Hello and thoughts on first bike project

[73Chaz]

Hello

I've arrived at this forum via excursions into various others, and after a suitable period of lurking, I feel that this is "my kind of place".

I'm 42, I grew up cycling, been on and off a few, but didn't ride much during my 30s. 18 months ago I decided I wanted to ride more, and ended up buying a lovely titanium road bike. Now I'm riding more, I am more aware of the kind of riding I want to do, and hence my new project.

I'm looking at getting a second hand steel frame with somewhat "slack" angles, and building it as a bike for just riding around, going to the shops, pub, possibly commuting. At the moment, I am favouring a Surly Cross Check frame for this purpose. Possibly 1x10 with a wide range cassette. 28 or 32c tyres. Mudguards. Maybe a handlebar bag. That kind of thing. I've ridden my road bike down a few bridleways and towpaths and it's all fine, but possibly not what the maker intended...

I'm 6'3" with very challenging hamstrings so need a semi upright riding position.

I've never built a bike before so doubtless will need help / advice.

Thanks for the good vibes and looking forward being here.

Chaz.

[Brucey]

sounds like an interesting project, that; but a word of warning; tinkering about with bikes can be almost as addictive as riding them....!

BTW if you like the idea of a cross-check, you might like to take a look at a salsa casseroll; it isn't a million miles away from what you have in mind. A couple of years ago they were selling these off in the UK for as little as £700 a go which means that you may be able to find a good used one for about half that now.

cheers

[531colin]

..............I'm 6'3" with very challenging hamstrings so need a semi upright riding position..........

Hello Chaz, its always good to have interesting people to talk to.
The hamstring group of muscles are interesting in that they cross 2 joints, the hip and the knee. At 68 years old my hamstrings are pretty tight, at the moment I can't get within a foot of touching my toes, but it gets better if I work at it over several days. However, its not an inconvenience on the bike, the picture of me here http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b0s21p3203 is a few years old, but my position hasn't changed.
Do you mean your hamstrings are so tight you can't rotate your pelvis forward on the bike, so you must bend your back into an exaggerated curve to reach handlebars that feel too low and too far away? I do see people riding like that. Must be difficult on a race bike.
There is a test that physiotherapists do where the patient stands normally (with the lower back hollow) then leans forward from the hip (like bowing).....you are supposed to be able to get to a certain angle before rounding your back........also standing and raising one (bent) knee, you are supposed to be able to do that without rounding your back, but I think these are tests for core muscle function, not hamstring flexibility.
On the bike, the knee and hip are both flexed at the same time, so I wonder if tight hamstrings are a big problem....its not like toe-touching, where the knee is extended and the hip flexed, so the hamstrings are pulled from both ends....?

I suppose production frames are likely to be designed for people who want an "average" riding position, forum member "horizon" (I think) has a long-running saga trying to buy a short-reach bike....I'll drop him a message.
Effective top tube length is a measure of reach (but seat tube angle is a confounding factor) and adding fork length and head tube length gives a measure of the height of the front end, although handlebars can be raised (easy with a long uncut fork steerer).
Because I design the Spa frames, I have their geometry to hand, so I looked at Surly's Crosscheck and Spa's Tourer.
The Spa 60cm Tourer has 222mm head tube and 385mm fork giving 607mm front end, with a 605mm effective top tube (ETT)
The 64cm Crosscheck has 200mm head tube and 400mm fork giving 600mm front end, but a 630mm ETT
I think if you want the bars both high and close, then a frame with horizontal top tube probably isn't the place to start looking, although frame shapes can appear to be pretty random and I'm happy to be shown to be wrong.
I'm not putting up the Spa bikes as an example of a short-reach, high-bar design, I designed them to be "average fit", and generally tall people need a longer reach than short people.

[73Chaz]

Hi Colin, Brucey,

Thank you for your thoughts; most interesting.

When I had a bike fitting last year, it was identified that when riding with significant drop from saddle to bars, my thighs were pushed outwards at the top of the peddle stroke, meaning that my knees were moving from side to side. This was thought to be a bad thing, and we reduced the drop until my knees were maintaining a straight line.

I'm not sure if this is directly to do with tight hamstrings however it all seems to be related to stiffness in pelvis, lower back and the hamstring thing.

I'd been looking at the 60cm Cross Check as this seems most similar to the size of my xl Lynskey. I will post some pics.

[73Chaz]

I got the Trek below when I was in my early 20s. I can still ride it, however it gets a bit uncomfortable after a couple of hours. My brother generally has custody of it, he's a tiny bit shorter and quite a bit younger.

The Lynskey is pretty comfortable for the rides I've done so far,which have been up to 50 miles or so. Stem was originally the other way round which brought the bars up a bit further.

[Merry_Wanderer]

I'm 6 foot 3 tall and I'd suggest having a look at the Long Haul Trucker instead of the Cross-Check.

I have both bikes and there is a longer uncut steerer on the LHT. On the 60cm LHT the fork length is 390mm and the head tube is 189mm = 579mm. This is 19mm longer than the 60cm Cross-Check. The LHT has longer chainstays than the Cross-Check so you would have less worry of heel strike if you have panniers on the bike. A point to consider if your feet are size 12 like mine.

FWIW my frames are both 62cm but we probably have different body and leg lengths.

I haven't tried Spa's Tourer but I have a friend who is very pleased with his. Also, I would suggest going to Spa (in Harrogate) if you can get there as both their own tourer and the LHT are in stock I understand. I see on Spa's website that their Steel Tourer has a combined fork and head tube length of 222mm + 385mm = 607mm and the chainstays are 460mm.

[531colin]

OK, some defining of terms needed here!
Chaz's "semi-upright" position on his Lynskey is actually more "head down bum up" than I think I have ever ridden....my "touring bikes through the ages" photo is here....https://www.flickr.com/photos/52358536@N06/16956830048/in/album-72157624571269648/
......so actually, provided the Lynskey is comfortable, all you need do is find a frame which is no lower and no longer than that? (maybe with a long steerer)

Knees definitely function best as a straight "hinge" joint, that is, straight up and down on a bike....... bending them out to the sides like Charlie Chaplin can result in sore knees. One of the bike fitting websites (might be Steve Hogg) talks about the knees being the "prisoner" of the hip and ankle joints on a bike, meaning that any biomechanical problem in those other joints has an adverse effect on the knee, by making it move other than as a straight hinge.

Now, not everybody knows that the hip joints are set into the pelvis at an angle. If you stand (in shorts) in front of a mirror, feet facing forward, not outward, and tense your belly muscles to pull your pubic bone up, while tensing your glutes to rotate your pelvis backwards, you can watch your knees rotate outwards. Although this is mildly entertaining, I don't think riding with your pelvis at a particular angle makes you pedal "knees out" because the hips are a ball and socket joint, and able to function very well at a variety of angles.

I set my saddle quite a long way back, I find that if I am right on top of the pedals, apart from excessive weight on my hands, my knees start to come out to the sides at the top of the stroke. I wonder if my knees coming out if I am too far forward, and Chaz's knees coming out if he has too much bar drop, are actually 2 ways of saying the same thing?

[Merry_Wanderer]

Could be Colin. I know that KOPS is a guide rather than a hard and fast rule, but I find coincidentally or otherwise that when my knee is at or about over the pedal spindle with the crank arm horizontal, I feel in balance. If I have the saddle set too far forward I feel out of balance and there is too much weight on my hands.

I didn't find out about KOPS or bike fitting until I went to see my physio because I had achilles tendonitis. The problem there was there I set my saddle too low and too far forward because I had tight calf and hamstring muscles. I think I would suggest 73chaz that I would work on gentle stretching exercises to loosen up your hamstrings and calf muscles and then try setting your saddle a bit further back to see how you feel with knee cap over the pedal spindle when the crank arms are both horizontal.

[531colin]

I think saddle position forward and back is much more about balance on the bike than anything else. As you say, for all-day riding at a gentle pace, you want relatively little weight on your hands....too much weight on the hands results in stiff shoulders and neck. KOPS is for most people a good proxy for getting your centre of mass in the right place to put an appropriate amount of weight on your hands; an alternative approach is to ride with one finger of each hand on the bars, and position the saddle so there is little enough weight on the bars that one finger can easily support it. Balanced like that, its easy to "un-weight" the wheels in turn over a bump, or off road.

Saddle height (or distance from the pedals, which is almost the same thing) relates to 2 things........smooth pedalling through the bottom of the stroke, and the development of power. To be smooth through the bottom requires a bit of bend to remain in the knee with the pedal at the bottom; if the saddle is too high, your body retains that bend at some cost, usually pointing the toe at the bottom, and if the saddle is really high, dipping the hip as well. High cadence with a high saddle results in a jerky, bouncy stroke. However, maximum power is developed when the leg is almost straight. My solution to this dilemma is to set my saddle relatively low**, so I can pedal smoothly through the bottom at high cadence, and also "un-weight" the saddle while still pedalling, which is particularly useful off road. If I need maximum power at low cadence, all I have to do is slide back in the saddle, which extends the knee more.

** so that with the knee locked, my heel is obviously a good bit lower than the ball of the foot

[horizon]

I suppose production frames are likely to be designed for people who want an "average" riding position, forum member "horizon" (I think) has a long-running saga trying to buy a short-reach bike....I'll drop him a message.

Which, to his word, he did.

My feeling about this is that the OP needs to have two parallel projects on the go: the first one is getting the kind of bike he wants for what he wants it for. Starting with a s/h frame is good IMV as it limits the potential £ damage (but see below).

The second project is to look at frame proportions and angles and work out what will work for him. Looking at the pictures of his two bikes, I can't see what the problem might be. What I would suggest at this point though is that even if effective top tube isn't an issue then handlebar height might be. If that is the case, then a tourer would be the best bet with an uncut steerer. That would include the Spa and Surly LHT. It might exclude all second hand forks and many fashionable hybrids. I would recommend that the OP gets on anything for now as a starting/reference point so that he can start to sort out what feels right or not. And then proceed from there. A cheap but complete s/h bike might therefore be a good starting point.

[73Chaz]

The weight on hands is a relevant thing for me.

A while back, I had a bout of something that was eventually diagnosed as a form of rheumatoid arthritis. I don't know if this was a correct diagnosis; I declined the opportunity to spend the rest of my life on meds and did some stuff with diet and stress management, and 90% of the symptoms went away.

However I do sometimes get pain and numbness in my hands, and this can be an issue when on my bike. I'm not sure it is definitely to do with weight distribution; my core strength is ok and as a test, I can ride along with my hands hovering a few mm above their position on the hoods, unsupported in the air, if you see what I mean, for brief periods. Again, I don't know if this is a relevant test. After a while, I resort to doing victory fist pumps over my head to try and get some circulation back. It's not a huge issue, but it's there.

I'm also interested in saddle position; my natural inclination is to put it further back but I formed the view that my weight distribution was too far back and this was affecting the handling of the bike. I will attempt to check this by the bathroom scales under wheel method and report back.

On that point, I find the handling of the Lynskey on the twitchy side. The Trek feels more stable in descents. I had attributed this to the compact rear triangle on the Lynskey but when I compared the measurements, there isn't that much in it.

On the relative bum / head position; I take the point and really interesting to see Colin's bikes for comparison. I've spent most of my time on road bikes and my idea of touring (in my youth) was to strap a bag on the back of the saddle of my Nigel Dean road bike, and see how far I could get.

It's just occurred to me that I've owned a bmx, two rigid mountain bikes, a number of road bikes but I've actually never ridden a touring bike.

[horizon]

I'm also interested in saddle position; my natural inclination is to put it further back but I formed the view that my weight distribution was too far back and this was affecting the handling of the bike. I will attempt to check this by the bathroom scales under wheel method and report back.

Personally I don't think it's got anything to do with handling and not a lot to do with weight. The saddle position IMV is related to leg/thigh length and its relation to the pedal. I would take the saddle back to the point at which it feels right.

[reohn2]

I agree with Colin,IMV once the golden chalice of saddle position is found the h/bars are adjusted via stem length and handlebar height to get the shoulders/arms/hands comfortable.
The hamstring problem over a period of time can be sorted by stretching,Yoga is an ideal system for this and whilst it works all the body selected Asana's for a particular set or sets of muscle groups will work well for tightness.
I reckon the Surly CC, LHT or Spa's own Tourer are a good basis for a bike of this kind,I wouldn't look higher than Deore components and hubs in a hand built wheelset with 36 spokes.
The 1x10 I'd find limiting and 2 or 3x10 or,2 or 3x9 would be better,especially if being used off road,I'd also consider bigger tyres than 28/32's.
If you're thinking of a LHT consider a DT with BB7 calipers on 160 rotors,they simply provide far superior braking and modulation than anything else I've ridden,solo or tandem,especially in mucky/wet conditions.
Wide 50mm, full length mudguards with plenty clearance underneath will keep you and the bike dry and clean.
Have fun choosing

[Brucey]

FWIW 'weight too far back affecting the handling of the bike' is a non-reason for altering saddle position. Were it otherwise, we'd all be moving our saddles around when we added luggage.

Getting your weight distributed properly for you between the saddle bars and pedals is the reason for moving the saddle around, and it is as well to note that this can vary with how hard you intend to pedal, since harder pedalling takes weight off the hands, and so does moving the saddle backwards.

Whatever you do, get the saddle set right first, then fiddle with the bars; don't do it the other way round!

cheers

[73Chaz]

Lots more food for thought; thanks all.

I looked at the LHT; I'm sure it's a great bike, however I think I will be ok with the chainstay length on the Cross Check which is 15mm longer than the Lynskey. I'm not planning to haul lots of stuff with this bike.

Mudguards will be required.

As luck would have it, a 60cm Cross Check frameset came up on eBay; and I seem to have bought it. So the project will soon begin...