Who has experienced a Bike Jig fitting experience ?

Raffles

By a bike jig im referring to a static bike jig that has adjustable top tube and head tube allowing an absolutely perfect fit that can be measured and charts drawn up to give to a custom frame builder.

Because I am a nightmare to fit , short arms, short legs and long torso, I have been in touch with a fitter about getting a fitting done on a jig and the supply of a chart that will be MY perfect bike specification. Ive been in touch with custom frame builders and told them if im splashing out £1100 on a frame & forks then I want it to fit me as perfectly as can be done.

Im interested to know if anyone here has used the sort of jig Im referring to and were the measurements for your personal perfect fit what you expected or a bit of a surprise.. In my instance I think what the jig will tell me is that I need a bike with a top tube around 535mm, headtube around 165mm and seat tube around 525mm. These are my hunches and the bike that is blowing my mind is the shand skinnymalinky which is a bike to literally die for :shock:

After speaking to steven shand he says if the fitting chart can be produced then a bike can be built. The guy really knew his stuff and after talking to him I was suitably impressed. I simply adore the bikes that felice gimondi or eddy merckx rode and those designs just stir something inside me and when funds permit , I hope to own a frameset made just for me that will exceed my expectations and then some.

desweller

Raffles wrote:

Im interested to know if anyone here has used the sort of jig Im referring to and were the measurements for your personal perfect fit what you expected or a bit of a surprise.. In my instance I think what the jig will tell me is that I need a bike with a top tube around 535mm, headtube around 165mm and seat tube around 525mm. These are my hunches and the bike that is blowing my mind is the shand skinnymalinky which is a bike to literally die for :shock:

Do you know what 'literally' means?

I would have thought it would be like a normal bike fit only with an adjustable top tube. As far as experiences go Mr Timmis at Cadence Sport made some pretty dramatic changes to my fit that made a big difference to my riding.

danlikesbikes

Yes about 10 years ago I went and got a fit. Basically the shop did a manual measurement of all the relevant body parts as you would get today if you went into most LBS's, then input into a simple computer system which then worked out what my idea frame size was & compared this to several different makes.

Fortunately for me i was not that far of 2 existing models offered by the shop and both of the differences could be made up by adjusting the stem & seat set up. Though we did then take it over to the jig and set up the standard bike sizes agains the custom frame size & whilst there was a difference it was so slight that I personally could not notice it. So I went with an off the peg frame.

I see now that most systems such as Retul use a 3D capture for frame recommendations & there are others out there too.

Raffles

Danlikesbikes wrote:

Yes about 10 years ago I went and got a fit. Basically the shop did a manual measurement of all the relevant body parts as you would get today if you went into most LBS's, then input into a simple computer system which then worked out what my idea frame size was & compared this to several different makes.

Fortunately for me i was not that far of 2 existing models offered by the shop and both of the differences could be made up by adjusting the stem & seat set up. Though we did then take it over to the jig and set up the standard bike sizes agains the custom frame size & whilst there was a difference it was so slight that I personally could not notice it. So I went with an off the peg frame.

I see now that most systems such as Retul use a 3D capture for frame recommendations & there are others out there too.

the main diffference being though , retul will fit you to a bike you bring in with you whereas if you have a jig fit you dont bring any bike with you and you are having a bike made to fit your body and not an existing bike stretched or shrunk for a "best compromised fit"

meesterbond

Raffles wrote:

the main diffference being though , retul will fit you to a bike you bring in with you whereas if you have a jig fit you dont bring any bike with you and you are having a bike made to fit your body and not an existing bike stretched or shrunk for a "best compromised fit"

Many Retul places will also have a Muve Fit Bike as well. The place in MK I went certainly did.

danlikesbikes

Raffles wrote:

the main diffference being though , retul will fit you to a bike you bring in with you whereas if you have a jig fit you dont bring any bike with you and you are having a bike made to fit your body and not an existing bike stretched or shrunk for a "best compromised fit"

I was talking specifically about Retul Muve Bike fit jig - https://www.retul.com/retul-products/re ... -fit-bike/
Is

It works like a bike fit but backwards in that you go to them & sit on the jig & they use the 3D motion capture to create the computer model which they then overlay with manufactures frames so you can choose one which is going to be your best fit. The advantage being you can then purchase your components based on the best fit for you. Rather than buy the bike, take it to Retul get a fit done, have the bike adjusted and be recommended to ditch your new stem, bars etc for ones that fit better

cougie

Yes I've had several custom built frames.
The bikes fitted me well - but so do the off the peg frames.
For me - I dont think a custom frame was much different to a standard - other than it was just what I wanted.

Bikes are pretty adjustable.

imposter2.0

cougie wrote:

Yes I've had several custom built frames.
The bikes fitted me well - but so do the off the peg frames.
For me - I dont think a custom frame was much different to a standard - other than it was just what I wanted.

Bikes are pretty adjustable.

As above. I got fitted on one of these jigs years ago when I had a custom steel frame made. I now ride 'off the peg' frames (albeit of a similar size) and the fit is just as good.

Also, the OP really does need to look up the word 'literally'.

rolf_f

cougie wrote:

Yes I've had several custom built frames.
The bikes fitted me well - but so do the off the peg frames.
For me - I dont think a custom frame was much different to a standard - other than it was just what I wanted.

Bikes are pretty adjustable.

That tends to apply if you are of fairly normal proportions - in that case, there is minimal practical point to having a bepoke frame. As soon as you are wierdly shaped, it gets much harder to find a fit though even then, if you are open minded to brand and cost, you'll find something somewhere.

I'm not sure I see much benefit to being fitted on a jig rather than a bike though as long as the bike is close enough to start with.