Bike Buying Frustration

[dex]

BTW - I did a bike fit this afternoon for someone, I determined that she needed less reach. Out of curiosity we put her numbers into the wrench science to see what it came up with and it predicted her reach almost exactly at what I thought it should be based on my observations of her on her bike. So I would again encourage you to put your numbers into wrench science, it will at least allow you to narrow down your search.

Just out of curiosity, I went and plugged my numbers into the Wrench Science tool. It told me the two things I already suspected:

1. Wider bars wouldn't hurt--44cm vs. the 42cm I have now.
2. My saddle could stand being raised a couple of centimeters.

Otherwise, the numbers matched up with my bike almost spot on. Very cool. I've never actually had a bike fit, but then again, I've never had many complaints about the way my bike fits--other than the small hand issue that I solved by replacing the brifters--so it was neat to see that I got so close despite my ignorance when bike shopping. Heh.

[Wahine]

The reach tells us that your cockpit length should be 60.83 cm. Assume a saddle in mid position on the rails, adjust a bit for seat tube angle as needed but basically, you're looking for something with an effective top tube length plus stem length of 60 ish cm that is still the right height for you.

Eg 48 cm Specialized Ruby: Effective TT length = 506, comes with a 75mm stem, these 2 together = 58.1 cm. The seat tube angle is almost 76 degrees so your cockpit length is going to be a bit more than that because of the seat tube angle which is almost 76 deg. Are you going to gain a full 2.7 cm because of the top tube length, I'm not sure. But if you didn't then you could always put a longer stem on it if you felt crowded on the bike. Stand over = 718.

49 cm Orbea Diva: ETT = 510, comes with a stem but I'll be darned if I can find the length. So let's assume it's at least 9 cm. That makes it 60 cm but the frame has a 74 deg seat tube angle so you're going to gain more length as the seat comes up, so now we're getting closer to the right amount of reach. Standover not given.

47 cm Trek Madone WSD: ETT = 494 plus a stem the length is again not specified so you could go anywhere from a 75 to a 90 or even a 110 to make it work. Standover = 69.2 cm.

I hopes that helps you get a feel for what you're looking for. It is helpful to look at standover height, but you didn't give that so I'm not sure what to say about that. But based on what I've looked at so far, you should really go try out the Orbea at Bike Barn, it might work really well for you and if you didn't like it, it would give you an idea of what else to look for.

I hope that helps and doesn't just confuse you more.

[kelownagirl]

I love you Wahine.