u/cunta8

I very recently got my first gravel bike. I have never owned or ridden a bike with drop bars, so I don’t have a clear idea of what a proper fitting bike is *supposed* to feel like.

What I can say is: I bought a frame that is supposed to be for people shorter than me (small frame g1 explorer and I’m 5’7.5”), but I still feel like the hoods are a bit farther away from me than feels comfortable, but I don’t know what is supposed to feel comfortable. My elbows are also almost locked out, but then when I use the drops and I try to pedal really hard, I feel like my knees are going into my chest/stomach too much which isn’t conducive to putting out 100% effort. But on the other hand, I’m also relatively inflexible, so it might also be hip tightness 🤷‍♂️

I would appreciate any and input. I have the saddle as high as possible while still feeling like I’m not rocking my pelvis in order to pedal or reaching out with my toes to reach the bottom of the stroke.

I feel like I want a stem with either a little rise or one that is a little shorter, or am I totally off and need a longer one? I feel totally confused.

As far as my saddle setback, the saddle is centered with respect to the ruler printed on the side of the rail.

I would appreciate any and all input. I wore sandals so that you can see my entire leg and foot, not because I usually wear flip flops on gravel rides ;)

I finally had a chance to get to some actual gravel!

It was a ton of fun :) and the view wasn’t bad either ;)

I ended up going back to the first saddle I got from Amazon because it seems to fit my anatomy better. At least, I’m not sore after the ride compared to the former beige one I had previously.

I also picked up a nifty seat post bag. It holds everything I want and is expandable for more room.
So far, I am beyond impressed with this bike for the money I paid… once I adjusted the derailleurs and brakes.

Unfortunately, I’m already anticipating that I will need lower gearing than the 32t on the rear and 30 in the front for most of the gravel trails I want to try around the hills here , I just don’t know what the cheapest and easiest way to do that…yet.

I just picked one of the v2 drop bar models in small Friday night and I’m very excited.

I’ve been riding electric bikes to work every chance I get the last 3 years and since I enjoy biking so much, I decided to get an “analog” bike 😆.

I already got a new saddle, installed quick-disconnect pedals (same as the ones I’ve had on my folding fat tire electric bike for the year and a half), a simple bike computer and a tiny drop bar rear view mirror. I did a 10 minute ride today just to test out my saddle position and see how the drivetrain shifts (crappy)

Both the front and rear wheels were a little crooked, the rear cogs made the chain visually bend, but I re-seated them and hopefully resolved that…

I messed around with both the front and rear derailleurs and I have them both shifting okay now. They could both be better, but I’m not very skilled, plus I figure I should break things in a bit first and then try to fine-tune more.

Overall, I’m very impressed and it’s a night and day difference between the explorer and my 85lb fat tire bike.

So far my biggest disappointment is that the wheels have presta valves…and ones that you can’t disassemble, so I can’t put slime in my tires. I’ve been riding on the same inner tubes on my fat tire bike for almost 3000mi and I haven’t gotten a “flat” because I preventively filled them with slime the day I got the bike… I’d like to do the same on the explorer, but it looks like I’ll need to change out the tubes to ones with disassembleable presta valves in order to do that as I don’t feel like drilling out the rims and possibly messing them up in order to fit Schrader valve tubes.

Anywho, I’m glad to be part of the community and since I see people posting their “cockpits”, here is mine: