Does anyone know of any data online that charts what the statistically average proportions for a person of a given height might be?

I have some information about that at home that consists of diagrams of the human body. I'm posting from the town library. I would poke around architectural websites as they have to design buildings or furniture to fit people.

You know that bike manufacturers have moved beyond fitting the "average" don't you?

If your thinking that you don't fit your bike properly because your not "average" then rest at ease. Bikes aren't made to fit ANYONE these days The game these days is to build a bike so that the greatest number of people can test ride a bike for a few minutes and feel OK on it enough to buy it but not fit any one sized person properly.

Anthony

I think you got that right. And it seems that no matter how short and tall they make the road bikes, customers will find ways to make them shorter and taller still.

You've lost me... So they're not shooting for the average any longer, but they're looking to make it passable for the greatest number of people. Wouldn't that at least be "close enough" for the average?

I'm not worried about being average myself. I know I'm weirdly proportioned. I'm trying to get a sense of being able to tell if Person X has a long torso and short legs, whether Person Y has really long legs for their size, etc.

I've tried to reply to this twice already but my computer keeps on crashing Third time lucky.

You got it in one. Close enough is good enough. There is no real person anywhere that a bike is designed to fit. Everyone needs to change a few parts to fit properly but some parts cant be changed or are very expensive.

When you get your answer the problem is that it still tells you nothing about fitting a person to a bike.

Example. WSD (women specific design). There was a time when WSD was claiming to fit women with long legs/ short torso better than standard mens designs. The simple requirement. A shorter top tube. Now there are two ends of the top tube to shorten. The front at the headset and the back at the seat tube. The way that it SHOULD be done is to shorten the frame at the head tube end and leave the seat tube alone because the rider still has long legs.

The trouble is, this is more difficult to do with limiting factors such as wheel size and pedal overlap. The EASY way to shorten the top tube is to shorten it at the seat tube end which means steeper seat tube angles.

Guess which way the bike manufacturers went? That's right. The easy way which is the wrong way to do it.

So anyway a lady takes the bike for a short test ride and it feels better to her as the reach is shorter but she hasn't ridden it far enough to feel the extra weight on her hands and shoulders. She buys it anyway but months later when she feels the problem she takes it in for a fitting.

All a fitter can do is move the saddle back with a setback post if necessary but this extends the reach

Modern bike frame design is a mess.

Anthony

Or he puts a short 25-degree rise stem on it.

I did a search on "average body proportions" and got a raft of interesting hits.

This is the only one that made any kind of sense to me. Of course, I wasn't trying too hard.


But, for men, leg length of 46% of overall height feels about right for men of average height (176-180 cm?). And in my experience sizing women to bikes, their average proportional leg length appears no longer than men's. The arms might be shorter, though.

I saw online an average of 45% of inseam length to overall height for men, and 48 - 49% for women. This can help with determining reach to bar. (Higher percentage means shorter torso, therefore shorter reach . . . at least without taking flexibility into consideration.)