How to size a bike | Picking the right new bike for you

Knowing how to size a bike properly is something that escapes even many bike shops.  Having the wrong size frame can make it nearly impossible to have a good bike fit.  Entirely too many people are riding around on the wrong size bike and they're suffering for it.https://youtu.be/Mwn7p_oiNV8Why is it so difficult?First, getting the right size does require some basic knowledge about biomechanics as well as a little attention to detail, especially regarding how the rider has felt on other bikes in their past and what demands they're going to put on the new bike in the future.Second, there are just fewer sizes out there to choose from.  Yes, bikes are still built to fit riders from ~5'0" to ~6'5".  BUT, it wasn't too many years ago that there would be 10 or even 13 different sizes in this range.  Believe it or not there was a time when a bike manufacturer would make frames in 1 cm increments from from 49 cm to 62 cm.Now with bikes being predominantly made of carbon fiber, often the best scenario we can expect is perhaps 6 or 7 sizes but with most manufacturers only making between three and five.So we can fit roughly the same size range of cyclists, but now there are going to be a lot of people falling in between sizes.Learning how to size a bike can be done with a little practice and going into the bike shop armed with information.  In this video I go through step by step how to do this by:

1. taking stock of and measuring your current bike geometry and setup,
2. considering the sensations and discomforts that you've had with your existing bike, and then
3. correlating those two things to come up with some guidelines for how the frame of your new bike would be best constructed

Anyone can do this with just a little time and the right instruction.So don't spend $5000 or even $500 on a new bike without watching this video first.  A well-fit bike starts with getting the frame that best matches you.I've written in the past about avoiding some of the other pitfalls of the tricky business of bike sizes.