Choosing the right bike size

This guide is a first version: a complete guide, brand by brand, is coming soon. Until then, here is how to read the sizes you see on Runometry and at the shops.

A bike size is a frame size

A bike size does not work like a shoe size. Each brand designs its frames in several sizes and names them its own way:

• in letters (XS, S, M, L, XL), the most common on mountain bikes and more and more on road and gravel bikes;
• in centimetres, the length of one of the frame’s tubes, measured the brand’s way;
• with its own codes (SM, MD, LA at some brands).

On our pages, each bike keeps its brand’s sizes, as the brand writes them. Two brands may call two different frames “M”: always check the brand’s guide.

How to find your size

1. Measure yourself: your height and your inseam (standing, barefoot, a book pressed up between your legs).
2. Open the size guide of the bike’s brand: each brand links its frame sizes to a range of rider heights.
3. Between two sizes, think of how you ride: a smaller frame handles more easily, a larger one stretches you out for long rides. A bike shop can help you decide.

On Runometry

Each page’s price block shows the sizes the shops have in stock, and the stock alert tells you when your size is back. Some shops do not list their sizes: check them on their site before you order.