all seems to contradict my experience. I am just a quarter inch under 6 foot (using Jan Heine's height guage rather than inseam reference) and my first real bike in the late 60's was a Gazelle Tour de Lavenier (sp?) 24" (we did not do it by cm in our area). It took me quite some time to find a seat post long enough to suit my inseam, shown about 7 or 8". Most of my current bikes are about 60-64 cm seat tubes, there are very few that fit a campy (or any other standard production) length seatpost. I generally have to use the current offerings of 300mm in length trimmed down. Shame, i love the campy aero style seatpost (from a design perspective) of the 80's, Rita gets them. My bars are very short stemmed (70-80mm depending on the top tube) and always from 2-3" lower than the saddle. Very uncomfortable weight distribution any higher. Of course most contemporary bikes have more seatpost showing, most are designed with compact or subcompact geometry where the top tube slopes down toward the saddle. And finally, track bikes are generally a bit smaller as the bottom bracket is a bit higher. At least on mine- i can actually use a standard length seatpost on a couple of my larger (64cm) track frames.
Actually, i think that height has less relevance in geometry, but rather the lengths and relationships of torso, inseam and to a lesser extent, arm length (which would have a greater bearing on riding style, ie. me preferring a very bent elbow loose arm). A framebuilder would have far more knowledge than i.
gabriel romeu
chesterfield new jersey usa
Harvey Sachs wrote:
> <div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: -moz-fixed">I pick up
> from where Jan Heine left off, with Howard Darr's comments on bike shop
> sizing in mind. As a middle-age guy with a 30" inseam (and
> substantially larger waist), and no pretense of racing any longer,
> here's what works for me:
>
> 1) Prefer to be able to straddle flat-footed.
> 2) 58 +/1 cm ctc top tube.
> 3) Within that, taller frame means higher handlebars which means greater
> comfort and the actual ability to ride comfortably in the drops. Imagine
> that.
>
> I did 490 mi. of RAGBRAI on my 62 cm Cinelli, which I could barely
> straddle flatfooted. Wonderful, though I have replaced it with a 60 cm.
> Both were close to 57 cm top tube, so they fit. Of course, with the 62 I
> didn't have enough clearance for a Brooks saddle on a Campy post, had to
> use a Cinelli (much lower wire-to-top). My Weigle is a 60x57 or 58 (as
> I recall). And so it goes. I refuse to consider these bikes as
> "supersized" for me: recreational riders who ride undersized frames have
> themselves and their vendors to blame for their discomfort.
>
> And, looking at photos from the 50s and 60s racing scene, I find myself
> agreeing wih Jan. I recall a lot less seat post exposed than the
> contemporary fashion. Oops, I guess now it's fact-based and
> research-driven, and so much for CONI. :-)
>
> harvey sachs
> mcLean va
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>Yeah what was that whole thing of supersized frame sizes? I will say
> >>that we Can Not blame it on Mr Euegene, however long he has been
> >>laid to rest. I recall the supersized frame sizing issue going way
> >>back to very very very early 70s, and perhaps even 1960s, well
> >>before the Sloane tome. My first higher end bike was fitted to me at
> >>59cm with my inseam only 32inches!!
>
> Jan Heine wrote:
> "Supersized" bike frames were a common thing in Europe from the
> mid-1930s until at least the early 1960s. It was the norm, not some
> odd-ball American thing. The formula Sloane reported probably came
> from some European reference. True, Americans tended to be taller,
> hence required bigger frames for the same sizing parameters. I doubt
> Cinelli sold many 65 cm frames in Italy.
>
> Even so, Fausto Coppi, who was about 6' tall, rode a bike measuring
> 59 cm (center-to-center). His handlebars were a couple of inches
> below the saddle. Fiorenzo Magni rode a 58.5 cm frame... so he was no
> midget, either. Only Bartali, on a 55, was a relatively short guy.
>
> On the track, the pros rode smaller frames with lower handlebars. It
> is interesting to compare the geometries of the three 1950s bikes of
> a French racer, shown in "The Competition Bicycle." The track bike is
> a full centimeter smaller than the road bike. It has a 5 mm longer
> top tube and a 30 mm longer stem. Talk about stretched-out on the
> track bike, and comfortable on the road bike.
>
> By the time you get to Merckx, you have more modern sizing. I believe
> Merckx was a bit taller than Coppi, yet his bike was 5 mm smaller,
> and 10 mm shorter. (Coppi probably had long arms, but this also shows
> how a low handlebar position requires a shorter stem/top tube,
> because the head tube is inclined.)
>
> Jan Heine
>
>
> </div>
>
--
G L Romeu
ø http://studiofurniture.com
ø http://lessplusmore.com
ø http://journalphoto.org