[CR]Bianchi needs help

(Example: Component Manufacturers)

From: "garth libre" <rabbitman@mindspring.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:12:40 -0400
Subject: [CR]Bianchi needs help

Really some of the resident Sherlock Holmes people here!!!!!! Forget that the seller says that the frame is an 18 inch frame. Forget that the seller says that the standover height is 32.5 inches. Forget that some of the regulars here are trying to guess the frame size by looking at the frame relative to the waterbottles. (This reminds me of the people who tried to guess the height of Robert Redford by comparing him to the height of an average New York City garbage pail that could be found in the barefoot scene of "Barefoot in the Park".)

This frame is standard steel tubing. You can always guess the size of any old frame in two seconds by looking at the headtube. A 52 cm bike has hardly any distance between the top tube and the downtube. A 54 cm bike has the start of a classic looking separation and the 56 cm starts to look like almost a few inches. INHO the 54's 56's and 58's are the pretiest for proportion with the 60's looking like the top tube is on stilts. The seller gives one crucial piece of information away as to double checking the size. He has quoted the bars as 42 cm wide Cinelli's. Cinelli measures the bar width from c to c which means that this bike couldn't be a small one, as wide bars would be unusable for a tiny man. The bike looks for all the world as a 56 cm, and I would bet money on it (maybe a 55 or 57). The only thing that could be 18 inches on this bike would be the distance from the tip of the seat to the rear edge of the handlebars. This is an important measurement close to the one prefered by many racers of medium height, and one which I frequently hear from some of them who are interested in getting good breathing room for racing. (It fits with wide bars for breathing and a good stretch to cut wind resistance and allow the spine to straighten out a bit.) The seller has a super high stem extention which may mean that he does some touring on the bike, which might fit with his use of wide range triple gearing. In general the way the owner has the bike set up indicates that he is a bit ecentric which goes with odd and contradictory size quotations. Mark my word, the bike is a 56. Garth Libre