by Charles Moorhen

Created on: August 05, 2008

Cycling - 5 Simple Techniques That Will Improve Your Comfort and Enjoyment.

Whether you cycle into town, pedal to the local shop, take the children to the park or travel long distances on a daytrip or touring holiday; if it isn't a comfortable experience the enthusiasm for cycling will quickly disappear.

Spending a little time and effort, employing five simple techniques, will greatly improve your cycling pleasure and ensure that your bike will not spend its days languishing against the garage wall.

Set-Up when carried out correctly is the single most important procedure. If a rider uses a machine with an incorrect frame size, comfort and overall performance will never improve. The cycle will be unwieldy, unbalanced and in some cases downright dangerous because the cyclist's centre of gravity will be too high, so the frame size should ideally correspond with your height. Finding the correct size is a very straightforward procedure that is easy to accomplish.

Stand with your legs either side of the top tube, (crossbar), with both feet flat on the floor wearing the footwear that you normally use for cycling. The top tube should now be around half an inch below your crotch on racing-style and utility bikes, and with the mountain-style with a sloping top tube allow an extra couple of inches. For women add a couple of inches more for both styles. You now have the correct frame size!

Handlebars should ideally be the same width as your shoulders, and set so that they cause a slight bend in the back and arms without the rider having to reach too far forward. If reaching is a problem, raising the bars or moving the saddle forward slightly will usually cure the problem.

The Saddle is the one area in where many manufacturers definitely do cut corners, providing the rider with something that is no better than a broom-head covered in a thin layer of foam and plastic.
However, if you have no choice but to use a budget-priced saddle, there are a couple of adjustments that can be made that will not cost you a penny and will improve your comfort. Set up the saddle as follows:

Sitting astride the bike with one leg extended downwards, make continual trial-and-error adjustments by raising and lowering the saddle post, until that leg has only a slight bend in it while the corresponding pedal is at its closest point to the ground. With mountain-style bikes a more pronounced bend in the leg is quite common.
Over time most riders find that further fine adjustments produce the perfect position.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>