6 Ways to Get an Upright Riding Position on a Bike

6 Ways to Get an Upright Riding Position on a Bike

There are numerous reason why you might want a more upright riding position on you bike. They range from comfort to fashion, and all are 100% worthy. Upright is where it all started, both for road bikes, and mountain bikes.

The Whippet Safety Bicycle - Very Upright

Early Mountain Bike - Upright (For California)

In this post I will go through a few methods that can be used to obtain a more upright riding position, I have ordered suggestion from lowest cost and ease of implementation, to highest cost and effort.

This post assumes that you have a bikes that you want to adjust, or customise to give an upright riding position.

If you are buying new new bike, then the world is your oyster. I suggest googling for "dutch bikes", however modding a mountain bike with a fork from surly (disc trucker) or Thorn Cycles (Mt Tura) would give all of the robustness of a MTB, lots of gears and a very usable bike. If you pursue comfort and little else then just buy a "dutch" bike, like the "batavus quip" below.

1 - Squash Your Cockpit (1cm)

By moving you saddle forward, and rotating you handle bars to provide maximum rise / minimum reach, you will achieve a slightly more upright ride.

However, you will likely only get a tiny extra bit of uprightness using this method, and adjusting you saddle too far forward may cause other problems.

2 - Stem Extender (5cm to 10cm)

For under £10 you can buy a stem extender. They are very easy to fit, as you do not need to remove your handle bars, or brake levers or anything like that. In the below video a 7 year child fits one, so it is very easy.

Just be sure to get the right size, you will need a 1" or a 1 1/8" inch size.  As well as the above fixed offering you can get adjustable stem risers:

3 - Riser Stem (5cm to 10cm)

There are many many stems that can be used on there own, or in combination with other methods on this page, to give an upright ride. A good brand to pursue is Ergotec (Humpert) who make some very high rise fixed stems. Below is the "charisma" model.

Or why not try the "Humpert Comfi High Rise"  beow which gives about 10cm extra height. 

4 - Riser Bars (5cm to 20cm)

There are many handlebars that will give a "rise" and thus give an upright riding position. But my advise would be to opt for bars that provide an extreme rise, such as BMX handle bars. You may think this ia going a bit too far, but as you will see, uprightness just keeps getting better and better. So don't mess about, with small riser bars, get some with a serious amount of rise.

BMX bars again, used below to make a upright commuter bike. The below image is from Calories per Pence Blog. 

5- New Forks (upto 30cm)

Many forks, when bought new, come with very long steerer tubes. Some can be as long at 400mm with most being around 250mm.

Perhaps the most upright V-Brake fork you can get is the Thorn Mt Tura Fork. Which is huge. Pictured on my bike below.

Now you may think that a 4000m long steerer tube, would be as upright as you would ever want to go, but I have recent added a riser stem to this set up:

6 - Welding 

Now if you were to combine a 400mm steerer tune fork, with a BMX handle bar you would end up with you handle bars around 1.2 meters above ground level. That is pretty high.

But if you want straight bars that are very high, to get an upright riding position, then extending you steel steerer tube, by welding on an extra length would be one of the few options available. If you are thinking this is dangerous, then please don't after all you whole bike is welded together! The below video shows the proper procedure.

A very tall person might have a torso length of 60cm, add on 15cm for their ass. A saddle might extend 20cm above the top tube. So a maximum handle bar height but be around 80cm above the top of the head tube. If you are very tall, and want a very upright ride.

A Word on Saddles

Something quite important to consider is that as you move to a more upright riding position, you will put more weight on your buttocks. Consider getting a wider saddle, to help spread the load!

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