How to Check Your Cycling Position at Home

• Your bike on an indoor trainer (or a helper holding it upright), with the bike level
• A phone on a tripod, shelf or stack of books — something that keeps it still and level
• Fitted clothing, so your hip, knee and ankle are visible
• Even lighting and a plain background if possible
• Your riding shoes and pedals, exactly as you ride

1. Place the phone directly side-on to the bike, about 2–3 m (7–10 ft) away, at roughly hip height.
2. Hold it upright (portrait) and level — a tilted phone squashes the image and skews the angles.
3. Fit the whole bike in the frame, both wheels touching the ground. Step back and zoom in slightly rather than using a wide-angle lens.
4. Film the side facing the camera; the near-side leg is the one that gets measured.

Photo (static). Sit as you normally ride, hands on the bars, and stop with the near-side pedal at the bottom (crank at 6 o’clock). Quick, but you hold a position you may not hold while riding.

Video (dynamic). Pedal at a normal effort for 10–30 seconds. The bottom of the stroke is picked from the video automatically, and the result reflects how you actually move. Several photos taken at different points of the stroke work in a similar way.

The two are compared with different knee-angle ranges, because the published ranges were defined for different methods — see the knee angle guide.

The riding position check detects your body landmarks in the browser — your photo or video never leaves your device — and reports:

• Knee angle at the bottom of the stroke, against the static or dynamic range — the main saddle height check.
• Torso angle from horizontal, against the target range for your discipline (for example 40–45° for a road race position, 50–58° for endurance and gravel).
• Shoulder and elbow angles — roughly a right angle between torso and upper arm suggests a neutral reach, and a slight elbow bend absorbs vibration.
• Hip and foot angles for information. Hip angle has no target range, because bike-fit sources use knee flexion, not hip angle, to set saddle height.

• Look for readings that are clearly outside the range, not a degree or two at the edge.
• Capture two or three times; trust what is consistent.
• Fix saddle height first (knee angle), then fore-aft, then the handlebars (torso angle).
• Move things 3–5 mm at a time, mark the old position, ride, and re-check.

No numbers yet? Get your saddle height and torso target from the bike fit calculator first, then run the position check. Common problems and their fixes are in common bike fit mistakes. Bike shops can offer the same check to their customers through FitInspector for bike shops.