This month’s Star Letter: “Scraping enough money together to get a £2k to £3k MTB and ending up with the wrong frame size is my worst nightmare.”

>>> Size matters: why we’re all riding bikes that are too small

Growing pains

In years gone by when buying a new MTB I always bought a medium frame size and didn’t give it a second thought. I consider myself of average height at a shade under 5ft 10in but I’m finding the frame size issue a nightmare in the making. Scraping enough money together to get a £2k to £3k MTB and ending up with the wrong frame size is indeed my worst nightmare.

For a start I’m in the crossover height range as per many companies recommendations so which do I choose, medium or large? Then there is the current trend for upsizing to get decent reach but then this can make it difficult to get the correct seat height with a 150mm dropper post. Any words of wisdom you have would be most welcome and an article about this potential minefield in your magazine would be even more welcome.

– Mark

mbr – Hey Mark, it can take a bit of used to upsizing a bike but it’s well worth it for the extra room in the cockpit it gives you and the greater stability going downhill. At your height you’d be a size Large in most brand’s bikes. But the best way to tell is to head along to a demo day and try out sizes — you’ve missed the mbr demo days but they’ll be back on again in 2019. Failing that, just check out what size short arse Editor Danny is riding!

Contact us: mbr@timeinc.com

All Star Letter correspondents win a Madison Zenith waterproof jacket worth £99.99.