79pmooney
Posts:3189
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| 12/04/2013 01:55 PM |
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Yo Mike gets it. SM-M-L-XL? For someone who wears 15 1/5-34 shirts and 32-34 pants, SM-M-L-XL works VERY poorly!
I've had one stock bike that fit. Two that were good with 13 stems slammed. The rest?
I never knew a commuter could be comfortable until I had a 180 stem built for one. Now my stems
are: 175, 130 and 175 on my stock frames and 155, 13- and 120 on my customs. (The 155 is on my '79 Mooney.
Took me a few years to realize just how much reach I really wanted.)
Ben |
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79pmooney
Posts:3189
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| 12/04/2013 01:59 PM |
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Guys, big pictures suck, They destroy a readable thread. Now we have to scroll to read every line. If you are going to post one, do it in a new thread
so each poster can hit return at the of the readable line. (Like the dark ages before word processing existed.)
Thanks
Ben |
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huckleberry
Posts:824
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| 12/04/2013 03:41 PM |
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You guys must be old!
Did you see the legs on that girl? Fantastic!
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Cosmic Kid
Posts:4209
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| 12/04/2013 03:50 PM |
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i am gonna agree with one of my DVT Brothers and disagree with the other.....
6ix is spot-on. It is actually easier to tell now what a bike is w/o any paint than it was at any other time in the hisotry of the bicycle. I guarantee you guys could all pick out a Specialized Tarmac from an array of other frames w/ no paint and decals. A lugged steel frame was the 'same" as any other lugged steel frame, and virutually indistinguishable (unless you were up close to see the actual lugs).
As for the ol' romance-tinged "hand-built, soul of the builder", the reality is that these "craftsman" were just tradesman building bikes. They were often overweight, smoked and never rode a bike. They were just doing their "job" in a factory.....no different than the Chinese guy laying carbon sheets into the molds, etc. Further, it takes more technical knowledge to lay-up carbon fiber correctly than it does to braze a frame. Brazing is a VERY crude technology.
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| Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!
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Oldfart
Posts:511
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| 12/04/2013 04:12 PM |
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| Exactly CK exactly. So many times people that are nostalgic about old equipment are really nostalgic of the good times they had on that old stuff. I do not miss the old 14 to 18 straight block 5 speed that needed to be pulled apart for any hilly event and downtube friction shifters. Yeah in their day they worked fine. DT levers will work just fine today too, but modern integrated shifters that are indexed work way better. Similarly the ride quality of a modern carbon composite is so much better than those old steel noodles. And Ben, just because the frame size does not have a number does not mean a frame won't fit. They all can be measured and they all have geometry that can be looked up, just like we used to. I think my Giant Defy is available in 5 sizes. http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-ca/bikes/model/defy.advanced.sl.0/17601/73395/#geometry 1.5 cm jumps up to l then a 2 cm jump to xl. Seems good to me. many steel race bikes in the olden days came in 2 cm jumps IIRC (and I may not as that was a while ago) And stupid insistence on the stupid horizontal top tube meant bikes in my length had a ridiculously short head tube. |
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79pmooney
Posts:3189
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| 12/04/2013 04:44 PM |
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Andy, you are missing my point. My arm and leg lengths relative to my torso are so far from the norm that any bike/shirt/pants sized to fit a relatively normal person won't come close for me. Plus I rarely find stock bikes that weight the wheels properly for me. I haven't checked out the carbon bikes for fit, but 10 years ago when I was first looking at ti, I wrote a program that would take the given frame geometry and calculate the stem I would need to get a good fit. It also calculated the weight per wheel and percentages. I quickly saw that any ti bike out there would be a grade B fit with very mediocre wheel weighting. Since the carbon manufacturers are dealing with far larger audiences, it seems to me that it would be very unlikely that they would pay large sums to create frames very few would want. Hence, re-writing that program to work on my newer computer seems a waste of time. Instead, I draft what I want on AutoCAD and send that design to Dave Lev (TiCycles) to execute in ti or steel. Easy. They fit.
I'll keep doing that until someone can convince me that a superior lighter frame that doesn't fit is actually better for me. (Good luck!)
Ben |
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zootracer
Posts:835
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| 12/04/2013 05:27 PM |
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| Off topic, I paid 3K out the door for my Colnago Master X-Light in 2002. Mostly Chorus with Record shifters and rear der. Now 3K will buy the frame only. I like steel bikes at yesterday's prices.. |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 12/04/2013 05:55 PM |
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| You grab a bike, you jump on it, you ride it. What's so hard? |
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Oldfart
Posts:511
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| 12/04/2013 06:35 PM |
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| I still don't understand your point Ben. If a small has a tt of 53cm and a 53 has a tt of 53, what is the difference? It's just nomenclature isn't it? If you mean fewer sizes available that I agree. I hear you on odd proportions. Long legs and arms here and long femurs too. many small bikes have 74 or 75 seat tubes which means I would need a long set back post which makes the effective tt longer. i.e a 51.5 tt with a 35mm set back post with the saddle all the way back isn't really a 51.5 tt anymore. i should really become familiar with this stack and reach method. Fortunately I am not so oddly proportioned that I can't find an off the rack job to fit. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 12/04/2013 08:21 PM |
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The sloping TT creates a lot of flexibility in terms of frame fit. Buy by effective TT, not ST like in the old days.
PS: nothing wrong with being statisfied with older tech. Quality steel bikes do ride great. |
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Master50
Posts:340
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| 12/04/2013 10:01 PM |
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| my 2006 carbon bike is available in 1cm. in cements from 48 to 62 and is available in sloping Top Tube in nearly as many sizes too. My 1986 steel bike looks identical to just about any 1986 steel frame without paint. Lugged or fillet braised was about the major difference. In fact we were so locked into that look that Vitus made dam heavy aluminum bikes because they used tubing that was 1/4" thick. Remember the buzz when Cannondale went big tubes? Carbon frames are almost different for each manufacturer just to prove they are a unique design. Maybe lower priced models are badged differently and made by Giant? |
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stronz
Posts:447
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| 12/04/2013 10:08 PM |
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| I eff'd up the bandwidth. Dont now how I did it. Sorry. Can we increase the bandwidth on the girl with the bike? |
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Hoshie
Posts:134
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| 12/06/2013 12:13 AM |
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I am with huck - who the hell is looking at the bike?
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GJanney
Posts:76
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| 12/07/2013 11:34 AM |
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| I agree with the posts above that carbon actually makes frames look less like one another given the way that manufacturers can actually shape frames. Much more importantly than that, the ride properties have great variance, too. I have four bikes - Fuji, Trek, Cervelo, and TIME. All great top end frames and all feel different on a ride. Surprisingly to me, the Trek Madone 6.9 SSL is probably my top choice if I had to choose only one (I have an aesthetic love affair with my Cervelo SLC-SL which is why it surprises me to say that). One may not like carbon bikes, and to each their own. To simply group any category of bikes as good or bad, though, seems to completely miss the point on performance (as well as appeal to an individual). |
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laurentja
Posts:122
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| 12/10/2013 11:10 PM |
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Whatever! Cute girl, and those legs...!
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