Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
That works.
If you start with height and get reach later, or reach first and then height, you are covering both bases.
And since they likely know their pants inseam length, for what you are doing that is a logical starting point.
A few years ago I saw my niece's carbon road bike in her garage. I asked her why she had her seatpost turned around so that the seat clamp was in front of the post instead of behind. She said that was the only way to get her bike to fit her well. She bought that bike over a decade ago from a high end bike shop, the bike shop sales person was most insistent that she needed that size frame for her inseam length. Later she met a guy that later became her hubby, he is the one that turned her seatpost around so that she did not have to be stretched way out to ride the bike. They do not make stems short enough to fix her bike fit.
Her bike frame is a size that would fit me perfectly, but she is three inches shorter than me. But apparently we have the same inseam length.
Point being that there are too many sales people that only sell bikes based on seatpost length.
Long legged people are problematic but I would probably put her on a smaller frame and use a long seat post rather than put her on a tall frame and try to retrofit it. All of my bikes have much more than a fist full of seatpost showing. Mountain bike riders are used to having a lot of post showing and it’s not really much of a problem. Even with my ample frame, I haven’t bent a post in years.