January 24, 2024
Every January in the world of pro cycling, riders and teams can finally reveal their new equipment sponsors. Many riders are switching to completely new equipment, right down to shoes, pedals, and saddles. In other cases entire teams will be on new bikes due to sponsor changes. These changes can often be hard to adapt to and riders with an early start to the year can sometimes have a tight timeline to adapt to the new equipment. Every year we get panic stricken calls and texts from clients who are switching teams and need to know what bike will fit them best. Often when looking up bike geometry we are surprised at how different one model is from the next and how hard it can be to pick the ideal bikes so we thought we’d share some of our insights […]
March 10, 2023
The terms “bike fitting” and “bike sizing” can create significant confusion as they are often wrongfully used interchangeably. While they are very much related, they are two distinct parts of helping you match a bike to your body and riding needs. For those of you looking for the quickest possible answer to this question: Bike Sizing = Selecting the appropriate size of bike (e.g. S, M, L,50cm, 52cm, 56cm, etc.) Bike Fitting = Adjusting the touchpoints (e.g. saddle, handlebars, etc.) on a bike to meet a riders needs. Bike Sizing vs Bike Fitting To help put this into perspective, we like to use the analogy of buying a suit (or other formal attire). Sizing is choosing the right size suit off the rack, and fitting is equivalent to having a tailor hem the trousers and jacket sleeves to match your body. Needless […]
September 25, 2022
New bike day is just as exciting for us here at MyVeloFit as for anyone else. I thought as a way to celebrate my new bike day I’d bring you along the journey of dialing in my position on my Trek Checkpoint SL 5. I can already hear some of you asking “surely if you run a bike fit company you already know your setup?” Well, kind of. If I had wanted to just replicate my position from my previous bike, we’ve written up a great method for doing so. But I wanted to take this opportunity to start from scratch. Getting from buying a new bike to being comfortable on the first ride has never been easier. I’ve opted to test out a slightly more upright position that I have in the past (more on this in future posts). So […]
August 20, 2022
Endurance road bikes are one of the most popular road segments in the past years. They offer much of the same performance as a more traditional road bike but usually have either a less aggressive geometry, a more compliant frame, or both. Endurance road bikes are designed to be more comfortable both in terms of riding position, and frame stiffness. Your typical endurance bike will generally put you in a more upright and less stretched out position. For many this position is more comfortable and they are able to spend more time without pain on their bike. The endurance spectrum of fit is quite wide. Some models are only a few millimeters shorter in reach or taller in stack (or both) compared to the corresponding “race” bike from the same manufacturer. Others are significantly different with 10+ mm less reach, […]
August 20, 2022
Gravel bikes are one of the fastest growing segments in the bike industry. They are versatile machines that range from beefed up road bikes that can handle rough roads to essentially drop bar mountain bikes that are designed to tackle intense single track or multi-day offroad adventures. What is a “gravel bike”? This is a tough question and much of the definition can come down to where one plans on riding and what “gravel” means to them. The gravel segment has come to encapsul a diverse collection of bikes, and with that a diverse philosophy of fit. This comparison represents the widest variety in fit versus all the other comparison we have published. Handling characteristics will come into play much more in this gravel comparison than it has in our all-round road, aero road, or endurance road comparison. That is because while […]
August 19, 2022
Aero road bikes represent the pinnacle of bicycle design and engineering. Not only do they need to be aerodynamic to cut through the wind and save the rider energy, they also need to take unconventional tube shapes and ensure the bike still delivers an acceptable ride quality. What is an “Aero Bike”? Recently there has been a split into three main categories of road bike. “Aero” bikes are bikes designed to be as aerodynamic as possible. “Endurance” bikes are designed to be as comfortable as possible. And lastly “All-Round” bikes, which used to be segmented as “lightweight” or “climbing” climbing bikes. While all-round bikes are starting to get more and more aerodynamic, in general they still aren’t as aerodynamic as pure aero bikes. Many riders, especially non-traditionalists, prefer the futuristic look of an aerobike, with its wider tube shapes and […]
June 1, 2022
In this post we are going to talk about how MyVeloFit is tackling the problems with sizing. Before we dive in let’s have a quick recap of our previous posts on sizing to understand how we got here. Welcome to Part 3 in our discussion on bike sizing. Here we’ll reveal our Fit First approach to bike sizing. The bicycle industry has created a mess of bike sizing (to put it lightly). As we discussed in Part 1 the current approaches to finding the correct size bike are somewhat limited. Manufacturer sizing charts don’t account for individual variations in body segment lengths or an individual’s target riding position. Professional Fit First services are a great approach to sizing but aren’t available to everyone due to cost and availability. To make matters worse bike sizing labels are inconsistent. In Part 2 we showed that two […]
May 1, 2022
Bikes come in a variety of sizes, but there isn’t a standardized way to size them. This article takes a closer look at the data to illustrate the problems it can cause. Welcome to Part 2 in our discussion on bike sizing. In Part 1 we spoke about some of the challenges consumers face in selecting a bike, mostly caused by a lack of standardization in how bike sizing is reported, an absence of consideration for how a bike will fit, along with how many consumers shop for bicycles. If you haven’t yet, we recommend going back to read Part 1 before tackling Part 2. Here we are going to do a deep dive into some of the variances in bike sizes which I hope will help illustrate why ibeing able to confirm confirm how you fit on a given bike is so important, […]
April 26, 2022
Bike sizing isn’t quite as simple as it seems. This article will discuss some of the problems I’ve encountered as a professional bike fitter with the state of bike sizing over the past 10 years. One of the most challenging things I experience is fitting people on the wrong size bike. The reason riders end up with the wrong size can vary; from receiving a hand-me-down, to mistakenly selecting the wrong size, or the more unfortunate cases where they have been advised by a retailer. As the bike industry moves increasingly towards a direct-to-consumer model, it is also getting harder for consumers to confirm the ideal size of a given model. This article represents part one of a three part series on why bike sizing is broken and how it can be fixed. In Part 1 (below) I’ll outline what I feel […]
