Road Cycling - What's your geometry?

Your current road bike: What is it???

Traditionall all the way and only lugged steel too baby.

Originally posted by pokey
Traditionall all the way and only lugged steel too baby.

I'm with you.

Just another lemming with a traditional steel lugged frame.

Traditional, love the compact design and idea, but hard to find a nice compact frame to fit somebody 6'4" tall.

Welded aluminum traditional, with a lugged-steel traditional frame sitting in a box, waiting to devour money I don't have. So I'm a "lemming wannabe." :)

Traditional shape with lugged steel construction - way of the future!:D

I'm lucky enough to have two bikes, both have horizontal top tubes:

#1, Steel frame, brazed but without lugs. Its the remainder (only the frame) of a 1980's Peuguot 10 speed. Extensively rebuilt, repainted, and a great bike.

#2, Dawes Giro 400, Aluminium welded frame, Cr/Mo steel fork. Upgraded wheels with Velocity deep section rims on Hope TiGlide hubs (found at a bargain basement price at the bike shop!). Also a really great bike.

My favourite? I don't have a favourite, they both have characteristics that I love :)

I have 2 trad lugged steel touring style bikes, one has beautiful cut out lugs.
Id really love a modern compact frame in a lightweight material, just for fun, but then Id love an ultra-light xc mountain bike and a high performance folding bike.

same as MichaelW

Traditional steel road bike. Looks right to me.

My 'cross bike is compact, though, I have nothing particularly against compact frames. It's just aesthetics, after all...

Horizontal top tube, sport touring geometry. Longish wheelbase as evidenced by ~3/4" between rear wheel and seat tube, 73 degree seat and head tube angles.

2x traditional horz top tube lightweight steel road race both lugged

I just don't think you can beat a traditional lugged steel frame especially from an aesthetic point of view. Sorry I'm an old stick in the mud who doesn't change just for the sake of it.!

Traditional, steel and I tend to like more and more Italian frames.
Look at these sexy babes,

http://www.zarintl.com/images/DeBernardi/DeBernardi_Zona_F.jpg

http://www.zarintl.com/images/DeBernardi/DeBernardi_Thron_F.jpg

I want one soon..

I have a traditional road bike (Fuji Roubaix) and a compact roadbike with a flat handle bar (Specialize Sirrus).

It doesn't make a differece for me. Is one better than the other? Why? :confused:

Originally posted by green lion
Traditional, steel and I tend to like more and more Italian frames.
Look at these sexy babes,

http://www.zarintl.com/images/DeBernardi/DeBernardi_Zona_F.jpg

http://www.zarintl.com/images/DeBernardi/DeBernardi_Thron_F.jpg

I want one soon..

Hey! I've got one of those. There are better...but DeBernardi's aren't bad. I've got aluminum, though.

Originally posted by velo


Hey! I've got one of those. There are better...but DeBernardi's aren't bad. I've got aluminum, though.

Velo, you have the Zonal don't you? I think the Thron is steel only.
The reviews on these bikes (at least the ones I've seen) are superb.

Originally posted by green lion
Velo, you have the Zonal don't you?

Yup.

Compact works fine for me - Specialized Sirrus Pro.

I have a compact frame on my hybrid and also my road bike. Since each is a "first" bike, I'm not real sure I really know the difference. I tested several traditional frames and didn't really perceive a difference.

Maybe I need longer test drives. Next time, if there is a major difference, I suppose I'll notice it more since I have a few good miles on the compacts now.

Both my bikes are the traditional horizontal top tube type.
2001 Litespeed Tuscany (titanium for those who don't know :) )
1999 Raleigh R600 (welded aluminum)

I've looked at the compact frame bikes but don't know if the little woman will allow buying one. Maybe I'll have to sell the Raleigh. :(

I noticed a lot of them in the TdF and Vuelta. Is this the wave of the future?

traditional, the compact frame looks too much like a mtb for me :p

I like the traditional design. One of my bikes is a 63-cm frame (24.5") and the other is a 25" frame (63.5 cm). Both are touring bikes.

I'd love to get slightly higher frames (65-66 cm would be best) so I would not need to have 100 mm of seatpost showing.

Another nice variant would be a 5-10° inclined top tube, but still in the traditional design. In other words, a 63-64 cm frame, with an inclined top tube, but with an effective length of 59 cm as I have now. That way, the stem would not be raised by 100-120 mm.

Regards,

Would not want anything else than a traditional frame style road bike .

Mine is Carbon tubing tho`. I`ve broke with tradition in that respect .

Traditional AL
Also have an '86 Trek 760 lugged steel frame. Ride like a Caddie

Got 3 bikes but I still responded traditional as only one of them has a triangle-type frame.

I was thinking you were going to ask about the seat tube angle, and I forgot how steep it actually is, if not mistaken about 75 deg, pretty steep, very triathlon like for a bike which served as a touring and randonneuring bike.
http://www.re-cycle.nl/NieuwsRecycle.htm
Scroll down the page until you see a bicycle and you will see how the bike looks like, I am using a butterfly bar because of RSI. When it came it was outfitted with drop bars.

My work bike is a Brompton folding bike.. for the rare species who doesn't know what it is:
http://www.bromptonbike.com/

It's the world's smallest folding bike and yet has very fine riding qualities, that is, when you stick to paved roads and not too steep hills. While you can fit 5 gears, it is downright scary to go downhill with a bike with such a riding position.

My latest bike is a Y-frame bike, a folding bike as well. Very sexy if I may say so. I have the grey one.
http://www.airnimal.com/airnimal.html

Cheers

Ivana (do these count as compact frames?)

nice bike, interesting steerer tube extension,iv'e not seen that before. The bike in the picture seems to have shimano sora sti levers yet the picture above shows what looks to be a downtube gear lever under the headset? :confused:

Originally posted by earleybird
nice bike, interesting steerer tube extension,iv'e not seen that before. The bike in the picture seems to have shimano sora sti levers yet the picture above shows what looks to be a downtube gear lever under the headset? :confused:
When you're talking to me earleybird, you're mistaken. My bike doesn't have the bars on the pic. Specs are according to your own wishes. Actually I just bought the frame directly from the company and had a bike mechanic spec the bicycle , among others with a butterfly bar, a Tubus rear rack, and a road triple...

Fietser

How does the airnimal ride. Im really tempted to get one for travelling by rail, since the train company is cutting back on bike capacity.
Can you carry much in the way of lugage? Is it robust enough to use as a daily commuter bike?

Originally posted by MichaelW
How does the airnimal ride. Im really tempted to get one for travelling by rail, since the train company is cutting back on bike capacity.
Can you carry much in the way of lugage? Is it robust enough to use as a daily commuter bike?
I would not recommend the bicycle for commuting by train. It is probably a bit too much work to fold it for daily commutes. You can very easily fold the Y-part, but then the saddle is in the way and you need to remove the seat and seat post . To make it fold downwards, it's not practical to have a rear rack as I have now. If you want to fold it often, a Brompton folder is the way to go, unless you are way too tall for it. The Brompton I find unsuitable for long rides.. I start to suffer after a continuous ride of over 15 K, but up to 10K it's a great little bike.

The Airnimal will be my racing bike. And since I don't own a car I will need to travel by train to all events a bit further away that 35K (my upper limit for commuting to a bike ride). Only then it is worthwhile to go through the trouble of taking away the rack in order to fold/unfold the bike. It's a pain too to find the optimal saddle height again.
Instead of a rear rack, I could have gone for a seatpost rack but I want to be able to tour with the bike as well and the current rear rack will easily carry two heavily loaded panniers. Next week I will go to the World's in Zolder and camp in the campground over there.. the panniers needed will easily fit on the bike.
But normally I will just carry a rack pack and a bar bag and complete brevets and other fast longish rides with them..
So, there you are. Three bikes with 3 different uses. My touring bike is going to break apart I'm predicted (small bulge in downtube) but is/was excellent for heavy duty touring (camping most days, being on the road for more than 2 weeks).

Fietser

Speaking about geometry... how can one know by just looking at a bare frame, if it is traditional or compact? I would think this frame is standard, but after looking at the Viner web site, I'm not so sure.

http://www.gvhbikes.com/53%20Viner%20Nemo/New%20Folder/9-2-02/53%20Viner%20Nemo.jpg

http://www.viner.it/english/index.htm

as you can see their bikes are mostly compact

In a compact frame the top tubes makes a 90 degree angle with the seat tube (and roughly the same with the head tube), this minimises length of the top tube.

Originally posted by MichaelW
In a compact frame the top tubes makes a 90 degree angle with the seat tube (and roughly the same with the head tube), this minimises length of the top tube.

thanks Michael.