Quote Originally Posted by Trek420
beyooteeful. Now, what size (cm) is Ruby? I'd best get going finding you a rental for your visit.
Hmmmm. I should know from metric. Let's see ... 1" = 2.54cm so 20" = 58cm. But you could just go with 20", which is the number Ruby has on her frame.

Last time I test rode, the lbs guy who was serving us suggested putting a 75mm 17degree stem on her (_that_ they do in metric!), but the guy helping me today was skeptical. He thought that a stem that short and steep might make her steering twitchy. He let me try an 80mm tho, also shorter and with a steeper angle than the nearly level 10mm she came with as standard. The 80mm fit me ok and the steering was still fine. I found I had two hand-and-back positions to switch between -- down on the heels of my palms for less wind resistance or tighter control, up on the balls of the palms to stretch my back. Felt good either way, but also felt good to switch. I was ok on the 10mm too, but tended to go up onto my fingertips for a "posture break", which is probably not good in a situation when control is suddenly an issue.

Buuuut ... before you rent anything, I need to hear back from the movers about box sizing and a cost estimate with and without the bike. If it's cheaper and/or more doable to simply take her as checked luggage, she may be with me the whole trip. In fact, maybe I just sit on her, click my heels together and say "I want to go home".