Originally Posted by
workingthrewit
Thanks for the response.
Usually I hear people talk about KOPS, but you are saying to get your center of gravity over the BB, not your knee over the pedal spindle?
I am 71.25 inches tall with a 32 inch true rider's inseam, both without shoes on. I have a long torso and short legs. It is my understanding that people with long torsos for their body need longer stems, and people with longer limbs for their bodies need shorter stems.
Im wondering if I need a longer stem. I know with the standard setup of the hoods being level with the top of the handlebars, I have to bend my wrists up to have my hands on the shifting levers in the drops.
Thanks for the help.
The Myth of K.O.P.S.
The Myth of K.O.P.S. An Alternative Method of Bike Fit
by
Keith Bontrager
originally edited by Doug Roosa
HTML and additional editing by
Sheldon Brown
Minor edits and a few comments by
John Allen
[h=2]Editor's notes at the time it was published:[/h]Exploding myths is tough work. People don't want to believe that their ideas about how things work or how things should be are wrong. Keith Bontrager tackles one of our primary beliefs about bike fit: that aligning the rider's knee over the pedal spindle is critical for proper positioning. He shows that there is no physiological basis for it. His dismissal of that rule, and his alternative method of bike fit, is based on quite a bit of anatomical study and a lot of practical experience in fitting riders to his custom-built framesets. Some of the ideas in this article may be initially hard to grasp, but if you bear with it, you will derive an understanding of an approach to bike fit that considers the needs of the rider in all riding positions, not just the seated one.
-Doug Roosa.