Making a larger bike fit...
 

I recently got hit by a car. Long story. So I needed a new winter bike as my other frame was bent... and I ended up buying a 21'' Schwinn Frontier. I'm 5'9 and ride usually a 17 or 19.

The biggest problem I have with the bike, is that it's too up right, and makes my "junk" go numb. So what I'm thinking I need to do is get a shorter stem, so it's not so up right, that way I have to lean down further which would put more weight on my hands and not my junk... I may even need to move the handle bars outwards. I've used three different saddles too. Still numbage in the junkage department...

What is everyone's expertise?

You can change the relation ship of the saddle to the handle bars by a selection of a new stem
should you feel excessive extension, the handle bars are too far from the seat? get a shorter one..

lots of bike fitting needs only changing a few parts.

I'm 5'9".. a 21" frame , with a level top tube is just right for me. my road bike is a 56cm or a 22"

I thinking being too upright isn't the problem, but I've been wrong many times in my life. Can't hurt to try a different stem, especially if it puts you in a position more like you're used to. Is it possible that the longer top tube has you reaching farther forward than you should be?

Do you have the seat tilted down at the front, roughly level, or tilted up at the front? Strange as it may seem, keeping the seat level or even tipping it slightly up can help because it forces your weight back on your butt.

Get a stem with a good amount of rise and flip it upside down. This should get you in a lower position. If it is a threadless headset, put the stem lower in the spacer stack if you can.

I'm a little confused. Wouldn't a shorter stem would put you in a more upright position by moving the handlebars closer to the saddle. It seems to me that you might be able to mitigate the problem either be going more upright and getting more of your weight on the sit bones (were any of those saddles you tried made for a more upright position?) You might also be able to get more comfortable with a less upright position as with 531phile's suggestions above, though the geometry of the Frontier does not look as if it would work well with that. Good luck.

Can you post a picture of your bike? It might help to see how it's set up.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=187898

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=187899


The top one is the Schwinn I've been talking about. It's in the shop right now. The tech agreed that the stem could probably be lowered, but disagreed with me in that it should be moved outwards. So we're gonna lower it for now and see what that does. It's a nice bike too, after this winter I'm going to turn it into a utility bike, and put a rack on it to do all my grocery shopping and stuff (I'm car free)... And then next winter I'm going to make it a "blizzard bike," and put studs on it and just drive it during the storms and such and have another bike designated as a "winter bike." The Schwinn is in immaculate shape for a bike that's about 10 years old, I'd hate to kill it after just a couple winters. I found that riding in an actual snow storm doesn't really hurt the bike. It's the day after when the roads have salt, slush, and calcium all over it that hurts the bike. Riding on packed snow doesn't really do much damage.

The bottom bike is the bike I was on when a ford explorer plowed into me three nights ago at 20-25mph. I got punted like a football on opening day lol... he drove over the back tire and bent the bottom of the rear fork almost in the area where the rear tire mounts. So I had to permanently retire it. You can't see in the picture... but he took the seat right off the bike on on impact. All that's left is the post.

Hope a snow bank cushioned your coming back down again,
after the initial impact hit the bike.

no... I came down on my back. that in all actuality was probably the best case scenario because the roads were snow covered at the time as it was snowing... and the forward momentum brought me down into a slide which was slightly out of the path of the ford explorer that hit me. It passed me as I was still sliding on my back and he ended nose up in a snow bank. Had I landed on a snowbank that probably would have brought me to a more sudden stop which could have been a bit more traumatic.

Looking at the picture the stem looks really short already. I would take tjspeils advice and tilt the position of the saddle nose up and see if that helps.

I think the confusion is over the terminology. Undisputed83 has a Quill Stem (Threaded headset) he is talking about adjusting the insertion into the headset thereby lowering the handlebars. Those of us who use a threadless headset were assuming he was talking about shortening the reach when he mentioned "shortening the stem".