Good deal on the saddle and cleat position adjustment.
Yes, you do seem to be very off center to the left. Your whole hips and lower back are quite shifted.
Possible causes I can think of without more info:
When standing, you may have a pelvic tilt left to right, instead of being “level”. Based on the bid, my guess would be right side hip is high.
You may have a lower back alignment issue that leads to the offset when placed on a saddle.
You could have a large leg length discrepancies that leads to you shifting left to compensate. That might be a shorter left leg.
And there are likely others, but those are the first that come to mind. In a perfect world, you want even placement of your sit bones centered over the wings of the saddle.
That is not always possible for everyone. But it seems it may be worth some deeper looks to see if there is a better solution for you.
First discrepancy thing that comes to mind is I severely broke my right tib/fib just above the ankle in 2016. Since then that ankle’s flexibility (dorsi flexion and plantar flexion) is markedly reduced compared to my left. Wonder if that’s related?
Sure is possible. Any asymmetry in shape or function could be a contributing factor. Would need good vids from both sides to judge the leg motions in the stroke.
Not sure if this has already been covered in the thread, only got through the first half of the thread. I am new to structured training and I am having some numbness issue with lil Tim and the Boys. Outside on the road I often do 3 to 4 hour rides with out any issues, but 30 to 40 minutes into a trainer session and things go numb. I am heading to the LBS this morning to start demo’g some new saddles, something with a cut out or pressure relief channel.
My hip/groin has been causing me problems for months. I can do Zone 2, but I can’t produce high power for very long, so I had to kill my CX season early and it’s not really getting better. Closed hip angles make it worse, so I was thinking I might try the recumbent trike I built years ago on the rollers (with my P1 pedals).
Is there any fit wisdom I should be aware of for recumbents? I’m not planning on riding it outside much (it weighs as much as a small elephant), I just want to see if I can ride properly with my hip angle as open as possible.
Like so many other things in cycling life… because that is the way it has usually (always?) been. MTB follow the typical approach of spec’ing the 170mm for bikes on the small side the size range, and 175mm for those on the large side. Since there has not been a 172.5mm option, that means a more black/white (long/short) setting.
There is no magic to it than the overall concept of using longer cranks for taller riders, who generally have longer legs (and femurs as the common driver of old-school crank sizing).
However, with the move towards full suspension, and adding in the long/low/slack trend in geometry that gives us lower bottom bracket heights… we see a trend of people (and bike companies) starting to use shorter cranks for more ground clearance to reduce pedal strikes to the ground.
As with anything crank length related, some people feel strongly about one or the other. The ground clearance issue is the most practical reason to go shorter and makes a ton of sense to me. MTB’s lack the issues of flex and body limitations we see in aggressive road and triathlon setups, so that is a non-issue here since the upper body is far more upright.
Thanks. My right knee hurts every time I ride any of my mountain bikes and was thinking about getting a power meter for the MTB, and of course I’m not sure why, but it already has a super-high BB and I don’t wan to go 5mm higher. I’ve been to a couple orthos about it, was reminded that I’m getting old and things are going to start hurting.
Next question that I didn’t see here, though the thread is huge, what are the preferred methods for determining a mountain bike handle bar width “out of range”. I ride a 760mm bar on my 120/115 bike, rode the 100/100 bike with 700s and it felt tiny, like a toy bike. “Wider is better” right now, and I’m definitely not going wider on the big bike, wondered what the informed class thinks.
I haven’t seen as much for a “formula” or “practice” other than looking at the rider on the bike. Wider is often better for control and stability, but there is a limit that is dependent on the rider size (upper body limb length and chest width) and their preferences for feel and control.
In a neutral & seated position, I like to see “soft” elbows with a mild bend. Straight & locked arms are a clear no-no, but large bend angle is also not desired. Gotta find a Goldilocks amount of bend that allows for proper weight shift forward and backward to follow terrain. We need more dynamic body placement than a road bike, so we have to look at the range and extremes more closely when fitting on MTB. Also important to consider standing in the same range and extremes.
If taking and existing setup and going wider (or narrower), consideration of stem length changes are relevant. As you widen grip, with the same stem, this pulls the rider and chest closer to the front. This may be desired, but often is not. So a change to a shorter stem with a wider bar is common. A guess of a stem change of 1/2 the bar width change is a reasonable starting point.
When changing grip width, also keep in mind the sweep of the bar. There is back sweep that bends towards the rear of the bike, and up sweep that bends up. Getting the right combo of width and sweeps is important, coupled with the proper rotation of the bar in the stem. You want a comfortable wrist angle that gives proper support from the hand to the forearm, and does not place the wrist in strain.
It is highly preferential. A bad setup is usually obvious, but the difference between “OK” and “Perfect” can sometimes be whittled down to millimeters of with and small angle changes.
Hi @mcneese.chad and all, a little pernickety fit problem for you all. Basically, I’ve had a bike fit on my summer bike (Cannondale with look pedals and road shoes), but not on my winter bike (Kinesis with spd pedals and CX boots).
And recently I’ve been doing some long winter rides and had a niggling knee pain towards the end. I’ve taken a couple of videos to compare the two (sadly I didn’t have a tripod so the angles aren’t exact). I have a couple ideas of changes to make, but I wonder if anything stuck out for you…
Setups look very close from the vids. Maybe a bit more leg extension and toe point on the winter bike. Could be worth a test of dropping the saddle height 5mm and see what that does for you.
One key difference (assuming perfect cleat & shoe alignment on both setups) is that the SPD 2-screw design has float, but it forces the cleat to center each time. The Look style have unrestrained float that allows the cleat in any position with no centering force.
This difference could be an issue, especially if the assumption above is wrong, and you have a cleat alignment that is not perfect. Take a close look at those and see if that is possible.
Thanks, that’s great because it tallies with my amateur observations involving screenshots and an online protractor tool. I think my knees come a bit further in front of the BB on the summer bike too, so maybe a combination of moving saddle down (and therefore also forwards) a bit, plus see if there’s any room for the winter shoe cleats to go back a tiny bit.
While I do that I’ll check the cleat alignment too. Unfortunately one of the things I know from my bike fit are that my left and right legs are very much not aligned…
Right, moved the saddle down a little. Unfortunately the cleats were already as far back as they go.
Also tilted the nose forward slightly as it seemed to be pointing a little up compared to the summer bike. Was already shifted as far forward as it could be - might look into a seatpost with less layback if you know any good ones…
Ended up getting a new saddle, slightly wider than my old one and with a cut out. Did a trainer ride the other night and it was defiantly and improvement, no numbness downstairs and I was able to complete the work out. I also moved the saddle forward a bit to make sure my sit bones were far enough back. This worked well for saddle comfort but cussed some unexpected hand issues. It felt like I had way too much weight on my hands and towards the end of my ride I had some numbness in the hands. The hand also bothered me for the next couple of days.
Can moving the saddle forward chase to much weight on the hands?
Next ride I will raise my front wheel up several inches to help get some weight off my hands. I’m also thinking of trying a different saddle with a large cut out like the Selle Italia SLR. Also planning on building a rocker plate in the near future.
