I recently purchased a used cannondale caad 9 4. I am pretty sure the frame (58) is a good size for me but I am having some discomfort after my rides. I just received a demo saddle for a Selle SMP pro (after reading reviews) I am going to try out. Been having problems with rides after the 15 or so mile mark. I am unable to find a position on the seat that is bearable and getting numbness. When I stand I can feel the blood rush back into the perineum area and the area feels hot. I am also having trouble with my hands/arms.

I have previously had a little bit of mountain bike experience but I have gone from never riding a road bike to putting about 75 miles a week on my bike for the last two weeks (6 rides).

My elbows are now constantly bothering me, my left worse than the right. The pain is felt when extending the arm straight, I also feel pain while trying to ride, more when the road conditions cause a vibration. I have taken a 5 day rest but my elbows are still in pain when I extend them. I for certain was not riding with good form at first. I am sure I rode too long with my arms in a near locked elbow position. Since I started feeling the discomfort in my elbows I have worked to keep my elbows bent when riding. I am also experiencing a numbness in my arms and hands after a few miles. My left arm more than my right, which also has the worse elbow pain. I read about where on the hand to avoid putting too much pressure and have been trying that but still getting the numbness.

While tinkering with the bike setup I have found a few things I have questions about. I read that the seat should be positioned foward/aft so that the tip of the seat to the center of the bars is the same distance as the length of your arm from elbow to tip of middle finger (19.5" for me). The bike has the stock stem and with the seat that came on the bike, a prologo kappa pas, the rails where not long enough to move the seat to achieve this. The new seat I am testing has longer rails but with the recommended (using the book that came with the seat and the knee over pedal I have read about and have since read is highly debatable) setup I am still around 2.5 inches longer in distance from tip of the seat to the center of the bars than my arm length. Moving the smp seat that much farther forward will put it at the furthest forward position possible.

I am 6'1 - 6'2 with a 33" inseam. By bike frame is a 58. My stem from the back to the front of the bars measures 5.5 inches. I also find it more comfortable to ride in the drops then on the hoods so I think either my stem or bars are not the best configuration for me. I am finding that I put a lot of weight on my hands no matter where they are on the bars.

I have set my seat height using the inseam times a number I cant remember off the top of my head and the method where you set the seat so your leg is straight with the heel on the pedal at the bottom of the stroke.

Long story short I have been looking around for a good bike fitting to hopefully help with my discomfort. I have found a place 2 hours away in Lubbock Texas that offers the "BikeFit" (https://www.bikefit.com) system of fittings. Does anyone have experience with "bikefit"? I have found a few fitters using the retul system most of them are 4+ hours away.

I also came across reviews for a guy in Houston https://www.tadhughescustom.com. That would be a 7 hour trip for me. I am willing to do what ever it takes to get setup correctly. I am enjoying riding and sitting around waiting for my elbows to get better is such a bummer.

Any recommendations/comments on fitting or personal experience with the discomfort I am trying to alleviate is welcome. I have spent as much money on high end shoes/pedals/helmets/bibs/socks ect trying to make the ride as comfortable as possible as I did on the bike itself. Once I sort through the butt/arm issues I will be able to enjoy cycling much more. Thanks in advance.

A few months after starting cycling this year, I had a shooting pain in my butt. I followed Steve Hogg's recommendations for setting seat height and it solved the issue for me https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/...ard-can-it-be/ . Equations don't always work well for individual fitting.

Your seat setback should take most of the weight off the arms when pedaling. Seat to handlebar distance should be adjusted with your stem not seat. Could try the following suggestions https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/...or-road-bikes/ .

A few things:
1. Picture of bike? You on bike? Bike is better than nothing, you on bike will reveal more. Basic information helps too - how often do you stand out of the saddle? If it's less than every 30 min you'll be numb I guarantee it. A while ago I checked how often I stand and it ended up about every 5-10 min.
2. Check out Competitive Cyclist. They have some basic fit type stuff - you measure, plug in numbers, and you get some "recommendations". Try it as a sanity check, i.e. to make sure you're within the realm.
3. BB -> Saddle -> Bars. Set position in that order. It's a different way of saying what bkmk said - adjust reach by changing/adjusting stem, not by moving saddle.
4. You have three contact points (five if you count the pedals twice and hands twice). You'll be balancing pressure between them. Unweight one and you'll weight another. You've mentioned hands and saddle. The point that seems to be "light" are the pedals. If you ride harder, particularly if you focus on the downstroke, you'll unweight the hands and saddle a bit.

I hope this helps,
cdr

I fit cyclists. It is impossible to do much this way....Find a shop with a giod fitter in your area who can help. Do not take anonymous advice for all your issues and you have a lot of issues.

A few basics. The saddle fore/aft position has nothing to do with your arm. Some fitters use the knee-over-pedal method (KOP). While KOP is popular, it's also nothing but a starting point and likely to place the saddle too far forward. Read Steve Hogg's suggestions on saddle fore/aft.

Saddle height can be roughly set by positioning the saddle so your foot is horizontal, with the leg fully extended, at the bottom of the stroke. What you want, during pedaling is not a fully extended leg, but about a 30 degree bend at the knee. Most people pedal heels-up at the bottom of the stroke and it only takes a 2-3cm rise of the heel to create that much bend at the knee. If the initial setting pulls at the back of the knee and feels too high, drop the height a few milimeters at at time until that feeling goes away.


Saddle angle is ciritical and most seat posts have a poor mechanism for adjusting that angle. Model with a single clamping bolt and a serrated surface to hold the seat rail clamp in position are not the best. Get a seatpost with a 2-bolt rocker-style clamp that allows infinitely small adjustments to be made.

Saddle discomfort is very common for new riders, but even experienced riders can have problems, if their favorite saddle wears out and that model is no longer made. Finding a new model that's comfortable can be a long process. I tired four different saddles to replace my favorite Fizik Gobi, but none of them were tolerable, including the current Fizik Gobi, with it's revised shape.

You've mentioned a 33 inch inseam, but is that pants inseam or a carefully measured cycling inseam? I suspect the former, in which case, your cycling inseam will be quite a bit longer. A 33 inch leg length at your height would be quite short.

OP,
I can tell you with some certainty what is going on. We are close to the same size. Your bad form and elbow pain is due to your poor fit.
A 58 is 'marginally' too small for you. A 60 would be a better fit. Your cockpit is too short. Elbow to tip of middle finger for cockpit length is rubbish.
If you ride this way with poor form aka locked elbows your arms are almost vertical and act like columns holding up your torso. This is perhaps the biggest mistake I see with riders. Your arms should be OUT and not down. When your cockpit is longer now your arms are more like a hammock and closer to tension and not in compression and can bend much more freely. When arms are vertical with < 90 deg angle from top of arm to torso, they are pile driven into the handebars. With too short a cockpit your torso wants to come forward to enlist your glutes when you press harder on the pedals but your arms restrict this movement.
I hope that makes sense. If you want we can apply some metrics. Measure from tip of saddle to center of handlebars. A top cyclist your size will ride with a 625mm distance. A decent recreational cyclist...say like myself will ride in the 600mm range or so. You are likely in the 570mm range which is horrible for comfort and power.
Hope this helps.
PS: conventions like elbow to middle finger tip, handlebar blocking the front hub, KOPS, saddle height short of hips rocking etc...a long ugly list...are many times misguided if not misunderstood. For example, the elbow to middle finger tip convention you site, also includes 'a hand's width' placed adjacent to the tip of your middle finger. If you add a hand's width, you will now find your cockpit is too short as I suggest. Measure your cockpit and let me know. I am 6'1" ride a 58 with 140mm stem for example....with a fair amount of saddle setback.

+1

You can learn about general principles here. But someone really needs to observe your form to get it right.

Thanks for all of your responses. I just measured the bike and it is at 571mm from seat tip to center of bars, like you suspected. I have several inches to move the seat back and can get it to that 600mm mark. I guess the logic behind that I don't understand since it seems like moving the seat farther back would cause you to have to lean more forward and weight your hands more. But that's not the first time i have read to move the seat back to decrease weight on the hands. I currently already feel uncomfortable stretching out to place my hands on the hoods, perhaps that's a core strength issue.

My seatpost has a slight set back and is the single clamping bolt with serrated surface for adjustment. I found when trying to level the smp seat as instructed in the documentation it was hard to get a perfect level setup.

My stem is 140ish mm (measured quickly with a tape measure). My inseam from my crotch to the floor with no shoes on is a little longer than 34inches. I have about 1.5" of clearance from my crotch to the top tube on the bike. I will get some pictures of the bike with me on it. I don't have a trainer so i will have to lean up against something but I will figure it out.

I want to get fitted but my local resources are slim. Thats why I was asking about reviews/comments on the "bikefit" and "retul" fitters I have found. I will have to travel 2-8 hours to find a fitter and I of course will have no experience with any of them. When spending 250 bucks for fitting fee plus gas and hotel I want to make sure I make a good choice.

With all of the changes one might need with a new bike seat, seatpost, stem, bars and since most people replace wheels seems like building a bike from scratch would make more sense then buying a prepackaged bike.

Well, I didn't have to travel more than 15 minutes for a bike fit, so I can't speak to the travel time/ cost ratio in your situation, but I can say that I had many issues with knee pain and numbness when I bought a new bike a year ago from a shop that did only "eyeball" fitting.

Lost feeling in my left pinky and took it to a professional fitting shop- and life is much happier. I would not have believed that a few adjustments to the saddle, stem, handlebars and pedals would make such a huge difference, but darn, they did. It was worth the $140 for me.

Here are my results from the competitive cyclist fit on their website.

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TH] [/TH]
[TH][h=4]The Competitive Fit[/h][/TH]
[TH][h=4]The Eddy Fit[/h][/TH]
[TH][h=4]The French Fit[/h][/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: left"]Seat tube range c-c[/TD]
[TD]56.3 - 56.8[/TD]
[TD]57.5 - 58.0[/TD]
[TD]59.2 - 59.7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: alt"]
[TD="class: left"]Seat tube range c-t[/TD]
[TD]58.0 - 58.5[/TD]
[TD]59.2 - 59.7[/TD]
[TD]60.9 - 61.4[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: left"]Top tube length[/TD]
[TD]54.2 - 54.6 [/TD]
[TD]54.2 - 54.6[/TD]
[TD]55.4 - 55.8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: alt"]
[TD="class: left"]Stem Length[/TD]
[TD]11.2 - 11.8[/TD]
[TD]10.1 - 10.7[/TD]
[TD]10.3 - 10.9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: left"]BB-Saddle Position[/TD]
[TD]74.4 - 76.4[/TD]
[TD]73.6 - 75.6[/TD]
[TD]71.9 - 73.9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: alt"]
[TD="class: left"]Saddle-Handlebar[/TD]
[TD]54.1 - 54.7[/TD]
[TD]54.9 - 55.5[/TD]
[TD]56.6 - 57.2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: left"]Saddle Setback[/TD]
[TD]8.0 - 8.4[/TD]
[TD]9.2 - 9.6[/TD]
[TD]8.7 - 9.1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: alt"]
[TD="class: left"] [/TD]
[TD] About this fit[/TD]
[TD] About this fit[/TD]
[TD] About this fit[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

OP,
You have so many fit issues going on. The only thing I can tell you again, speaking for me, your fit is way off. This is no big revelation as fit really takes time and a work in progress. You are a perfect candidate for a pro fitting and I am not one to recommend a fitting unless you need to start at sqaure one.
Many things don't add up. For example your CC on line nos. don't agree with a guy who is 6'1" ish. It is easy to make a mistake with measuring your body and plugging in values. Have your wife or girlfriend do it 2-3 times and then take the mean of the nos. We are about the same size. Further, I would have a lot of pain riding your bike and I ride a lot without pain. You have a lot of saddle to bar drop which is uncomfortable for many recreational cyclists including me. The bike is really too small for you as the CC calculator stated...nominal you should be on a 59-60. Problem is for your leg length is...your head tube is pretty short making it hard to get the handlebars higher to take weight off your hands.
You own a racing bike geometry and you are just starting out. I would suggest a comfort geometry bike if you want to get more comfortable. So consider at least a change in type of bike if your goal is to become more comfortable and ride more miles.

A quick explanation of saddle setback and why its counter intuitive. When you get out of chair, notice that you will always stick your bum out. If you don't, you will have a hard time getting up. The same is true of riding a road bike. You feel stretched out because your position is all wrong. When you push the saddle more behind the cranks your weight shifts back away from the bars. When you fold your torso over to get back to the bars you need a longer reach because your torso is more horizontal. Basically with a more folded body, your prodominant body mass is further back. The notion of core strength is often debated here. Road biking doesn't require excellent core strength if your weight distribution is proper on the bike because your body is balanced on the saddle..which is the starting point for most fitters. Further your hip flexors restrict your weight falling more into the bars with better posture. A good posture on the hoods is with about a 45 deg torso angle from vertical. Better riders ride with even more torso angle on the hoods and close to a flat back in the drops.
Below I have included a picture of an ideal recreational fit...what I call an out and up position. Take a picture of yourself on the hoods leaning up against a wall. The rider has a nice stretched reach to the bars, in a relatively areo position with weight back and little weight on his hands and not much drop. This position works the best for me. I have also included an early pic of my Roubaix build with the bar and saddle height close to the same which is dramatically different than your bike. I ride in a position close to the rider shown with a good reach to the bars.
Basically you are riding 'exactly the opposite' of how I ride...your position with a handlebar that is close in and much lower. Further you are riding with less setback which places your weight forward and more weight on the hands. So you end up with worse case for weight on your hands.

Learning about your fit on the bike is a first step to becoming a good cyclist that can ride fast and in comfort for many miles on end. I will caution you however, as you learn and improve your fit, road biking will become more addictive.

One additioanl problem that is see is the brake hoods appear to be angled downward. You'll be more comfortable is the area where your palm rests is horizontal, at the minimum, or angle up just a couple of degrees. Most of that problem can be corrected by rotating the bars.

Regarding the idea of buying a larger frame. You will gain more bar height (stack) in that change than you will gain in cockpit length (reach). The exact amounts are 10mm in reach and 14mm in stack height. The 58cm could be made to fit the same as a 60cm, unless you're really at the stem length limit of 140mm. If you're at that limit and need more reach or bar height, then you need the next size large frame.

Thanks for posting the Steve Hoggs fitting link. I made adjustments to my seat, using the "stairmaster" method he describes, and it made a world of difference in my pedaling power, left foot numbness, neck pain, and left knee pain!

Thanks again for your replies. I have adjusted the seat and the seat is lower since that picture was taken. For what its worth in my OP I stated I was 6"1-6"2...and I am pretty sure I used to be. But after measuring twice last night we got 72" on my height both times, so that puts me right at 6 foot. My inseam was 34.2 inches or so. I was actually researching Roubaix bikes last night.

I have about 1500 in my bike right now, not including pedals and seats. Should I take my bike and go get fitted on the current bike or do I need to be looking at a new bike/frame?

Only exception to Dave's good advice...I angle my hoods up as do many which indeed is transformative...is you will NOT be able to get a 58cm bike to fit the same as a 60cm in net handlebar height. Stack OP is as as much as your problem as reach at your size...if not more so. Bike frames change size to size more in stack then they do in reach as Dave mentioned for the simple fact that 'most' derive their height from their legs...head tube length being analogous to leg length.
Dave rides with a lot of drop...for his age in particular which works for him...but for example doesn't work for me and many others and hence the popularity of comfort geometry bikes.
Good Luck

OP...how did you measure your inseam?...place a book firmly up against pubic bone and measure to the ground?
Lets get your inseam straight first.

Could be a riding posture problem. Have you seen this thread? https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...tion-Discovery

I'm no great fit expert but I've done the CC fit calculator and it works fairly well for me. Looking at the numbers the OP posted it seems the effective top tube number is very short for a guy that's 6'. I'm 5'9" and ride a 54 ett.

Agree...why I suggested he remeasure himself and try again.

As with the core strength myth, I believe many are misinformed about riding posture. There is no good posture riding a bike with too short a cockpit. Cause and effect. The right cockpit reach will promote better posture naturally. Oh...we can all focus on improved posture on the bike...rotate pelvis forward etc...but you can't achieve good posture on a bike that has too short a reach for the simple fact that better posture further shortens reach.

Last night we used a level and shoved it up in my crotch and measured 34-34.2 inches using a soft tape. I just measured here at work using a book and a hard/roll out tape measure and it looks like 33.5"-34". This is no shoes with feet about 8" apart.

Attached are also some newer pictures of the bike.

Dear god, that poor saddle..

!!! What about the poor cyclist should the saddle rails give way? Ooouch...

Edited to add: Selle SMP have very long rails with a lot of clamping area. But the set back still looks scary...

I moved the saddle back trying to get further from the bars. There is still about an inch of rail left on the front. So Im guessing you think thats too far back?

I have no opinion on the fit, just that you're clamped to the very front of the rails. The saddle won't last long. Bent rails are rarely noticed with visual inspection, but there's come a week where your back is killing you and you'll eventually notice that the saddle is tilted becasue a rail is bent. That will be why you have sciatica for the following month.