[HarlemCracka]

I'm looking for a frame to race at T-Town in PA and have my eye on the Ridley Oval, but teammates are afraid that the front end geometry is not aggressive enough.

Pista Concept 59
Top tube 57.5
Chainstay 383
Wheelbase 973
Head tube 75
Offset 28mm
=trail 65mm
Flop 17

Pista concept 57
Top tube 56
Chainstay 383
Wheelbase 967
Head tube 74.5
Offset 28mm
=trail 69mm
Flop 18

Ridley Oval 58
Top tube 57
Wheelbase 951
Head tube 72.5
Offset 34mm
=trail 75mm
Flop 22

What are your thoughts? Can the Ridley's 6MM of trail make such a big difference even with the shorter wheelbase?

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[Dubbayoo]

Wow. 72.5 HA on a track bike? You sure that isn't just a road fixie? Maybe it'd be okay if you're going to just mass start with it. I would look for something thats 74 at least, but I haven't been to T-town. is it cigar shape or more roundish oval like Indy?

[melville]

Head angle is the least of your concerns. We don't actually turn a track bike so much really. Really. What is this aggressive thing anyway? Your bike trying to pick a fight with you? Trail is the bigger operator. On my own bikes, the 70s Raleigh Pro was 73 parallel as best I could measure. The Davidson I had built to 75 parallel, but with very little fork rake. The Davidson is much more stable than the Raleigh, but I preferred squids to bounce off me when I was racing.

The bigger concern is how did the wheelbase get to be so short with the front wheel kicked out with the shallower head angle? Top tubes are comparable, hard to get chainstays much shorter, so I bet it came out of the seat angle. You may have to run the seat way forward on the rails to get a trackie's position relative to the pedals, and then a mongo stem to get comfortable. Is this some sort of FG road frame?

[ultraman6970]

Harlem... Just in case ok? do u use something like a 56/57 regular steel frame? if thats the case I advice you to go over a 55 in the bianchi concept and like a 53/54 in the ridley (hope this helps u better to decide the size of the ridley). Ridley oval has a really weird geometry. I agree somehow with melville but at the same time I strongly believe ridley made the frame super short to make it stiffer, thats the other reason of the head tube angle. The Bianchi has a little bit more normal geometry.

Untill today im still figuring out why that not so agresive head tube angle anyways, Probably for stability purposes? with a 73 degress headtube in a track the bike will become slow when changing lines for example but the frame is totally short so at this point in my oppinion the short wheelbase will do just the opposite because the bike should move fast also. Sadly i havent tried the ridley and yes that is one of my choices in track frames so far today. I love the koga miyata scandium track frame sadly there is none here in the us and the manufacturer refuse to sell me one directly hehehe :)

Good luck im sure that any of them u chose will be fine.

UM

[bikejack]

Looks like lawyer geometry to me 'though shall not overlap', have you measured up an actual bike and compared it to the catalogue.