I’ve read that Eddy Merckx never stopped making minute adjustments to his saddle height throughout his career; tho’ perhaps this was due in part to his injury from the accident with a spectator.
So at least the great Eddy and I have this much in common. Patrick Moore, who very surprisingly felt distinctly slower than Eddy on the ride home just now against a ~10 mph headwind (and carrying 29 lb of groceries. Never saw Eddy do *that*). On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 3:52 PM Jay <[email protected]> wrote: > They call us, "micro adjusters", vs. "macro adopters". Heard that on a > cycling podcast years ago. I can feel just a few mm difference. I wish I > wasn't so picky, but if the bars are too far by 5mm, it makes a huge > difference to my upper body comfort (= discomfort). > > On Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 5:49:22 PM UTC-5 Patrick Moore wrote: > >> The 1999 Joe Starck Riv road custom has for >25 years been my Platonic >> archetype of bicycle fit and feel, and my body, torso and shoulders and >> arms and hands, in particular, just fit “instinctively: reasonable bend for >> power and aero, easy to use hooks and hoods and flats. One just “falls >> into” the right position. >> >> So I try to set up all my other bikes to mimic that fit and feel, and >> I’ve pretty much succeeded with the Matthews road bike for dirt and the >> Roadeo, despite a ~3-4 cm higher bar and 10 cm stem on the dirt road >> Matthews, and a much different stem — 90 mm, + 30* — on the Roadeo, versus >> 80 mm, 3-4 cm below saddle, for the Starck. >> >> The 2020 Matthews IGH fixed gear road bike is a geometric clone of the >> ’99, but despite using the same seatposts, saddles, stems, bar, brake >> levers dialed in exactly the same way, so I thought, the reach just felt a >> wee bit too long. >> >> This once again annoyed me on today’s errand ride, so after some more >> compulsive measuring I decided that I’d missed the exact bar/stem height by >> a couple of mm, and raised the bar by a scant 1/4” — scant in the sense >> used in recipes. >> >> Transformation! So do such miniscule adjustments make big differences. >> I’m very glad, as the Matt IGH fixed gear gets a lot of miles. >> >> Alhamdulilla! >> >> -- >> >> Patrick Moore >> Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing >> services >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* >> >> *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* >> >> *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/a9b6247d-e18a-4b53-b214-f35523e6d7b3n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/a9b6247d-e18a-4b53-b214-f35523e6d7b3n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgu06Fkyhzid%3DEQMHov3sj54YfoG_B8uM9CR%3D%3DT5qdMoRw%40mail.gmail.com.
