Originally Posted by seypat

I didn't know bike fit was so complicated. But after reading the thread......

Your legs/feet/torso/skeleton dimensions are not going to change much. The things that can/will change is the size of your butt and gut. Your body type might have as big of an impact on your fit as anything else. I'm a Meso-Endomorph type, so nothing but French or Eddy fit for me. Find a bike in your range, and start pedaling. You can sit up like Jesus on that shirt. Start with the saddle in the middle. Adjust it up or down and fore/aft so that your pedal stroke is good and you won't do any harm to your knees. Tighten up the seatpost/saddle, take a measurement for reference and write it down. My measurement there is center of BB along ST to the top of the saddle. Get back on, start pedaling, hinge at the hips, and continue from there. Find what works for you, take measurements and write them down. The other measurements I record, are BB center to the center of the stem/handlebar and front tip of seat to the center of the stem/handlebar. After that I don't care. Those 3 measurements are the same from bike to bike to bike. Because of the different sizes of frames, some have more/less seatpost showing/drop than the others. If I lose/gain some mass in the butt/gut or change my flexibility, then maybe a seatpost/handlebar stem goes up or down some. Those 3 measurements stay the same. My frames vary from 53-56 ST but all have a TT around 56. The stems are 80-100 and the handlbars are all similar. It works for me. It's really not that hard. If I was a racer, I might make it a little more complicated. I will say that if I go with the saddle forward and a longer stem it moves the center of mass/gravity foreword onto the fork/front wheel. This has a negative impact on handling/feel, especially when climbing.