How do Superbikes Fit? (Slowtwitch article)
Interesting read (as always)... lots of bike fit terminology and "geek speak" for those interested.
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Interesting read (as always)... lots of bike fit terminology and "geek speak" for those interested.
Comments
I've never been very proficient in the bike fit area, but at some point I'll probably get down to reading this stuff. This is exactly why I sought out Todd at ttbikefit to see which bike would fit me best out of my local choices. I'll reserve my comments for the weekend when I have a change to actually read the article.
Gordon
The one takeaway (which I have been saying for the last two years) is that the new superbikes offer up more moderate fits than they did a few years ago. That graph would've looked way different with way more outliers and less middle ground. Combine that with the many stem choices and 95% of us can get any of those bikes to fit. That's a good thing for those of us not on the extreme left or right of any bell curve when it comes to body size and proportions. More choices! I'll stray away from my usual rant about custom bikes like Guru and the like for now.
Yes, Cervelo still goes on the long side but they used to be the torch bearers for long and low and they're pretty much average to above average on the stack side nowadays. Felt used to be just like Cervelo but it now looks like the DA is amongst the tallest and narrowest of the bunch. The reach numbers (the length) is pretty close for all the bikes in a given size range with the exception of Cervelo. So a L Speed Concept is about as long as a L DA or a L Ordu or a L Slice. I think reach is the main thing the bike manufacturers all moved to the center of the bell curve with regard to the integrated cockpit bikes. Reach is usually the more difficult aspect for a fit to a certain bike because there's normally less options to change the reach. Stack (height) has more variables to change to get into a better fit.
We could debate the purposes and merits of such ownership, but personally I think it's better for everyone to have the bike companies worried about fitting the masses, especially in their design phases like Bob alludes to.
The problem (one of many problems) is most super bikes use a custom stem/bar setup and even if they are "adjustable" (i.e. BMC) or offer multiple sizes (i.e. Trek/Felt) you still have no where near as many options as with a standard frame that can take any stem/bar. Plus, you are stuck buying overprices stems/parts that can only be used on that bike.
For this reason, the the "traditional" approach of using frame stack/reach (which is BB to headtube) to compare bikes doesn't work with super bikes as their frame/stack/reach is kind of a moot point.
This makes it much hard to compare your current bike fit to a super bike or to compare super bike to super bike.
Therefore you have to do more math now and either figure out the stack/reach from BB to handlebar clamp or from BB to the elbow pads to really compare fits across bikes.
Dan did this by figuring out the s/r from BB to handlebar clamp for each size of many of the super bikes and graphed the results. Basically he did a great job of creating an easy starting place for someone looking for a superbike to see what might fit.
The reality is you still have to do the math to figure out your exact position and that math is more difficult if you are interested in one or more super bikes.
On a side note, totally agree with Bob that the industry as a whole is moving to higher stack on super bikes and normal bikes, which is good for the majority of the market but I personally hate. I'm rocking a -30 degree stem at the moment with zero spaces because of this trend.
BTW, i don't mean to imply there is anything wrong with super bikes...they are the fastest around. i just find most people don't really understand the shortcomings until after they buy one. Not sure when I became a grumpy old man, but it appears I did :-)
To riff on Matt's comments about integrated stems...
I used to ride a Felt B2 which "sort of" used a traditional stem. I say "sort of" because it was still Felt proprietary but basically traditional in nature. The bike came with three stems which I will call short, medium and long. Making adjustments was not only easy but it was free. Each stem could also be angled a dozen different ways to get different stack and reach fits from the same stem without the need for spacers or a total stem change. The Felt frame was too long for me so I couldn't get a great fit no matter the stem. I'm more legs than torso so the long and low nature of the Felt frame was a less than ideal but I didn't know shit about bike fit at that time.
Fast forward to my Trek Speed Concept. I had a 60/45 "stem" (60mm length, 45 degree rise) and I wanted to get lower. That meant purchasing a $200 stem (50mm length, 10 degree rise) and a few frustraing hours installing the damn thing since I had to re-cable the front brake cable and find a new place to put the Di2 wires and control box since that stuff would not fit under the 50/10 stem. The Trek SC is notoriously hard to wrench and that part was f'n ridiculous.
Moral of the story is the superbikes come at a cost beyond the initial price. There's nothing cheap or easy.