Bike fit / correct riding position

https://butternutbikes.co.uk/bike-fitting-north-london/ £175. Niel is super nice.

If anything saddle is a little further forward too. It's strange.

No injuries. I guess at my most active I was doing a long ride at the weekend with a fast group, a couple of midweek rides plus commuting every day. Now its probably half that volume sadly. That - and being in early 40s rather than early 30s - the only difference

5cm! Kind of feels like a red flag if a bike fitter is suggesting that!

just had a professional bike fit - which was great. i now want to transfer the measurements from my summer bike to winter bike.... the stack and reach is the same but a2c is slightly different. also want to make sure i get the saddle height and setback just right...

leaving ego at the door - any tips or online guides? obv i can measure stuff but want to make sure i get the actual measuring points right. i also think the bars on my winter bike have a slightly shorter reach so want to be cognisant of that and potentially swap them out

I like the idea of sticking the bike in a corner, making sure it's straight, then marking stuff on the wall.

Borrow a laser level from someone if you can, makes it easy to replicate saddle behind bb distance, get that + saddle height correct and then it’s easy to match the front end - don’t worry about bar reach etc just measure to the contact points and adjust stem length based on those if needed

thank you both :-)

Do you have a pic of how that works? Do you sit the level on the saddle and shine at wall or on the floor and shine up, past the saddle nose?

Need some advice on how to make my daughter's bike fit more comfortably for her.

Issues at the moment are - lever reach, crank length, distance between saddle and bars.

I've already fitted a much shorter stem but she is finding the brakes impossible to use when riding on the hoods.

I can't find many reasonable options for shorter cranks that will take the current chainrings, would a short MTB crankset work better?

Her knees hit her elbows when in the drops but the bars are already fairly wide for her size.

Could I use a setback post spam around 180 degrees to bring her closer to the bars or will that make pedalling uncomfortable?

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Saddle the same on both? If so mark the exact middle of rails measured and distance to top of saddle through that dot is your saddle height. Measuring setback can be tricky if walls are wonky etc so an easier way is to put the back of non-drive side crank against a door jamb or something and then measure as it’s a much shorter distance (plus doesn’t matter about chainstay length/tyre diameter). Then just add on distance from back of nds crank to centre of bb

I’d get bike fitter matey to do it…

Anyone else experienced pain issues with wide bars and higher gearing especially in strong winds?

Struggling to find the sweet spot on my fixed commuter with front rack atm. I'm about 177cm with short arms and my Dart is something like 395/550. I had a 130 stem with 700 flatbar which stretched me out but kept my back nice and straight. Unfortunately a total lack of core strength means there's no way in hell i can hold myself in that angle without putting more weight than i should onto my hands which was aggravating my (rotator cuff) shoulder injury. To counter i went with a shorter stem and 660 bars with 15mm rise and it just feels off. I was getting a dull pain in my lower back and then i got caught in the heavy winds a few weeks back which has given me real lower back pain and stiffness. I took a few weeks off riding but did some turbo stuff to stop my back seizing and the only really comfortable position for me was in the drops. It appears my back is much happier when i force my bend at the hips even though my hamstrings are not great and as mentioned my core is shit.

Is it possible i'm stuck in a uncomfortable mid point and i need to go more upright and probably lower the gearing to give my back a break? Or should i sack off the flat bars and run drop bars with a more aggressive position which'll at least help me work on my flexibility and core strength?

You might find that saddle fore, aft and angle adjustment all affect how much weight you are putting on your hands and how your pelvis and back are positioned. For example I have found that putting my saddle back slightly (i.e. a few mm) gets more of my weight behind the pedals and reduces weight on my hands. (Putting the saddle back requires a compensatory change in saddle height.)

Could be worth trying some saddle position changes rather than focussing entirely on stem and bars.

Thanks, yes i had a bike fit on my road bike a few years back and was surprised how much setback my short little legs needed. I've tried carrying dim over onto other bikes but with track seat tube angles it's not always achievable even with 25mm setback posts. I currently use old SLR's, any idea of a non awful saddles that have lots of fore/aft adjustment?

cough Smp cough

Figured the Cyril Sneer would get a mention, anything else?

You don’t have to look at them when you’re riding :) if your bum gets on with them, they are fab seats though.

How about a seatpost with a bigger layback, 30-40mm or so?

Saddle the same on both?

both fizik antares; but one is slightly older so rails aren't 1:1 copies of each other

your tip with the door is good though! appreciate it

Ah yeah that’s a pain. If so just mark on rails 20cm or wherever back from nose with saddle laid flat so it’s comparable between the two

yeah good shout - thanks

Some of my friends had a fit done recently and both of them had their stem lowered to relieve pressure on palms.

How does that work? I thought the lower you are the more pressure your hands get?

I thought the lower you are the more pressure your hands get?

Not necessarily. Hard to know without knowing all the details but it's like this:
Let's assume they are adequately balanced above the bottom bracket and the saddle position remains the same; moving the hands down or further away from the centre of gravity forces the core and / or pedals to support more of the upper body weight; thus relieving hand pressure.

If you are going from drops to flat handlebar set up is it generally ok to maintain the same saddle fore aft or should it be tweaked?

If your legs are in the right position, you shouldn't move anything at the back end.
You should change your bar position to suit your functional leg position.

Makes sense. With the same saddle fore aft (and same saddle) I find after moving to flat handlebar I'm struggling to get as much power (e.g. moving off from traffic lights is laboured) and feels like there is a dead spot on pedalling. Climbing is also difficult. Maybe that's just a result of being significantly more upright and it's is a less powerful position.