Bike envy - breathe deep!

[smurfalicious]

Ha ha! All of you should count your blessings you aren't in the bike industry! Every day is bike/clothing/component lust inducing for me. I love my little boy Blue with all my heart but every time I see a BMC I just get so piney. If I had my druthers I'd have a:

-TT Bike
-Dirt jumper
-Hard tail MTB
-Fully MTB
-BMX bike
-Touring bike
-City path/commuter
-Cross bike

And that is of course, factoring in El Tiburon the soon to be crit-tastic wonder boy.

[Triskeliongirl]

Zan, my cycling inseam is 30.5, but the real measurement you need is that of your femur. If your femur is proportionally long, you need a slack seat tube angle to achieve even neutral cops. STAs don't effect handling in isolation. Its true that on some bikes with slack STAs the handling is sluggish, but that's only if the rear seat stay is extended in order to fit a 700c wheel on a bike with a slack STA.

My thinking was like yours when I bought my isis, the STA on the 17.5" was just at my limit (73), but she made the STA on the newer 19" 74 and I couldn't get set up on it. I also *thought* at the time I needed the shorter top tube, but then I learned that you also gain stability from a longer front-center, so for me the 48cm cervelo has the 73 STA, a longer top tube (51.5) but with the longer front to center its more stable, and I got set up fine with a shorter reach stem and bar (9 cm stem and a 3Tergonova team bar w7.7cm reach). BUT, I am taller than you, 5 ft 4.5".

What I have learned is that you can't consider any one paramater in isolation. Indeed your Madeleine is optimized for touring, which is what you want to do, and it sounds like it fits you well (I also have a jacked up seat and bars on my isis), so you should feel very lucky.

But Deb is right. For gals like us, custom is probably the best option, especially for a touring bike. I just happened to luck out on my cervelo, which is what I wanted, a carbon go fast bike.

But getting back to the original topic. I don't get bike lust much when I am happy with my ride. But when I know something is wrong, like after losing weight I was still getting dropped on my titanium isis on group rides, so that is when I started looking at what everyone else is riding. ANd for me the cervelo did make a difference. But GLC is FAST on her titanium isis, I think cuz it fits her better than me.