SIZING MY NEXT MOUNTAIN BIKE - How long is too long

Alex and I are medium-sized dudes, but I'm here to tell you that a lot of the new bikes we can't ride in any size. I didn't know that. That's a thing. Yeah, there are companies out there where the shortest bikes are 440, a 450, a 460. Hey YouTube, welcome back to the channel. I'm Alex and I'm joined by Lee from Lee Likes Bikes again today. It's zero outside, but we can do something. Yep. Anyway, how to pick the right size bike for you. My own personal train wreck with sizing happened recently. I have a 2017 Capra, love these bikes, decided I was going to get another one. This one's a medium. I was on the phone with the guy from YT and he said, you know, I think you ought to think about the large. I'm like, yes, I'm a man. Yeah, exactly. And so I hated it uphill. I hated it downhill. And I just dropped a bunch of money. So I was like really vested in this relationship. I didn't want to leave this girl. She had a big ring on her finger and you walked. After two weeks of doing everything I could to fall in love, I sold this bike. It was really my wake up call for sizing. Yeti makes very long bikes. There's a gentleman who rides for Yeti. Yes, Richie Rude, the man. From what I found online, he's 182 centimeters tall, which is just below six feet. Typically he would be on a large SB150, but he's chosen to ride a medium. He's done testing I'm sure. And he's decided that the shorter, the medium works better for him. Do you need permission? Best EWS rider in the world is six foot and he's riding the medium. You have permission. You have permission. You have permission from Richie Rude to at least consider not going so large. Mountain bikes are sized in small, medium and large, but you can't imagine buying a lot of gear in anything other than an absolute number. Like a shoe. Like a shoe. Stuff that really has to interact with the body, you need to know a number. You don't want to be using the Happy Meal philosophy when you're sizing a $2,500 piece of equipment. Especially since those small, medium, larges have changed so much. Like they're completely arbitrary. Men almost always over-report their height. So a classic example is someone my size, 5'8", is reporting 5'9", or 5'10", which puts you between medium and large. And then from an ego standpoint, you go large. Statistically speaking, most people are in the middle of the bell curve. They're medium. But the most commonly bought bike size is large. The average height of an American man is 5'9". If you're sizing so that you can make power, that's a small. Yeah. So people are over-reporting. That's a thing. And the other thing, the geometry of bikes has changed. Head angle, wheelbase stuff going on, torque offset. Like all of these things contribute to the increased length of the bike. But the number that I care about the absolute most is the reach of the frame. What do you mean when you say rad? Rad isn't an industry term. It's a bike term. Rider area distance. So rider area distance is the distance between the bottom bracket of your frame to the midpoint, the intersection of your grips. I've read Sam Hill, that's how he sizes his bikes. And when Nukeproof puts him on a new bike or a prototype, he whips out a tape. He does that measurement and he's like, I'm cool. Right. So that's rad. A lot of us out there are having trouble with power moves, the manual or pumping or hopping or boosting jumps or getting up ledges. Very possible that you're having trouble with those moves because your bike's rad is too long and you simply cannot generate the kind of torque you want to generate. In my classes, like most people show up on bikes whose rads are too long for them and they have a real hard time learning these skills. If someone's size, I put them on my bike and they're able to do everything so much easier. One thing about like an optimal rad is it gives you access to that peak torque. The other thing that this optimal distance does, the arc of your handlebars is relatively small, which allows you to use the big muscles in your torso, your lats and your pecs to manage the bike. When that lever is longer, it takes the work out into your arms and shoulders. If you've never done it correctly, you don't even know how weak you are. Maybe we should try to deadlift and see if we can quantify how much weaker you get. A lot weaker. Lee's created this crazy contraption. It's my portable deadlifter. These bands are cheap and you're going to discover in a minute they can get very heavy. Two handlebars and a band and you've got a deadlift. Careful. So that's close to 300 pounds, dude. Okay, now, I mean, what do we, what do we have? An inch maybe of movement? Maybe, but that's all, that's your, that's your traps. You might be thinking to yourself right now, I don't need to make that much power on the bike, but if you want to bunny hop, it's a lot of power. It's a quick deadlift. Yeah. This is right around 200 pounds theoretically. But now how about your arms? So like you're less than half as strong with your arms bent. Yes. So this is Alex's new dirt jump bike that he seems to freaking love. Is that right? Yeah. I'm going to guess that this is at a perfect rad. We'll see. Go ahead and close your grips. That's perfect, dude. And, and all I've gotten from you on this bike is pure unabashed stoke. In my world, I'll say there's a causation with the perfect rad. This is a custom frame. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, I specced and I had made. It's probably not a coincidence that it fits me perfectly. This bike I bought for one reason. I was going to Whistler. I'm going to guess it's big, but also me and this bike instant love affair. So if it is big, that would suggest that with a downhill bike, I can definitely go a little bit rad plus. I think it's going to be an inch and a half too big. Your fists hang behind the grips. Yeah. It's really close. Okay. Shoulder blades together and punch them down and then make fists and punch your fist down. Dude, they're right behind the grip. I did not expect that, but it explains that love affair. Wow. I'm super shocked. This is a world where I would think that I want a little bit longer bike. Me and this bike, man, we're just like this. The beautiful things about the new bikes is they're raked out more. They are longer. Even if you get a bike with the same reach, don't feel like you're not taking advantage of the new geometry. It's still way along. It's long. Do I need a more stable 29er? I don't. Every modern mountain bike is stable. If you're on a modern bike, it's going to have a slack head angle. It's going to have appropriate offset. It's going to have reasonable chain stays. It's going to have a long wheel base. It is a long bike. The lever that we control is that rad lever. And then of course, within that, when we choose the bike, we choose it based on reach. This is a great way to get a sense of how bikes fix. Like 30 bucks. You can get them at your local hardware store. Yeah. They work great. I was on this bike when we were doing the attack position video, and I felt like it was hard for me to get full extension with it. And that's why I thought it was too, right? It's way big. It's way big. Yeah. So that's like a good 40 millimeters. That's a lot. This is what I see on most people on new mountain bikes. They look like that. Guess what size this bike is? It's a medium. It's a medium. It's the new medium. It's the new medium, which is yesterday's large. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this bike. There's a pattern emerging, which is bikes that fit me. I love this idea that these new bikes, you ride them further forward. Let's try to illustrate why that's impossible. What sport do you bury your weight on your hands? I couldn't think of anything where you would want to have a portion of your weight consistently and always on your hands. I don't buy it. I know some of you guys do. If your handlebars are being used to support your body weight, you cannot shred. And don't think that Lee's saying that you don't have energy in your arms and your hands. You have power in your arms. You're always putting power into the bike through that. But it's not like he's just going along, bouncing along with weight on your hands. Just lean into me. That's weight on me. If something happens to me, something happens to him. That's what's wrong with waiting on bars. Now, if I'm here and Alex comes up to me and shoves me, it's not coming through. Oh yeah. We put power on handlebars, but we never put weight on handlebars. This is critical. And so a huge part of a perfect dynamic mountain bike fit is the ability to ground your weight in your feet and have full control over the arc of the covenant. I'm glad we did that. It's such a perfect way to illustrate the difference between weight and power. Here's some easy calculations you can do to find your optimal starting point for your frame reach. If you want a neutral rad, take your height in centimeters and multiply it by 2.5. So that gets you right around that 430. If you want to ride rad minus, I do it for my shoulders and it makes my bike a little bit more maneuverable. Then multiply your height by 2.45. If you want to ride rad plus, not crazy unridable rad plus, but just a little bit extra, then multiply your height by 2.55. That'll give you a good range. Those multipliers work awesome. When you're going out looking for new bikes, know your reach number. Then no matter how the bike company does their sizing, no matter what they call it, you'll go to the geometry chart and look for the reach. And when you find a reach that matches your number, you know that bike's going to feel amazing. Once you know your number, be strong in that because the bike industry has other ideas that might not serve you. So if you go to the sizing charts, they're going to tell you something different. If you go to a demo event, they're going to tell you something different. Know your number and stick to it. Alex and I are medium-sized dudes, but I'm here to tell you that a lot of the new bikes we can't ride in any size. Well, like I could ride a 440 bike, that's probably what that is, but I would have to make some real adjustments. Okay, I just, watching this, I'm just thinking, don't shoot the messenger. Don't think this is an indictment because everything about what's happening with geometry still happens. Slacker head angles, steeper seat angles, easier to climb, more ability to rip downhill, all that still works. It's all great. And it works even better when I get into a bike that fits me and has all that benefits of geometry, but also has the benefit of me being able to use my body on that bike to get it to achieve the things that I need it to do. That's well said. There's a reach number that you love and whatever it is, just know it. And that's how you're going to look for your bias. Know your sleep number. Okay, little surprise, we picked up two frames. This is a small, this is the medium. We're building them up with the exact same components and we're going to just test the bejesus out of them. And here's the cool part, the one that I don't choose, we're going to raffle off in support of Grow Cycling Foundation to build a pump track in Los Angeles. So boom! Yeah, that's exciting. If you like this video, hit the like button. If you'd like to see more, hit the subscribe, baby. Yeah, and hit that little bell and we will see you next time on JoyaBike.