Choosing The Right Type Of Bike – A Bike Fitters Honest Opinion

Road, Gravel, Cyclocross, Endurance, what’s the right bike choice for you? Bike Fit James explains the differences.

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Racing endurance cyclocross gravel they’re all drop handlebar bicycles what do they really mean in today’s episode bike fitter James thas is going to run through the differences of each and by the end you’ll hopefully know which one you want racing geometry generally found on racing bikes there’s a hint in the

Name of these they are designed for racing examples are Tre madone specialized tarmac Scott foil giant TCR s S5 Pinella Dogma canadell Super 6 canell system 6 all these bikes that are generally long aggressive and load designed for racing designed around lightweight efficiency agility so they got short wheel base they got typically

Quite aggressive riding positions uh usually long top tues which allows them to uh gives a rider a little bit more space when sprinting but uh the the negatives and you know over the over the years these bikes have become increasingly more aggressive as you know the demands of them have changed just a

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Purchase of sterker products so check them out and thank you to sterker for sponsoring this Channel and ensuring we can continue to put out all of our videos for free back to uh whatever you are watching as a result their suitability for consumers has diminished and thanks to uh the bicycle industry’s

Marketing and also a little bit thanks to the UCI in the sense that all bices in order for them to be raced need to be uh available to Consumers this is led to uh generally speaking most people riding bikes that are not fit for purpose by that I’m talking about bikes that are

Designed around a 20-year-old 60 Kil athlete and then being sold to an individual whose age 35 to 60 and at a desk all day we’re talking about products that are not fit for purpose athletes first of all they pay to ride the product so who cares whether it fits

Or not secondly uh they they’re lightweight they got no upper body mask they’re putting out 3 400 watts all day long they’re strong they’re flexible and they’re able to tolerate you know huge degrees of dysfunction whereas consumers mere mortals like you and I we can’t do

That like I said earlier there’s a hint in the name with with these bikes if you’re going to be racing go bu a racing bike generally individuals who are racing they’re usually built like Racers general consumers who or Weekend Warriors who want to ride dayto day it’s

Probably the wrong sort of bike for you probably want to be looking at something else endurance bikes examples of this would be something like specialized rubet a candal sinapse TR deanii campinell x uh these bikes generally as the name suggests are better suited to longer distance riding but as such they

Have geometric differences in comparison to a racing bike the front end is taller is closer to you so the top tube is a little bit shorter and generally the geometry is a little bit slacker to allow a more benign uh ride characteristic but there in Li the problem they are a little bit

Benign they’re a bit mundane and usually quite boring to write the endurance bike in the range regardless of the brand is is generally in my opinion considered like the poor cousin because it usually results in like cheaper carbon fiber material like cheaper raw materials the whole chassis is generally dumped down

And that results in like a heavier less exciting chassis the one exception to this rule is the new Pinola Dogma X although unfortunately it’s it’s not quite as good geometrically as the Lesser models but they’re going in the right direction we were just discussing off camera that it would be nice if

Somebody took like the all of the principles of a racing bike from a from a mechanics point of view and then just made the thing fit generally speaking urance B endurance bikes are better suited to Consumers just due to the fact that they are taller at the front end

And shorter in the reach furthermore there are certain individuals particularly individuals who have shorter torsos and longer legs who are predisposed to being overly stretched on a bike who are much much better suited to endurance bikes within our business if somebody comes in to buy a bike

Generally we don’t sell them a bike we sell them a bike fit first we use a fit first uh Mantra to basically ensure that we’re getting them the right bike the vast majority of off the- Peg bikes that we sell are endurance bikes but our entire business is generally built around the

Custom model which we’re going to talk about a little bit later in the video something that we are starting to see which is which further complicates the whole bike selection process is bikes or bike brands that are blurring the lines between sort of endurance and racing

Bike I mean like basso for instance is a little Italian brand that we that we sell in here who handm makes Italian who hand makes frames in Italy uh they have bikes like the Venture and the Astra which are their sort of lower to Middle range bikes that are they’re not quite

As racy as a racing bike but they’re nowhere near as relaxed as an endurance bike same goes for like The BMC Road machine um open makes a bike called the mind which is a fabulous bike uh so there are some bikes out there that are as I say starting to blur the

Lines we’re can talk about a bit of a Dying Breed of bicycles we seem to think because actually we started Googling cyclocross bikes and basically all all that Google throws you is loads of gravel bikes and there is a distinct difference between a cyclecross bike and a gravel bike the problem with cyle

Cross Bikes is that they’re really only good for Cy cross racing historically certainly from being in the industry uh I’ve I’ve I’ve heard a lot of people say to me oh you know I’m going to buy a csy cross bike for a winter bike they make awful winter bikes they make awful road

Bikes because very very short wheelbase the bottom bracket is very high for better clearance it’s got a steeper head angle because it’s generally designed around lower speed riding and the whole bike is designed around uh being a an ability to shoulder it examples of this

Type of bike I mean Canyon makes a bike called the inflight uh giant makes a bike called the tcx but the original canale uh was it Supercross was was one of them so there are a few of them but let’s say that seems to be a Dying Breed

Certainly in favor of a gravel bike examples of these are I mean there’s a million one gravel bikes out there Canada Mak top Stone Pinella makes the grevel canyon makes the Grail with that funny of triplane handlebar thing which Lawrence had horrible like highspeed shimmy when we were in Vietnam

You remember that and uh this is a a type of bike that’s seeing a real surgeon popularity at the moment uh generally speaking because they fit pretty well they’re massively versatile uh they are derived geometrically from endurance bikes so long wheelbase slack geometry and but one thing that is worth

Noting we’re now starting to see again the lines being blurred thank you bike industry with gravel racing bikes I mean an example of that is like the new specialized Crux for instance which has a slightly higher bottom bracket and more aggressive stack and reach figures than the historic Crux uh and certainly

More so than the diverge which is their which is their gravel orientated bike generally they have wider Tire clearances for it’s more off-road orientated so some of them will take up to a 50 mm Tire they’re obviously dis Brak specific as a most bik these days

And they usually have all sorts of kind of B Bolton options for adding bags and racks and all sorts of other bits and pieces so as a result they tend to result in being very very good winter bikes my winter bikes grab bike custom bikes as I explained earlier in the

Video in my opinion a lot of bikes that are sold uh on the marketplace today are not really fit for purpose they’re designed around UH 20-year- oldold 60 kilo athletes or they’re generally pretty Dar and benign but is it too much to ask for for both is it too much to

Ask for a bike that is lightweight and fun to ride and fits well this is where custom comes in examples of the brands that we sell uh come from fesa from the Czech Republic Sato from Veno in Italy they’re both uh carbon Fabricators they make custom carbon frames in some cases

With custom Uh custom layup so which is specific to the Riders waiting riding style uh you then have metal fabricators from Stella stbell from Italy and moots from steambow Colorado who uh specialized in titanium and the benefit of going with a custom bike is it’s built around the rider with custom bikes

There are fewer concessions to the way the bike rides in order to get it to fit by that I’m talking about having to reduce the stem length Beyond where it was intended in order to get the thing to fit having loads of spaces under the

Stem having to put an inline post or an inline seat post into a bike that wasn’t wasn’t designed around one it’s worth noting that when a bicycle frame size is designed the stem is an intrinsic part of that it’s directly linked and correlated to the head tube angle and

The wheelbase so if you’re taking the stem length Beyond where it was intended you’re negatively usually negatively impacting the way that the bike rides too long you’re making it very vague Too Short you’re making it very unstable and there in lies the problem with a lot of

Off- the- Peg bikes a custom bike generally speaking will handle better it’ll look better and uh it’ll fit better it’s worth pointing out that a custom bike can now be had for significantly less money than a top of the range uh you know s works for

Instance I mean £1 13,000 for a t MAAC sl8 in my opinion is a little bit like spending £100,000 on a Ford that isn’t a GT40 it’s uh you know you’re talking about something that is mass producing the Far East popped out of a mold and

It’s made in the same Factory as the cheaper stuff uh I’m going to upset a few people here I know but when you’re talking about something from fesa which can be had for almost half the price yeah I’m talking £88,000 for a complete full custom full carbon bike that is

Handmade for you it’s an Italia product it’s made to a significantly high standard and it’s designed around the rider so I know which one I would rather have that’s all for today’s episode please let us know if you have any questions for James in the comment

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