So I'm riding down the road, straight and level, and I look down at the front tire. The top of the tire is definitely further left than the bottom. So I shift my balance and line it up straight - feels awful. I guess I just naturally lean to the right when riding, and lean the bike to the left to stay balanced. Anybody else notice this?

Been riding for decades and never noticed this before. Or maybe it's old age - I'm turning 65 soon...

Sam

Are your legs the same length? I was diagnosed with a right 1/2" shorter than the left in my late 50s, With a shim of half the difference (1/4") I could sight down the center of my frame/wheels for the first time.

Are your wheels properly dished? Fork symmetric, both side to side and blade length?

We cannot see and measure either you or the bike. All we can do is ask questions.

Ben

Never noticed but now I'm going to. I'll have to check next time I'm on.

Ocular dominance perhaps?

Sitting in your living room, quickly and without much thought, point to a lamp with your index finger. Holding the finger in the pointing position, close your left eye, then switch, closing your right eye. The eye that lines up with your finger and the lamp is your dominant eye.

The right.

You're actually riding slightly tilted, because roads aren't flat.



The more rainy the climate, the more crown to the road. The minimum is 1/2" slope per foot of road width. A typical residential street drops 5" between the crown and the curb.

Sure, I lean right. It's not road camber. I do it on all roads, even when riding on the "wrong" side. I've confirmed it with videos recorded from the bike and off the bike of me riding. It's not an extreme lean but it's there. Most folks wouldn't notice. A coach or bike fitter would. I notice.

Doesn't surprise me. The right side of my body was injured in a 2001 car wreck, breaking six vertebrae in my back and neck, from hip to C2. My right shoulder and neck were already tight with chronic pain since then. And it was broken and separated when I was hit by a car in May this year. Then my thyroid swelled to baseball size, forcing my head to lean even more right to be able to swallow and breathe. Just had surgery last week to remove the bad half of the thyroid, so now I need to work on physical therapy to restore more or less normal posture after years of poor posture.

I'd already adopted a slight side-saddle driving position in cars, leaning the left side slightly forward because the left arm is stronger and doesn't get tired as easily. Apparently I'm doing the same thing on the bike.

I've even set the bike's cockpit up slightly different on the left and right for comfort. The right side on my two main bikes have the brake levers set up slightly closer and with slightly easier pull. The hybrid's stem/handlebar are twisted very slightly rightward and I've just left it that way. When I tried "fixing" everything to match the left side it was more uncomfortable on longer rides.

Reminds me, I need to ditch the U-lock mount on the right side of my seat tube -- it brushes my leg and reinforces bad posture.

BTW, if you watch videos of Eddy Merckx, Chris Froome and a few other veteran cyclists well into their careers, their posture had become pretty sketchy. Merckx tended to lean right and flared out his right knee. Froome... well, he looks like a pterodactyl that swooped down, stole a bike and tries to resemble a human riding a bike. His elbows flare out like wings. He varies his saddle height so much it sometimes looks like his knees are about to knock his chin. His coaches and techs have pretty much admitted he makes ad lib changes to his bike fit to suit himself on any given day.

Comes with age, wear and tear, injuries and inevitable joint problems and muscle stiffness. I don't even walk straight anymore when I'm tired.

Maybe a little OCD? Nothing in existence is perfect. Perfection does not exist.
Jon

It's also possible that your frame isn't straight. Ride through a puddle and see if your wheels are tracking one behind the other.

When I go around a bend/corner in the ride?

Often i'll come up behind another cyclist and i can see their wheels are of differing tilt. This more the case with cheaper or older bikes, where the wheel nuts/skewers have been tightened with the wheel pulled to meet how the brakes sit.

Bodies are just about never symmetrical when you get down to actual measurements. And even if you happen to have a sufficently symmetric skeleton, force of habit, left/right dominance will still do its thing. Often "ain't broke, don't fix" is the most prudent approach.
I've never noticed a lean as such, but I've discovered that whatever bike or surface I'm on, I'll drift to the left if the road is empty.

Sounds like dementia. I'm pretty sure if you lean left you will go to the left.

I lean right. Always have. Even when coasting, the frame is on the left of my body's center.

No leg length issues, no flexibility issues, its just how I have ridden since a kid on a BMX. My natural coasting position is left leg down so weight on that side and body leaning right to counter balance.

Another cause of leaning to one side is a seat height that is too high, you will drop one side lower to compensate.

I have slight scoliosis. I always lean slightly to the left: on the bike, at my desk, everywhere.

I took notice today and I don't appear to lean one way or the other, or at least not enough for me to tell.

I find that I tilt my head away from strong cross winds. I see other riders do it from time to time too. When I catch myself doing it I level my head back up again.