Awful. It’s from a race last season. A little history: After the 2005 season, I planned on giving up triathlon. I had finished a 140.6 that fall and was totally fried. I ended up training sporadically and finishing a couple of sprints, but I didn’t train seriously. I even sold my wetsuit, race wheels and loaned out my bike. (I raced in 2007 on a borrowed bike from a friend.) Late in '07, I found this frame on ebay – NOS Mongoose titanium, 650 wheels. I bought it and had it built up on the cheap. This is how it was set up when I got it – spacers and all. I didn’t ride it much in '07, but tried to turn up the volume a little last year. I knew I needed to tinker with the fit but I kept putting it off. I didn’t do a thing as far as fit goes last season. Then, over the winter, I re-visited the bike fit literature and then remembered this photo. Then it clicked. I’m in the process of re-working this configuration. The first – and most obvious – thing I did was take out all those spacers. Then I lowered my seat, but I’m still not low enough in front. I’m going to change out the stem and see what that does. I’m also prepared to replace the cockpit if necessary. I think I can get in a decent position on this frame, but it’s going to take some work. I’ve read all Dan’s bike fit articles and I thought they made sense – until I started working on this project myself. My hat is off to those of you who are skilled fitters. It’s harder than it appears.
First of all, the disclaimer - 4 months ago I thought I knew something about bike fitting. Now I know how much I don’t know. That said……
It looks like you are on a classical touring frame with a monster head tube. Otherwise stated, things are only going to get so good. And, are those the God awful spring loaded tri pads that flip up and down (and rattle like crazy when they are up)? Not that I would know anything about that….
My call is push the seat all the way up, pull the spacers and flip the stem. Or, push the seat up all the way up and pull the spacers if the foregoing is too aggressive.
I have a tribike and a classical Italian bike with a touring frame. I love them both – and they are both Ti. But they are hardly the same thing.
It’s not supposed to be a touring frame. I’m sure someone on here knows more about these frames than I do, but it was advertised as a tri frame (hence the 650 wheels), steep seat angle, etc. Round-tubed Mongoose ti frame. I had seen some comments about these frames before, and they were favorable, which is why I bought the frame. It’s a larger frame; I’m fairly tall myself at 6’ 2" with a long torso. The aerobars are old Profile Aerolites; the armrests are fixed, not the ones that spring up and down. The spacers are gone and I’m going to change out the stem soon. I measured my knee angle at the bottom of the pedal stroke; it was 165 degrees at the seat height in the photo. That’s why I lowered the seat. I’ve also got a new saddle that is all the way forward on the rails. I figure I can’t help but improve . . .
Get new aerobars and 85 percent of the problem goes away. Right now the stack on the aerobars is so high you might as well have another 2 inches of spacers and an upward facing stem.
Whoa, you hit the nail on the head there. I’m no expert but you need to get rid of the spacers, probably change to a longer, more down angled stem, change aero bars, and all of this just gets you to a starting point to begin fine tuning. The way you are holding your arms by grasping the aerobars indicates some kind of comfort problem that you’re trying to support your body by cantilevering your arms between the aero bars and the armrests. The fact that you’re even in that position to start out with indicates that instead of trying to solve this problem by listening to hacks like me you should just bite the bullet and go to a pro bike fitter and be done with it. You need such wholesale changes that you shouldn’t even bother piddling around trying to do this yourself. In general a pro will fix the ass end of the bike first, and get seat height/angle/theoretical seat tube angle/etc. and then work on the front end. A pro will let you know if the frame size is close enough to be able to make the necessary adjustments. Go forth and get yourself fit and you’ll be blown away how much you’ll gain from your current position.