Christopher,
Bear in mind that many older British bikes - especially
those built before WW2 - had extremely long top tubes,
especially in the smaller sizes. I'm referring to frames with
say, 19.5" seat tubes and 22.5" top tubes. Certainly, such a
frame, set up with 165mm cranks and 26" tires might not have
overlap, even with fenders.
But my 1973 Witcomb, which I suspect is typical of the era,
has noticable overlap with 165mm cranks and 700x25mm tires. Of
course, this is a racing frame which doesn't have fender
eyelets. You can click on the following URL to get a good idea
of the geometry. Note that the overlap is already apparent in
the topmost photo:
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
I don't have photos of my circa 1960s Armstrong but it also had a bit of overlap. That was with 170mm cranks and 27x1.25" tires, but I never rode with fenders. If I had, the overlap would certainly have been quite obvious. Best regards, Fred Rednor - Arlington, Virginia (USA)
--- "Barbour, Christopher" <Christopher.Barbour@tufts.edu>
wrote:
> Jan Heine writes:
>
> The typical British high-trail geometries (with much less
> fork rake)
> often did have toeclip overlap, especially
> when set up with fenders.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jan, I have ridden many British bikes, dating from the 1890s
> to the
> 1970s, and my friends own quite a few such machines in sizes
> from 19"
> c-t upward. None of these bikes have toe clip overlap with
> fenders. I
> cannot recall ever seeing a British bike from the classic
> era, apart
> from some track bikes (and not even all of those) that did
> not have a
> fairly large fork rake. I am curious to know what British
> bikes, and
> from what eras, you have found to have high-trail geometry.
>
> Christopher Barbour
> Boston, Mass.
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