Description
This is the ebook of Dialed v2.
Get it in print and Kindle at Amazon.
Stop Guessing. Start Shredding.
Most mountain bikes are sized for how they sit in a showroom—not how they handle on a technical trail. If your bike feels “off,” it’s probably because you’re following industry logic that wasn’t designed for you.
In Dialed v2, world-renowned skills coach Lee McCormack (author of Mastering Mountain Bike Skills) breaks down the walls of mainstream bike fit to give you the ultimate blueprint for performance, comfort, and control.
Building on the revolutionary concepts of the first edition, Dialed v2 introduces even more refined physics and real-world testing to help you find your “Perfect Setup.” Whether you are 5’0” or 6’5”, a weekend warrior or a pro racer, this book shows you exactly how to make your bike an extension of your body.
Inside Dialed v2, you’ll discover:
The RAD (Rider Area Distance) Revolution: Learn the definitive way to calculate the distance between your feet and hands for maximum leverage and balance.
The Truth About Modern Geometry: Why “Long and Slack” might be holding you back—and how to “size down like a boss” to regain your flickability.
The Heavy Hands Index (HHI): A new way to measure and reduce hand numbness and fatigue.
Crankarm Secrets: Why shorter cranks might be the biggest performance upgrade you’ve never tried.
Handlebar Science: Deep dives into width, rise, sweep, and the critical Steering-Hands Offset (SHO).
Real-World Case Studies: Detailed fit breakdowns for riders of all heights and proportions, including kids and drop-bar enthusiasts.
The DiRT Tool: Use the Dialed RAD TOOL (DiRT) to model your bike before you buy the parts.
Stop fighting your bike and start flowing with it.
Lee McCormack is the founder of Lee Likes Bikes. He has written 12 mountain bike books, coached more than 11,000 riders, trained more than 2,000 coaches, and helped thousands get dialed on their bikes. Lee serves as adjunct professor of mountain biking at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, CO.
Specs
Dimensions: 8.5 x 11
Pages: 207
Formats: Ebook (non-printable PDF) and print/Kindle (available directly from Amazon)
Purpose of Dialed v2
Mountain biking is one of the most beautiful and complete human pursuits. It offers the majestic suffering of endurance sports, the exciting shred of action sports, the camaraderie of great friends, the beauty of nature, the nerdery of sweet bikes, and, if you pursue it long enough, the transcendence of Flow*.
*Great riding integrates the complete you — body, mind and spirit — with your bike and in sync with the trail. When you’re ready, head down the rabbit hole and explore the entire Lee MTB universe at leelikesbikes.com.
Dialed v2 focuses on fitting your bike to your body and your riding style.
Our goals here are simple:
- More comfort
- Less pain
- Fewer crashes
- More Flow
- More speed (if that’s what you want)
- Sick jumps! (if that’s what you want)
- And most important: More Joy
I’ve been riding bikes for 50 years, riding mountain bikes for 38 years and working as a professional mountain bike author, communicator, inventor, teacher and coach for almost 25 years. The mountain bike fit system in this book comes from my experience working with a wide variety of riders in person and online. This approach is simple, based in science, and repeatable. It makes simple sense and can be applied to any bike you ride off road.
What’s new since Dialed v1?
I published Dialed v1 in 2018. Since then, I’ve been living closely with these principles, which tie directly to the RideLogic skills instruction method I’ve been teaching as a full time job.
The Dialed/RideLogic message is getting out there. Since Dialed v1 came out I’ve used the principles to fit thousands of riders in person and online. Copycat videos explaining my Rider Area Distance (RAD)* logic and calculations are popping up online. Riders are embracing shorter cranks and the industry is starting to produce them. Questions are being asked and argued about frame geometry.
*RAD is the lever from a bike’s bottom bracket to its grips. RAD length and angle determine how easily you can handle your bike on technical terrain.
Thanks to the concepts and practices I introduced in Dialed v1, many riders are using the RideLogic methodology on their bikes, and more shops are using it to fit their customers. I think that’s wonderful.
I believe Dialed v2 is a major improvement. My approach has become simpler yet more complete and flexible. While Dialed v1 focused on downhill handling and treated seated pedaling as “whatever, you’ll be fine,” Dialed v2 looks at the complete rider and the whole bike. This book can guide the fitting for any style of mountain biking, from pump tracks to dirt jumps to downhill to enduro to trail riding to cross country racing. Ebikes too.
Life experience: Partly due to riding ill-fitting bikes for too long, my shoulder joints wore down to the bone, then wore through another 1.5 inches of bone off each side. My new titanium shoulders are awesome, but they made my arms longer, which taught me more about bike fit. After I rehabbed my shoulders and got back on the bike, I was pulling Gs on a pump track while cross training on inline skates. Deep in a berm, all three of my right hamstrings tore clean off the hip bone. This was partly due to decades of riding cranks that were too long which put undue strain on my hamstrings. I was already experimenting with shorter cranks; this pushed me to test even shorter cranks, and it opened my eyes to what it feels like to be a normal human with tight/weak hamstrings.
I now provide solutions. In Dialed v1 I pointed out the problems with bike design but provided no solutions. There was no way I’d start a bike brand. No way. But I heard this a lot: “OK Lee, I get it, but no bike maker offers a bike that fits me.” Well, I’m here to fulfill a mission to help you ride and live joyfully, and apparently that requires a bike brand that values fit more than sales.
More flexibility: After fitting many people, I’ve learned how Dialed fits can be adjusted to fit a wide variety of rider sizes, proportions, fitness levels and goals. I’ll start with the default settings that work for most riders, then I’ll show you some common adjustments.
Table of Contents
Welcome 5
About the Author 5
Quickstart Guide 7
Purpose of Dialed v2 8
Helping people, one ride at a time 9
What’s new since Dialed v1? 10
Heights and proportions 12
Two approaches to mountain bike fit 13
MTB geometry: How did we get here? 15
The industry’s MTB-fit logic 19
Downsides of mainstream geometry 20
Advantages of mainstream geometry 22
Maybe don’t ride what feels normal to you 23
Dialed MTB Fit 25
What got me started on this path 25
Goals for a Dialed fit 26
MTB riding 101 27
MTB specs 101 32
Fore/aft weight distribution 36
RAD leverage ratio 38
Balancing balance and leverage 40
The bike triangle 41
The perfect setup for you 43
Now offering Dialed bikes 44
Saddle Position 46
Seat tube angle 46
How seat angle affects your setup 50
How to adjust your seat tube angle 50
Seat height 51
Fore-aft saddle position 54
Rider Area Distance (RAD) 58
What is RAD? 58
Finding your body RAD 60
RAD= fit 63
RAD+ fit 65
RAD- fit 69
Range of RADness 70
On-bike RAD check 71
Optimal RAD angle 76
Seated Reach 79
What is seated reach? 79
Bikes seem sized for seated reach 80
Long and low vs. short and high 81
Seated reach multipliers 88
Heavy Hands Index (HHI) 90
How to reduce HHI 93
Crankarms 95
What are crankarms for? 95
Finding your ideal crank length 100
Signs your cranks are too long for you 103
Advantages of shorter cranks 106
What about 0mm cranks? 108
Crank length: a new way of thinking 111
How crank length affects fit 112
Bike stance width 114
Handlebars 119
Handlebar width 119
Handlebar rise 132
Handlebar sweep 136
Handlebar setback 140
Match your grips to your hands 142
Steering-hands offset (SHO) 144
What is SHO? 144
SHO positive, neutral and negative 145
SHO= (Neutral) 146
Dialing in SHO 148
Dialing in your perfect fit 149
Don’t trust the size charts 150
Pick your frame size by frame reach 153
Sizing down your next bike 155
How to size down like a boss 156
Sizing down shortens seated reach 158
About frame stack 160
Dropper posts 161
Adjust your controls 165
Treat yourself to a nice saddle 167
Representative fits 168
5’0” (152cm) rider 169
5’4.5” (164cm) rider 171
5’8.5” (174cm) rider 173
6’1.5” (187cm) rider 175
These can’t be right, can they? 177
Case study: me on a new trail bike 179
Exceptions & Edge Cases 184
Boulders vs. Rivers 184
Shorter than 5’8” 187
Very tall 190
Unusual proportions 192
Making a compromise 194
Kids’ bikes 195
Fitting the full range of heights 197
Drop-bar bikes 198
Riding with limitations 199
Riding a Dialed bike 202
Model your bike with DiRT 203
How the pieces fit together 203
How to use DiRT 205
Thank you 207
