— Bike Fit —

Fit, Sizing, Position (our thoughts)

Fit is the most important thing about your bike.

Don't buy any bike because of its parts or price or looks or anything like that. In that way,
think of a bike the same way you'd think of a pair of shoes. A pair of Keds that don't fit is
no bargain even at a nickel.

Of course, you know when shoes fit, because you've worn them since you were one and a
half, or maybe even one (if you were advanced). A half size too small or big is obvious;
no shoe-fitting PhD can tell you cramped toes or loose heels is A-OK.

But riding a bike and trying on shoes are not the same thing. When you sit on a bike, your
body can lean, fold, bend, compress, extend, and stretch to meet the bike. If the bike fit is
off significantly, you can still sit on the saddle, reach the pedals, and hold onto the
handlebar. When you aren't really used to sitting on bikes, you don't know what
constitutes a good fit, and you tend to believe the sales associate who tells you yeah, you
look good now.

A keen-eyed salesperson can make a decent assessment of your position, but (1) not all
salespeople have the skills to do that; (2) most are loathe to admit ignorance even when
they have it in abundance; and (3) if a salesperson is accustomed to fitting people poorly
and thinking "yeah, that's good!" then you're likely to get the same treatment. Sometimes
he's been doing it this way for 20 years, and misfitting folks for most of his adult life.

Sometimes a bike feels funny or uncomfortable, but the salesperson tells you that you're
just not used to it, or you're using muscles you haven't used before, and it takes a few
weeks to adapt.

Don't believe it. There's always some getting used to it, but right off the bat, sitting on a
new bike that fits you and is set up right so that it gives you a good position should feel
about as natural as sitting in a chair. Your hands on the bars should feel like hands on a
table in front of you. There is something to be said for breaking in your bottom or
whatever, but it should feel at least reasonable right off the bat. You shouldn't have to
adapt to or tolerate discomfort even a little, not even when the bike is new.

Over time, you may find that you want the bars higher or lower, closer or nearer, and
there may be some other minor adjustments that fine-tune your position as you start to
form your own opinions based on your experience. There isn't a cycler alive who hasn't
wanted to change stems or handlebars at some point or other. But when you buy a bike
from us, we minimize and often eliminate the need to fine-tune. But you may want to do
it sometime.
Sizing
We've found that most riders are most comfortable when the handlebar is a few
centimeters higher than the saddle.

To achieve that bar height, it helps to start with a bike that's the largest practical size you
can ride. We suggest you get the size that allows you to put the handlebar at least 2cm
higher than the saddle. That works great for most people. You can always lower the bar if
you find it's too high, but it's rare when that happens.

How much crotch clearance do you need?

The Consumer Products Safety Commission says when your feet are flat on the ground
and you're straddling the bike, you need an inch between your crotch and the top tube.
We interpret "crotch" as "pubic bone," and with our method of sizing, you always get that,
and sometimes a lot more.

The bike's standover height is how high the top tube is, at the point where you'd straddle
it (roughly the middle. If you know that and your pubic bone height (PBH), you'll know
how much clearance you'll have. PBH is a huge deal with us, and everything related to
sizing flows from it, so know yours. Here's how to measure it.

How to make a PBH-measuring device

Get two slats of wood, like paint-stirring sticks or anything, really. Put the lip of a metal
metric measuring tape between them, and either squeeze the tape there so it doesn't slip
out, or tape the sticks together. Alternative: Use a thin hardcover book, such as The Cat
In the Hat.

How To Measure PBH

Stand with bare or stocking feet 10-inches apart on a hard floor. Put the tape-stick under
your crotch, with one hand behind you and one in front, and pull up hard, as though
trying to lift yourself off the ground. Have a friend read the measurement on the floor.
That's your PBH.

If you repeat this a hundred times (you don't have to, but if you do), go by the largest
number you get, not the average. It's impossible to pull the stick past your pubic bone,
and so the largest number is the most accurate.

Just so you know you're in the ballpark: If you're 5 feet 5 inches tall, your PBH will
probably be between 78 and 81. If you're 6 feet, it'll probably be between 87 and 91.

Us versus Them
Most bikes are sold too small. We see it all the time: bars way below the saddle, the rider
leaned over 35-degrees with arms straight out as his hands are on the brake hoods. If he
took his hands off the bar he'd flop down and smack his nose on the stem. It's not
comfortable or correct.
When you come to us for a bike, we'll ask what size you ride now, and invariably put you
on a bike that's two to five centimenters bigger. You'll still have crotch clearance, but
your bar will be higher, you'll lean over less, and you'll be a lot more comfortable.

PBH & How To Measure It

There are many ways to determine your correct saddle height. Six are here, and the last
one is our way, which we'll explain immediately after:

1. Trial and error

2. Ask somebody smart if it looks right

3. Go by feel

4. The LeMond formula (roughly PBH x .883)

5, The Fit Kit Way, the Size Cycle Way

6. Our Way

Our way jives within a few millimeters of the LeMond way, but requires simpler math.
While it can't account for big leg length discrepancies or severe physiological problems,
like hamstrings that refuse to relax--- or other freakythings like those, for 99 percent of
everybody else, it's just fine. In fact, you can't beat it.

Three tools you need:

1. A metal metric measuring tape.

2. Two paint stirring sticks (ideal) or a thin hardcover book about or exactly the same
thinness as The Cat In the Hat.

3. A friend, or a person who can pretend to be your friend for 20 seconds or so.

(here's a video on how to make the same kind of PBH measuring tool
we have used for the past decade.)

How to measure your Pubic Bone Height (PBH)

a. Stand in bare feet on a hard floor.

b. Put your feet 10 inches apart.

c. Hook the edge of a metal metric tape over a thin edge -- two rulers, or a thin hardcover
book.

d. Pull the tape up hard against your pubic bone. We tell folks, "Try to lift yourself off the
ground

e. Have a friend take reading as you do this.

Do this twice, thrice, or a hundred times. As long as the tape is straight and the guy
reading the number knows how to read a tape, you should record the highest of all the
readings you get. Why not the average? Because you'll never pull past the bone, so you
can't get a reading that's too high.

It's really good to know your PBH, because from it you can determine saddle height (SH).
Here's the formula: PBH - 10 to 10.5cm = SH*

*from center of the crank to the top of the saddle.

NOTE: if you're among the folks who are more comfortable with multiplication than you
are with subtraction, here's a formula the formula you've been looking for your whole life
long: PBH x 0.883= SH. That will be within 4mm of it, and that's good enough.

Are there ever any exceptions to the formula?

Not really, no. Sometimes mountain bike riders and cyclo-cross racers prefer a slightly
lower saddle--maybe PBH minus 11.5, but it may be more out of habit. BMXers often
ride PBH minus 20 or so, but that's another world.

Now and then a tiny-footed woman will do better using a SH that's 11.8cm less than her
PBH.

And, if you ride 180mm cranks, you might factor that into it, too, and go with PBH minus
11 or 11.5.

If you pedal in elevator shoes, you'll need the saddle higher, so a PBH minus 8 might be
better.

For the rest of us wearing shoes with normal thickness soles, PBH minus 10 to 11 is a
good saddle height.

For fitting our bikes (except for the Sam Hillborne, which is an "expanded" frame
and follows other rules, PBH minus 25 to 27cm gives a good frame size. We tend to
use minus 25 on small to midsizers, and 27 on biggies, but minus 25 works on
biggies, too--it just results in less seat post showing.

Fitting the Sam Hillborne: PBH minus 29 to 32 is good.

Common Setup Mistakes
1. Bad handlebar angle. On drop handlebars, the ends should angle downward five
to ten degrees. This flattens the part of the bar behind the brake levers, turning it
into a good and comfortable place to put your hands. Never, ever rotate the bar up,
so that the ends aim upward of horizontal. It makes the part of the bar behind the
brake lever unusable. It makes it hard to hold the hoods. Plus, it feels weird, like a
backwards t-shirt or twisted socks.
2. Brake levers too low on the curve of drop bars. This is more often a problem
with older bikes, but watch it on any. The lever body should be high enough to
allow you to put your hand on it without bending your wrist. If you put it too high,
it'll be hard to reach the lever from the drops. So monkey around with the position
if you like, but make sure it's high enough.
3. Saddle too low. Probably 80 percent of the riders you see, even on $7,000 bikes,
have their saddles too low. When your saddle's too low, your knee bends too
much at the bottom of the stroke. That's bad for two reasons:
4. (1) It makes your thighs (quadriceps) fatigue sooner because they're working
harder. Pedaling up hills with a too-low saddle is twice as hard as it is with a
right-height saddle.
5. (2) It puts chronic stress on the contact between the backside of your kneecap
(patella) and the front side of your thighbone knuckle (femoral condyles), leading
to pain and increasing your chance of getting arthritis.
6. The next thing you know you're fifty years old and hobbling about like you're
eighty-eight. Set your saddle height (measured from the center of the crank to
the top of the saddle, parallel to the seat tube) 10 to 11cm less than your PBH.
7. Seat too far forward. It's no good to shove the saddle forward on its rails if your
reason for doing it is to make it easier to reach the handlebar. Although moving
the saddle forward will shorten the distance from the saddle to the bar, it's best to
shorten that distance by monkeying around with the stem length, not the saddle
position. The saddle position is for pedaling efficiency, comfort, and power. And
the thing is, if you move the saddle too far forward, you'll put more weight on
your hands and be less comfortable. Of course, if you ride only about a mile at a
time or so, it doesn't much matter where your saddle is.

Choosing a Frame Size

(Our bikes, and most non-Italian bikes, are measured from the center of the crank (or bottom
bracket) to the top of the seat tube. In the old days this was called the English Method, to
distinguish it from the Italian Method, which measures to the center line intersection of the seat
and top tube (think, "center of the seat lug".)

In this section, In General is about bike sizing in general, and is good to read if you don't
know about it, or just want to read what we have to say. So it's sort of a primer, but it's
not one of those primers that has such basic introductory information that everybody
already knows it and you're wasting your time reading it. It's a better primer than that.

And then Sizing Rivendells talks about how we size the frames we design and sell--
custom Rivendells, Rambouillet, Atlantis, Saluki, Bleriot, Quickbeam, and the earth-
rattling A. Homer Hilsen.

In General
-people ride bikes that are too small. If you go into a bike shop or ask the local fast riders
about frame sizing, you'll likely hear comments such as, "Smaller bikes are lighter, stiffer,
more maneuverable, and more efficient."

To that we say this:

Small has to be lighter, but we're talking ounces, and let's not talk about ounces until your
belly is so ripped that you're regularly mistaken for one of those guys in the Dance
Theater of Harlem. A bike shouldn't have any unnecessary weight, but if the weight
comes by means of a larger frame that fits you better, or stronger wheels that stay truer,
or a safer frame that doesn't fail catastrophically, then we wouldn't consider that
"unnecessary" weight.

Here's the way it works, in any given tube on a bike. In your left hand is a downtube
that's 31.8mm in diameter. The butts (tube wall thickness as the ends of the tube) are
0.9mm thick.

Less than a millimeter, my friend. About 1/28th of an inch.

To look at it, you'd think it was nothing--that the tube was on the verge of collapse. The
_belly_of the tube (mid portion, between the butts) is 0.6mm thick. Fortunately you can't
see that, because holy smokes, that's even scarier.

Now, in aluminum or carbon or titanium or anything other than strong CrMo steel, these
dimensions would be instantly foolish and dangerous, but it works in good steel, because
steel has the right balance of strength, toughness, and rigidity. This tube is 650mm long
and weighs 10.6 ounces.

In your other hand is a lighter version of the same tube. Its butts are 0.8mm, it's belly is
0.5mm, and it weighs 8.8 ounces. The decrease in butt thickness is 12 percent, the
decrease in belly thickness is 16.7 percent, and there's a proportional decrease in
durability, if we consider resistance to fatigue and denting to be "durability issues." The
weight savings is less than 2 ounces.

As a designer/builder, what do you do? If you're building for longterm hard use by heavy
men over rough terrain, you reject both of them and pick a tube with 1.2mm butts and an
0.9mm belly, even though that tube weighs 14 ounces. You figure what's five or six
ounces? I'm crossing Russia with a load of pigs and canned food, and I need this thing to
last!
(to be continued. I have to go back to bed now...Saturday morning, still early)

Small also has to be stiffer, but marginally so, and it has not been proven to mean beans
in a bike frame. Certainly a frame should be stiff enough to be safe and controllable and
to feel halfway normal, but if one frame is so close to another in stiffness (as is likely to
be the case when you're talking about two sizes of the same frame), the difference in
stiffness is not worth talking about.

"More maneuverable/efficient"? A bike that's more maneuverable sounds good, until you
look at the other side of the coin: If you can skirt a dead raccoon that you didn't see until
the last millisecond, or dive between two other riders in a race around a tight corner, then
it's you, not the bike, that's doing it. In any case, a "highly maneuverable bike" is easily
maneuvered by a sudden gust of wind, an unseen pothole, and any other of a dozen or
more forces outside your body that act upon it. Or a sneeze. So forget getting a smaller
frame because it's "more maneuverable."

Bikes are already efficient enough. Efficiency is one of those concepts that sounds
universally desirable, but in the context of a humble rider wanting to go have fun and get
some exercise on a bicycle, is totally overvalued. Once your bicycle has smooth bearings,
true wheels, a lubed drivetrain, and an efficient engine (that would be you), it is efficient
enough.

Too-small bikes are not comfortable

Every day we talk to folks who bought a $3,500 titanium this, or a $2,500 carbon fiber
that, and now that the honeymoon is over, they realize it's not comfortable. Sore neck,
sore lower back, sore hand---and almost without exceptions it's caused by a frame that's
too small and doesn't let them raise the bars high enough to cure these ills.
Understandably, they're feeling foolish and bummed out.

Handlebars too low cause 90 percent of the discomfort people suffer. And buying a frame
too small guarantees that the bars will be too low. Often, people size bikes by the top tube
length. Since the reach to the bars is so obviously important, it makes sense to be
concerned about the top tube length. But don't let it lead you around by the nostrils. If the
top tube is in the right ballpark, you do the fine-tuning with stem length. Also, there's a
good deal of misunderstanding about the effect of top tube length. Scroll down a bit and
you'll see how a shallower seat tube angle and higher handlebars can make a bike with a
59cm top tube feel shorter (in the reach) than one with a 57cm tt. Don't go there yet,
though.

Sizing Trends
If you look at old racing photos or drawings, you'll see bikes with "a fistfull of seat post"
showing. That was the rule --- a fistfull of post. You bought a frame size that, when the
saddle was set at the right height for you, exposed a fistfull of seat post! If in order to get
the saddle at the right height, it required much more than a fistfull of seat post, then the
frame was too small. These days, "a fistfull of seat post" sounds quaintly stupid,
charmingly naive, cute but dumb, stay away from me with your dangerous folk medicines!

And yet, riders back then were a lot more comfortable. We aren't suggesting that you go
by "a fistfull of seat post," but that simplistic approach was (and still is) successful
because it allowed the handlebar to be close to the height of the saddle. So it resulted in a
fit that took weight off your hands, and strain off your neck and lower back. (It also
allows sufficient standover clearance. In other words, when you straddle your bike, your
genitals may rest on the top tube, but your pubic bone will easily clear it -- as you'll
notice if you grab a handful of genitals and pull up. Apologies if this is too graphic for
you.)

In those days, most saddles were leather, and most leather saddles (of any vintage) sit
higher above the saddle rails than do modern plastic saddles. So, on a modern plastic
saddle, the equivalent rule might be "seven fingers of post." Of course, fingers vary in
fatness. Fitting and sizing are not sciences.

How to Size any Bike, Including Ours

Want some sort of a concrete recommendation for sizing a road bike? Okay. You have to
know your saddle height. If you know your saddle height, read the chart below. If you
don't know your saddle height, take off your shoes, stand on a hard surface with your feet
10-inches apart, and measure between your legs (the tape measure should be right in the
middle) from the floor to your pubic bone. Not your genitals. Hit the bone. Figure out
how to do this using a thin, hardcover book and a metal tape.

Your floor-to-pubic bone measurement is your pubic bone height.

Example: If you are 5 feet 9 1/2, your pubic bone might be 85cm. Your saddle height will
be about 75cm.

Once you've determined your saddle height, you have a simple subtraction to determine a
good frame size. "A good frame size" doesn't mean it's the only size for you. The whole
purpose of sizing is too give you a comfortable riding position, and for most people that
means getting the bars level with, or within a couple centimeters, of the saddle height.
The lower the number you subtract, the higher the bars can be. In France or England in
the '40s, you'd subtract about 15cm. In the case above, that would have that 5-foot 9 1/2
inch rider on a 60cm frame.

If that same rider got sized in 10 different bike shops, probably 5 of them would suggest a
54 to 55. One would say a 53, two would say a 56, and one would say a 57. The more
expensive the bike, the more likely the size is to be small.

If you're psychologically uncomfortable with a frame so big, instead of subtracting 15

from your saddle height, subtract 16. If you're a tall guy and have long arms, go 17--but
be prepared to use a stem with an upslope, or a long quill, because on a typical modern
road bike with a level top tube, a small-stack headset, and a short-quilled stem, a 17cm
difference between saddle height and frame size will put them bars too low (for comfort).

Sizing Rivendells (the bikes we design) ---frame sizes measured center of crank to
top of seat tube
When you come to us already owning two or three or half a dozen or more bikes, and I
recommend a size two to five centimeters bigger than the bikes you already own and
have spent lots of money on, your brain tries to reconcile what you have (and have spent
lots of money on) with what I've just recommended.

Sizing chart for Riv-designed frames by Pubic Bone Height (PBH) & Saddle Height (SH).
For 700c, 26 mtn, and 650B wheels.

This chart is a guide, and the numbers are based on extensive experience with several
thousand riders over the past decade or so. Variances will be minor, but no chart can
account for personal preferences or extreme crank lengths, and so forth.

For any given size, the standover heights (height of the top tube) are lower, because the
bottom bracket is closer to the ground and the seat tube angle is shallower (less vertical).
"Lower top tubes" is not the goal in itself, it is just a result of the frame design. But it is a
key reason you can straddle a bigger one-of-our-bikes than one-of-theirs.
Standover clearance, though, is a highly overrated. You need to be able to straddle the
bike when waiting for the light to turn, but you don't need oodles of clearance. You pay
for extra clearance with lower handlebars and less comfort, so at some point you have to
ask: "Am I getting this bike so I can stand over it and see two fists of air between the top
tube and my crotch, or do I want to be comfortable all day long?"

The Consumer Products Safety Commission requires an inch between top tube and crotch,
but doesn't define "crotch." To us it means pubic bone. Everything we do here, frame-
sizingwise, revolves around pubic bone height. When you get a Rivendell, you get at
least an inch of clearance, and usually more.

Every builder has, or at least ought to have, a bias to his frames. Our bias is comfort.
From comfort comes efficiency, strength, endurance, control, and fun. The best way to
achieve comfort is with higher handlebars, and the first step toward higher handlebars is a
larger frame size.

A Good Position For Many Riders

When you're in your riding position with your hands on the hoods, you should be able to
put your hands behind your back without your torso plopping down onto the stem. For
most riders, that means a back angle of 45-to-50 degrees.

We're less adamant about the knee position relative to the pedal, but mention our
preference here only to get you thinking. We like it behind the center of the pedal,
because that way, the downstroke helps you maintain a rearward position on the saddle. If
it's directly above it, you tend to scooch forward more. In any case, it is not easy to
achieve this position with a normal, off-the-shelf bicycle and conventional sizing
methods.

Here are some other things related to fit that 99.999 percent of the experts don't
know, haven't considered, and don't talk about:

• As the handlebar gets higher, your arm becomes more horizontal, effectively
getting longer.
• As the bar gets higher, it also retreats toward you. How much? On a bike with a
73.5-degree head tube, raising it 4cm brings it back 1.5cm.
• Getting a shorter stem without also raising the bars can have a self-cancelling
effect. And if you raise the bars, you may even need a longer stem.
• Top tubes of a given length tend to feel shorter on bigger frames than on smaller
ones, so if you currently ride a 56cm bike with a 55cm top tube, but you know
you can fit a 58cm frame, don't be scared off it just because it has a 57cm top tube.

If you aren't sure whether your saddle is set at the right height, or if you just want another
opinion, measure your pubic bone height. With your bare feet ten to twelve inches apart,
measure from the floor up to your pubic bone. Hook a metal tape through a thin,
hardcover book or a record album cover, and push up until you smash into the bone.
Have a friend take the reading on the floor. This distance minus an inch (25.4mm) is
nominally the highest top tube you shoud have. Sole thickness affects it, too.