The importance of bike fit cannot be overstated. You pedal thousands of revolutions per ride, putting thousands of pounds of pressure on your joints. If it’s not properly aligned, the joints are loaded incorrectly, which can lead to overuse injuries. Cycling can be quite good for the body since it doesn’t have the impact of running, but you can still injure yourself if you’re set up wrong.

You and your bike must work like a fine-tuned machine. Think of your knee as a hinge. If a hinge is not side loaded, it will eventually bind and wear out prematurely. Your knees work the same way. If even one aspect of the fit is misaligned, you can injure yourself. The good thing is that bike fit, while a little tricky because of all the interrelationships of the machine and the body, is not rocket science.

If you can’t get to a professional bike fitter, these rules will help you improve the comfort and performance of your bike.

Rule 1: Everything is connected.

If you move the seat back you will need to lower the saddle and possibly short out the stem. Everything in the body is interconnected, so you can’t move a single piece without it affecting all the other settings to some degree. Remember that song about the shin connected to the knee bone. When riding a bike, I start with the cleat setup and work from there. The studs should be between 5 and 15mm behind the ball of the foot. Your saddle height should be high enough that you get good extension at the bottom of the pedal stroke (about 30 degree knee flexion at the bottom), but not so high that your hips rock when pedaling. A slightly lower saddle will feel smoother when pedaling at a high cadence, while a slightly higher position will maximize leverage when pushing higher gears. Depending on your riding style, this can influence where in the range you want to put the saddle.

Rule 2: Adapt your bike to your body since your body will not adapt to your bike

If you need a higher bar position or shorter reach, make the changes, as your body will not adapt to a position that is far outside of your comfort zone. In particular, there are the side-to-side balance issues. If your hips sit crooked on the saddle, you will need to adjust slightly to the opposite side of the forward hip. If one leg is longer than the other or just behaves that way on the bike, you should fit the shorter leg by half the difference. With road pedals, you can fit a wedge between the cleat and the shoe. If you have clipless mountain bike pedals, it’s best to fix the insole in the shorter leg shoe if you have room inside the shoe. If you fit the cleat on a mountain bike it can create instability as the cleats are so small.

Rule 3: Look for balance when riding

If any part of your body protests (hurts) when you’re going hard, look to rebalance your position. If your hand is numb, you may need to move the saddle back and down, shorten the reach, or raise the bar. It is often a combination of these to achieve a balanced position that allows you to bring out your maximum sustainable power with minimal body fatigue. By repositioning the cleats in the shoes, adjusting the saddle back and bar position to match, your postural muscles will have the least amount of engagement, making for a more comfortable ride. This combination will also tend to increase the involvement of the hamstrings and gluteal muscles by increasing the resistance as the load is spread across more muscles.

General description

Bike fit is both an art and a science. There are no magic formulas to be in the correct position. It’s a combination of biomechanics, experience, and an understanding that the body works as a unit that can help you figure out how to fix discomfort and performance issues.