How to Choose Bicycle Frames

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Eric from Spin City Cycling in Austin, Texas and I am talking to you on behalf of Expert Village. What I am going to talk to you about is frame size. Now lots of people don't know this, especially if you have never bought a bike from the bike shop, but bikes actually come in different sizes and it is very important to get the right size because if you don't it may not only be dangerous but it will definitely impact your enjoyment when you are riding a bike. So frame sizes, road bikes and mountain bikes are reported usually in 2 different ways. In general, mountain bikes are reported as inches so this bike for example is a 20 inch frame and what that means is from this point here in the middle of your bottom bracket to the top of your seat tube is 20 inches. Road bikes are usually referred to in centimeters. So same measurement but they refer to them in centimeters. When you are sizing a bike, the first thing we would have someone do is stand over the bike. What we want is a little bit of clearance between the top tube and your crotch. This bike is actually a little bit too big for me. I am actually making contact here. What we want 1 to 3 inches of room so that if you have to hop off that seat in an emergency, you are not going to hurt yourself by hitting yourself on the top tube here. Another thing that we look at in terms of frame size is the distance from the seat to the handle bars and that is actually a little harder to control so it is very important that we get that distance right. When we start talking about this distance, we may have to swap out stems, talk about possibly using a different seat posts to get that distance just right so that your arms aren't overly extended putting stress on your shoulders and your lower back and your shoulders. So hopefully you have learned a little bit about frame sizing. Thanks for watching. "