment, since you say you have a turbo trainer (very useful for things like this ime) –

Set the bike up on the turbo, pedal in a low easy gear, get comfortable.

Stop pedalling, keep pedals level and use your legs to raise yourself vertically off the saddle, gradually an inch or so then a bit more, while not really using your arms to do this.

As you do this you may feel yourself tip forwards – that means your CofG is naturally forwards of the BB. If you stay in balance or tip back a bit your weight is through or behind the BB.

neither is better, but knowing where your weight is is helpful.

Yes, I was pleased to nab the roller. It was on the way to the tip. As you say, makes this process much simpler.
I shall give this a go. I haven’t tried this. I am just pondering which bike to use as my test bed.
I want to set one up on the roller so that i don’t have to keep changing my work bike.

I can’t seem to consistently manage to quote. Sorry. I do the same thing each time.

While I am at it, thanks for all of the comments so far,  do appreciate the help.

You don’t say how tall you are, or what size the Roll is. The geometry chart might be a good basic place to start.

I am 5’7 – 5’8. I can measure accurately if need be.
When i compare to a friend of mine who is comfy on all bikes. A very similar height.
I thought i had written down the differences, but I am something like two inches taller than him when we sit down, knee height and femur length def shorter, plus arms substantially  shorter.
I predominantly picked up the Roll frame to test the sta. It helped getting my weight far enough back to create a bit more balance.
It helped my understanding of the theory of feeling balanced over the pedals. It helped, but wasn’t great. But best so far.
I only have the frame, then the bars are set so that they are almost set by the head tube.
I want to bring them further back, but that seems weird 🙂
Having changed the cranks, I doubt this is a relevant frame now.
It would be nice to have a more ‘normal’ frame. Will give me some options hopefully.
The sta is not as slack as the chart suggests. It has a bend at the bottom of the sta.
It is a medium which I assumed was right for me as I am a kind of medium type bloke.
But, watching things recently, I imagine I am a small.

It is a medium which I assumed was right for me

Honestly, at your height I think you should be on a small. It’s probs why you feel like the bike is too long.

I predominantly picked up the Roll frame to test the sta.
The sta is not as slack as the chart suggests. It has a bend at the bottom of the sta.

This bike?

The seat tube angle is as described, it’s measured in a straight line and not the shape of the tube. It was designed as a sort of easy-to-use, basic and comfy bike to get people into cycling. Not sure I’ve ever seen one actually out and about, definitely saw one at a bike show a couple of years ago though.

I’d suggest that doing bike fit on such an outlier as that is probably not going to give you much useful info, you really need a more normal bike to start finding the baseline of what is and isn’t a correct fit.

I’d suggest that doing bike fit on such an outlier as that is probably not going to give you much useful info, you really need a more normal bike to start finding the baseline of what is and isn’t a correct fit.

Yes, I agree. Added to that, as you say, probably too big. I learned from the sta though. It has done me better than anything i have tried before to get to work and back the last six or seven years.
Also, the higher front was useful. I will take a pic of how it ended up. Not ideal, but good enough, then really not bad with the crank change.
Stuff I already had mostly.  The headset bearings have just failed and I am worried about the steering seizing on the way down the hill. So it is making me prioritise this again which is nice to save spending money on something i know is wrong.

I am just thinking about setting the roller up in the lounge for a while. Will make taking pics much more  doable.

Here we go.
It does confuse people, lol.

View post on imgur.com

Feels the most normal any bike ever has for me. I let a few people have a go. My ‘normal’ friend was worried he would fall off. Antother friend who is all limbs was surprisingly comfortable. Another one said it felt like a clown bike. Just soooo wrong. A young lady has the samme instant discomfort on a bike as me and this made a lot of sense to her 😉

Anyways, next job, dig out the roller.

I’d love to fit some Jones bars to that and see what you think : ) I think a swept-back bar is perfect on a bike with a laid back seat angle like that.

I had to look those up. I know it is a bit rich coming from me, but that first hand position seems odd 🙂
Watching the video, it is not far off what I do now. (I can also adjust the angle that they are at as well as the swivel and width etc etc I just haven’t thought of that before.)
So, my standard position is covering the brakes, then my ‘hoods’ are there, then I tuck down on the front bars when windy.
There are some benefits to the relaxed sta as well I have found. It is much easier to get my leg over when mounting and reach the ground at junctions. ESPECIALLY as i have just popped some 155mm on the mtb to use to commute, it is hard to get leg over the saddle now.
Also, it sets me back which I have always felt the need to do. It will be interesting to see if that goes away after playing with a normal bike.
On reading stuff, I am wondering if i just need to be looking at smaller frames. I have tried a couple of small road bikes (very briefly) but they were cramped and weird. However, something (couldn’t work out what) felt more right.
Hmmmm, I wonder if I could borrow one to compare…..

If that’s your bike, it’s semi-recumbent. I’m surprised you can reach the bars to be honest! Whilst such designs have been done, the reach is always very short with swept back handlebars. giant tries to make them popular and one can always put feet down.

youre leaning too far forward, reach is too long. Frame may be too big, but expectations aid a normal bike position are out of the window with that geometry.

Giant Revive was the bike.

Yes. I will use something else to work out bike fit. But like I say, it is the best I have ever managed.

can be comfortable, but truth be told, you were probably not seated correctly on a conventional frame. In your bike, you’ll be rotated backwards slightly, but still need to be balanced on the frame. The shorter cranks are helping because the full leg extraction is not when vertical cranks. It can be a comfortable position, but fore and aft still matters. After your comfortable with that fore aft and balance ONLY THEN do you think about reach to bars. It’s then that one finds the frame is too long, short stem and twitchy handling can follow.

People are really NOT that variable. In court case, you will be very upright. Very 1930’s cruiser but comfortable.

Yes. I am looking forward to being corrected.

The main thing this helped was getting my weight far enough back to get that balanced feel on a bike. This always made sense to get as a starting poi t to me, so it is interesting that everyone is saying the same thing here.

Everything else I’ve done, I’m always just sliding forwards. I’m looking forward to getting set up and started on the process and hearing the advice.