How to ADJUST Your BIKE for COMFORT

Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero, and I have Alana with me. And today we're going to show you how to adjust your bike for comfort. Stick around.

All right. So, today we're going to show you how to adjust your bike for comfort. But before I do, hit that subscribe button below, stay in touch with us here at sixthreezero, and be the first to know about all the new content we're putting out, including things about giveaways, for bikes, e-bikes, accessories, and of course, new product releases and tons of other stuff, so hit subscribe.

All right. So, today I'm going to show you how to adjust a bike for comfort. Now, I have a sixthreezero bike here. But a lot of people that ride bikes want to have maximum comfort, not necessarily max performance. There are performance bikes, and more bikes geared towards comfort. I have our EVRYjourney hybrid touring bike here, which is, a hybrid bike that is a combination of performance and comfort mixed into one. So with this bike, you can do a lot with it and still feel comfortable. Now, on sixthreezero bikes, you have four adjustment points that you can make to dial in the bike so it's most comfortable for you. You have the seat height, the seat tilt, this handlebar height, and the handlebar tilt.

Not all bikes necessarily have these four points. Some will have a fixed piece stem, so you might not be able to adjust the height at all. Some of you might not be able to adjust the tilt very much. It just kind of depends. We want as many adjustment points as possible on our bikes to allow for as many riders as possible to adjust the bike to their body. And that's the beauty of a sixthreezero, is if you buy online, you'll be able to custom fit it to your body with these four adjustment points. So, fitting for comfort is a different process than fitting for efficiency or performance.

There is a lot of feel that goes into it, which is why it's important for people at home to know how to do this because you're going to be riding the bike, logging miles, and you're going to feel how your body responds. And it's important that you listen to how your body is communicating to you. If you feel pain in a certain position, you make an adjustment.

So, I'll walk you through the adjustment points, and then I'll also point out some general, high-level theories and practices that I believe in to adjust for comfort. But again, if your body tells you differently and you don't like that, by all means, make the adjustment necessary. So, first and foremost is the seat height. So, we've actually pre-adjusted this seat height, but I'll go ahead and show you. On some bikes, this is going to require an Allen key or a screwdriver. In our case, we have a quick release so we can just move the seat up and down. Now, for the seat height, there are two elements to this. One really is for safety, and two is also for comfort. You don't want your legs to be too cramped. You don't want your knees to be hurting, which can happen if you've got the seat too close to the pedals. In addition to that, you do want to be able to get your feet on the ground safely when riding, but we're talking about comfort.

So, what we're trying to find is the perfect leg extension to give you efficiency and comfort, and most importantly, comfort. So, let's get this back to right here. Alana's 5'1, so go ahead and hop on, Alana. And if you could get the right foot pedal to the bottom so they can see where your leg is. Okay. So, you can see Alana just has a slight bend at the down pedal, which is exactly what you want, and that's going to be most comfortable. If we were to have that seat any lower and you start to compress the knee and there's an extreme bend, it's not going to feel very comfortable. It's going to be hard on your knee. Imagine if you have bad knees and you're squatting and putting that tension on it; the more you kind of make that knee flex there too much, it's going to be not as comfortable. So, we want to get just a little bit of a bend so on the downstroke, she's pushing through and generating power, but not too much.

And then, you want to have your leg like this, all right? Show them on the up position. There. So that's really also the other point, is on the up point, you don't want that knee to really get above parallel. If her leg was so high that her knee was coming up here, that's not going to feel good. Especially if you have bad knees or tight knees or tight hips or tight hamstrings, that's going to be a lot of strain. If you've got that seat super low, you're going to have to bring your knee way up high. So, nothing above parallel there and on the downstroke, just a slight bend in the knee. Okay. Now, if you want to hop off for a second.

We also have the tilt of the seat here. And the tilt of the seat, I'll show you, in the case of sixthreezero can be adjusted with a 14-millimeter wrench. And what we can do is we can loosen these bolts on what we call the seat hardware, or sometimes it's called the seat cuff, and you can loosen these two bolts on either side. You want to do equal loosening on both sides. And now you've created... We can even loosen this a little more just to make it a little bit easier. I think I just tightened it. Indeed I did. Okay. Now, you can see I've got this flexibility to tilt it forward and to tilt it back. Generally speaking for the tilt of a seat, it depends on the type of seats you have. In this case on a bucket saddle, you generally want to have a slight tilt towards the rear so the person's butt is cupped by the bucket element. But again, it's a personal choice.

If you have a flatter seat, you generally want to keep it as flat as possible. But it also depends on your body type. And this may be funny to say, but for people that may have a flatter rear or a more bubble rear, or just general shape is going to affect how you want this seat to be. Honestly for me, if I have this seat even straight up and down, I feel like I'm falling off the seat. I need it back a little more to keep me in the saddle. So, we did some pre adjusting for Alana. So, I like to have a partner when I'm adjusting a bike. It helps a little bit. So, they can find the place that they like and someone can tighten it quickly. But if you want to go ahead and step over the seat.

Yeah.

Now, you don't want to put any weight down. You just want to feel how it is.

I think, back a little.

Back a little?

Yeah.

Okay. So, we can just make it click back, and there we go. So, I'm assuming that will be good for her. Now we just come in with our 14 millimeters. So, the general rule of thumb is a flat seat is going to be adjusted flatter, bucket seats will be tilted back, but again, it's a totally personal preference. So, this one just makes sure when you're sort of finding the tilts you like before it's tightened all the way, don't put 100% of your weight down, or else you're going to get a very unpleasant experience. In addition, this is a really important bolt to tighten as much as you can without stripping anything, because you're putting a lot of downward pressure on these bolts when you're riding, and so you don't want this seat going anywhere. So after you tighten it, just do a little bit like this. You can tell it's not going anywhere. Okay, so now Alana can sit down.

Now we'll make our way to the handlebars. So, we have two adjustment points up here; one to adjust the height of the handlebars and one to adjust the tilt. In this case, it's going to be a six-millimeter. Depends on the type of bike you have if it's not a sixthreezero. Sometimes, this actual stem on a lot of bikes is what's called a fixed stem, so you can't even move the height up or down, but you might be able to do the angle. So, that's a benefit of a sixthreezero, is you have these four adjustment points. So, just stick your Allen key in. Oops.

Lefty-loosey.

Yes. Thank you, Alana. Okay. Now, here's where the partner element is a little bit nice. She can start to play around with the height. That's obviously too high.

Yeah.

And she can kind of see what she likes. Now I will say, I think where we had it is where she wanted it.

Yeah.

Okay. So now once you find your height, she can hold the bars in place and make sure that the stem lines up with your front wheel. And then I can just... Oh, see? She didn't hold it.

I tried.

That's why the partner is so important. Okay, so I can just kind of hold it too, just to be sure. It's funny to say too because once you find these adjustments, you really don't want to let them go. You want to lock them in so you don't lose the position. All right, there we go. And then make sure this is nice and tight. Okay.

Now lastly, we're moving on to our tilt. So, this one is six millimeters as well. And I previously tightened this, so I did it well. But we'll go ahead and loosen it.

Other.

Okay. So, now she's got free rein to adjust the bike any way she sees fit. Now again, this is the beauty of all sixthreezero bikes and e-bikes, are these four adjustment points. And this is an important one too, especially if you're adjusting for comfort. So when I'm looking at handlebar adjustments, I'm really looking at the back. So, you can see Alana's back is straight up and down. From a comfort standpoint, the less you're leaning forward, the less tension on your muscles, the more comfortable, the more relaxed you are. You can see the bars are coming into her body so her shoulders are nice and upright. She doesn't have any hunches or anything on her back, and her shoulders are very relaxed. So, we want to get the height and the tilt in a position where her shoulders can be down, her elbows can be relaxed, not bent up or any kind of weird position. And we don't want her wrists kinked or anything like that.

Again, we're talking strictly for comfort. I'm trying to find ways to adjust it to take tension off of her joints and her muscles. If you want to create a circumstance where you're working a little harder, you can adjust it in a totally different way that might increase your power. In this case, we're talking about comfort. So, go ahead and find the tilt. So, I like the rider to grab. They find the position they like. And then your partner can come in the front here and while they hold it, I can do a little, just tighten it down. And then this bolt is really important to get tight because when you're going up hills or riding fast, you're putting a lot of downward pressure on the handlebars, and this singular bolt is going to keep it in place. So you can give it a little jiggle, push down a little bit. Feels good.

So, now we've adjusted for comfort. You can see her wrists are not kinked, her elbows are relaxed, her shoulders are back. So, her body is not holding any tension while riding. That's really the key. Now this bike, the EVRYjourney, is really set up to be the most comfortable bike on the market because of how it allows the rider to sit in this ergonomic position. But all sixthreezero bikes have the ability to be adjusted and custom fit to a rider's body. And most bikes on the market will have some level of adjustment available, and so it's up to you to dial it in and feel what's best for you. Now the beauty, like I said, is the simplicity of these adjustments. Log a few miles, see what hurts, come home, make the adjustment. It may take one, two, three, four, five, six rides till you finally get it just right.

The other thing to pay attention to is if you haven't ridden in a long time, you may feel pain or discomfort. Try not to confuse that with the bike being uncomfortable. It can also be attributed to your body just adjusting to getting back into riding. So, there's good pain and there's bad pain. You might just want to try to be aware of which type of pain you are feeling. If it's pain related to muscle fatigue, that might be a good pain. If it's pain, something in the joint pinching, or extreme tightness, that's probably a bad pain. But it is important to try to distinguish between the two of those.

So, I hope that helps for you to adjust your bike to a comfortable level for you. If you have any questions below, comment below or email us at theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us at (310) 982-2877. In addition to that, take our body fit quiz on our website. We have a proprietary algorithm that will fit you perfectly to a bike for your body and your lifestyle. Takes less than two minutes, and you'll just answer a few questions about your body and your riding habits, and we'll recommend the perfect bike for you. And after you get your bike, download our app. You can plug in your height and your inseam and our app will tell you exactly how to adjust the bike to your body, the height of the seat, the height of the handlebars, and some tips on the seat tilt and the handlebar tilt.

In addition to that, we have a 365-day test ride your bike policy. If you don't love your bike in 365 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket. And for e-bikes, we have a 90-day test ride your bike policy. If you don't love it in 90 days, send it back, no questions asked. Lastly, join our community. Like I said, download the app, track your rides, be a part of the leaderboard competitions. And also, we have 2022 people pedaling challenge. We're trying to log 150,000 miles, and with every 25,000 miles we ride, we're giving away bikes to help inspire more people to get pedaling. And join our Facebook Pedalers group, share photos of your bikes, be a part of the community, make friends. Even if you haven't bought a bike yet, it's a great place to see how other riders are using their bikes and ask them questions. You can ask real riders real questions about how they love their bike.

All right. Well, thank you for sticking around, and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.

DISCLAIMER: The 365-day return policy mentioned in the video above is no longer valid. Please refer to www.sixthreezero.com/pages/30-day-test-ride for the updated policy.