Big thanks to Allen and Emily for their time. I learned a lot from this fit session, particularly about shorter cranks. I hope you learned something too!
This is so fascinating and I appreciate how approachable the fit expert seems. It's super important that everyone, men, women, young, old, etc. feel welcome and comfortable on their bikes
I’m a 5’9” man, 32” inseam and just got 155mm cranks today to replace my bog-standard 170mm and let me tell you, my body INSTANTLY loved them. Doesn’t feel like I’m making huge circles anymore, able to comfortably raise my cadence much higher & smoother. Looking forward to the longer-term results (hopefully, no more knee pain!) but it did immediately feel much more comfortable.
Except that shorter cranks will require your saddle to be positioned higher and that will result in a more aggressive riding position. Good luck with your back.
Thanks for the video, appreciate the crank length discussion, I'm 175cm (I'm guessing 5'8?) with a 32" inseam and I experimented 160mm (105 R7000) cranks for 5 years and never once I thought of going back to 170s. At 160 they just feel right. Highly recommend them.
Shorter cranks, change the aft of the saddle which changes the seat pole heights, in order to keep the knee in line with widest part of the ball of the foot thru the peddle axle. We started with shoes, cleat position, plumbing bob to make sure alignment, adjusting the aft and pole height.
Very interesting and educational video. Thanks. Btw, do you happen to know the name/brand of that fit bike? I've noticed that several custom frame builders use that same model (Firefly for example). Makes a ton of sense to me, I think it's easier to think of bike fit in terms of X-Y coordinates, then you can design the bike to incorporate the contact points, using aesthetics and desired handling as guidelines to get to the final geometry.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Cool, thanks for that info. Yes, I figured it wouldn't be cheap. Way outside the budget for anyone but pro fitters who do this for a living and even then, I know a few who wouldn't drop that kind of money on a tool such as this. I've seen some rough approximations of this over the years, mostly made from 8020 extrusions. I remember Mike Flannigan (ex ANT bikes, and one of the founders of Independent Fabrication) built one years ago. He had pics of it up on Flickr, but I don't know if they're still there, now that he's no longer building. Anyway, I find the fitting aspect of custom bike making to be fascinating. Thanks again for making this video.
We didn't measure it as fitting based on numbers and formulas isn't really my thing, but for the next video I'll make sure we record inseam along with the final crank length!
She never posts? Cool, I never check Instagram anyway, lmao. 🙈 Looking forward to following the upcoming trip! It certainly seems like a lovely region to visit, if only the language barrier wasn't so intimidating to me (granted, I'm very much white, from the US Midwest, so have very little exposure to the various Chinese cultures. What little foreign language familiarity I do have is mostly Romance and Germanic languages, which I believe is vastly different from Mandarin, Cantonese, Fuzhounese, etc.)
@@Billy-cs4cc great question. There was a discussion about this that I had to cut out for the sake of time. Everyone is dealing with some asymmetry or power imbalance, Allen’s priority is not to make everyone perfectly symmetric on the bike, because it’s not possible. The priority is comfort. If the leg length discrepancy is causing issues, a cleat shim is a better solution than crank length adjustment.
So are there, or should there be, standardized touchpoint geometry numbers? I guess you’d need XYZ coordinates of the pedals, saddle, and hoods relative to the BB? If everyone had those numbers for themselves, would it be easy to convert those to ideal bike geo?
@@alexander.sollie when it comes to real world bike setup, XY position is hard to measure, so people measure seat height and setback relative to the BB, and then the handlebar relative to the saddle nose (nose to clamp and bar drop). It kinda makes sense: your foot to butt and butt to hands are what really matter.
how did her trip a week and a half from the time of shooting not come up until the very end of the bike fit session? seems like about the first thing to discuss right after name and payment method
Great catch and good question. My intake form does ask about any goals/events for the bike fit, and she didn't list her trip in there. We had originally also planned for the appointment a few weeks earlier but had to reschedule it shortly before her trip.
@@marcpfister9414 the fit that was transferred to her bike was for 165mm cranks. Emily is sponsored by Easton, who don’t currently make a 155mm crank! Very few companies do.
Big thanks to Allen and Emily for their time. I learned a lot from this fit session, particularly about shorter cranks. I hope you learned something too!
This is so fascinating and I appreciate how approachable the fit expert seems. It's super important that everyone, men, women, young, old, etc. feel welcome and comfortable on their bikes
I agree. Nothing pretentious about Allen’s fitting process. He listens and adapts to people’s needs
I’m a 5’9” man, 32” inseam and just got 155mm cranks today to replace my bog-standard 170mm and let me tell you, my body INSTANTLY loved them. Doesn’t feel like I’m making huge circles anymore, able to comfortably raise my cadence much higher & smoother. Looking forward to the longer-term results (hopefully, no more knee pain!) but it did immediately feel much more comfortable.
@@RedBeardedRabbit love to hear it! I hope there are more options for people to try.
Except that shorter cranks will require your saddle to be positioned higher and that will result in a more aggressive riding position. Good luck with your back.
I went from 175mm to 165mm to stop my thighs from hitting my big gut. adding stack was not an option. slam that stem 4lyf
@@bikeman123not if you raise the bars the same…
@@bikeman123 That can easily be acommodated with a riser bar or more spacers, lol
Thanks for the video, appreciate the crank length discussion, I'm 175cm (I'm guessing 5'8?) with a 32" inseam and I experimented 160mm (105 R7000) cranks for 5 years and never once I thought of going back to 170s. At 160 they just feel right. Highly recommend them.
It’s about time we had more Daniel in the vid.
Super informative! Next time I want to hear about hood tilt inward!
Face reveal is for subscribers only
OMG please upload more bike fit videos. I'm a sucker for RCA and Bike fit James videos. We need more bike fit videos for the Asian cyclists.
we'll have more on the way in the next month or two, so stay tuned!!
I'm 5'7" with a 30" inseam. Riding 155mm cranks (Rotor). Love them! My wife is 5'4" with a 28.5" inseam. She's riding 145mm cranks (Appleman).
Love to hear the real world impacts!
Shorter cranks, change the aft of the saddle which changes the seat pole heights, in order to keep the knee in line with widest part of the ball of the foot thru the peddle axle. We started with shoes, cleat position, plumbing bob to make sure alignment, adjusting the aft and pole height.
what bike frame and size do you ride? ETT of the bike?
Awesome man! I followed your advice and I swear I PR’ed on my whole ride
Love to see it Allen! The power drill adjustments are my fav.
Nice video! Love that Emily did not even clean her bike prior to the session!
The dusty bike and those totally worn out cleats were some serious cred.
Very interesting, great stuff. Could hear and learn much more
Agreed! Will definitely be revisiting some fit topics. What would you like to learn?
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT To be fair, real world cases are the most interesting, otherwise it's just so theoretical.
@@alindberg8001 Great point. Ill see if Allen has any interesting real world cases that we can do a video on.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT would be interestibg to hear how you design a bike around people's needs for a fit.
Love your videos. You will get many subscribers just keep up the good work, I certainly appreciate it.
Oh this place is super closeby! Will check it out, thanks!
If only handlebars were sold with XY Cartesian coordinates specified!
Very interesting and educational video. Thanks. Btw, do you happen to know the name/brand of that fit bike? I've noticed that several custom frame builders use that same model (Firefly for example).
Makes a ton of sense to me, I think it's easier to think of bike fit in terms of X-Y coordinates, then you can design the bike to incorporate the contact points, using aesthetics and desired handling as guidelines to get to the final geometry.
@@UWMailing “Purely Custom” it’s nice, but expensive! ($15k) I’ve been thinking about designing an open source version to make fitting more accessible
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Cool, thanks for that info. Yes, I figured it wouldn't be cheap. Way outside the budget for anyone but pro fitters who do this for a living and even then, I know a few who wouldn't drop that kind of money on a tool such as this.
I've seen some rough approximations of this over the years, mostly made from 8020 extrusions. I remember Mike Flannigan (ex ANT bikes, and one of the founders of Independent Fabrication) built one years ago. He had pics of it up on Flickr, but I don't know if they're still there, now that he's no longer building.
Anyway, I find the fitting aspect of custom bike making to be fascinating. Thanks again for making this video.
Super informative video like always. Love seeing Asians in the cycling space. Keep
It up!
Love the video. The dirty bike gave me anxiety tho lol
Really nice video. I am wondering what her inseam length was to get to 155mm cranks?
We didn't measure it as fitting based on numbers and formulas isn't really my thing, but for the next video I'll make sure we record inseam along with the final crank length!
i love short crank arm. make more fast
Whats the model of the bike fitting machine? This looks awesome! Anyone?
Purely Custom: purelycustomfit.com/
She never posts? Cool, I never check Instagram anyway, lmao. 🙈 Looking forward to following the upcoming trip! It certainly seems like a lovely region to visit, if only the language barrier wasn't so intimidating to me (granted, I'm very much white, from the US Midwest, so have very little exposure to the various Chinese cultures. What little foreign language familiarity I do have is mostly Romance and Germanic languages, which I believe is vastly different from Mandarin, Cantonese, Fuzhounese, etc.)
I'm wondering which shirt she is wearing? Any brand suggestions?
Ornot power dry tech shirt! Their stuff is very well designed and understated. The stuff lasts forever too!
@ Thanks a lot!
it would be interesting if she rides and gives you feedback before you tell her what you changed. no placebo effect or whatever you know..?
So if the young ladies legs are different lengths shouldn't her pedal crank lengths be made to specifically fit each leg?
@@Billy-cs4cc great question. There was a discussion about this that I had to cut out for the sake of time. Everyone is dealing with some asymmetry or power imbalance, Allen’s priority is not to make everyone perfectly symmetric on the bike, because it’s not possible. The priority is comfort. If the leg length discrepancy is causing issues, a cleat shim is a better solution than crank length adjustment.
So are there, or should there be, standardized touchpoint geometry numbers? I guess you’d need XYZ coordinates of the pedals, saddle, and hoods relative to the BB? If everyone had those numbers for themselves, would it be easy to convert those to ideal bike geo?
@@alexander.sollie when it comes to real world bike setup, XY position is hard to measure, so people measure seat height and setback relative to the BB, and then the handlebar relative to the saddle nose (nose to clamp and bar drop). It kinda makes sense: your foot to butt and butt to hands are what really matter.
how did her trip a week and a half from the time of shooting not come up until the very end of the bike fit session? seems like about the first thing to discuss right after name and payment method
Emily routinely disappears for adventures. We usually find out when she gets back!
Great catch and good question. My intake form does ask about any goals/events for the bike fit, and she didn't list her trip in there. We had originally also planned for the appointment a few weeks earlier but had to reschedule it shortly before her trip.
Do you remember if after she settled on 155s the seat was moved back?
@@marcpfister9414 the fit that was transferred to her bike was for 165mm cranks. Emily is sponsored by Easton, who don’t currently make a 155mm crank! Very few companies do.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT bike industry: 1, consumers: 0
@@marcpfister9414 agreed. After the video, I reached out to some suppliers in Taiwan to source some affordable options. It's promising!
She needs a chiropractic adjustment, definitely. A Gonstead chiro will spot on her issue.
bmx, federal bikes... don't need that 🤣😂👌
Really for everyone?🤔 . I am 7 ft tall .