General Cycling Discussion - What effect on riding does a longer chainstay/rear triangle have?

I'm in the process of building a new commuter bike, as I don't have the heart to subject my Torelli cross the harsh Latvian winter. After looking at several used frames of rather dodgy province, I found a new aluminium frame with a really long chainstay/rear triangle. It rather looks like the rear triangle of a BMX, rather squat and long, but it was built to accomodate 700s. What effect will this have on the handling of the bike? I don't have many options to buy a decent frame here in Riga, and I'm not going to buy a hot one.

A smoooooooth, stable ride......

Thanks for the reply. How would it effect handiling, say when a big shiny black BMW comes flying at me and I have to jump the curb really quick? With the Terilli it's no problem, I'm worried about being flatened. In other words, what are the cons?

I think that having long chainstays has two purposes:

1. It increases your wheelbase. This makes the bike more stable, but it can't be steered as quickly into tight turns.

2. It makes the bike more comfortable. With very short racing chainstays, the seat tube is more nearly directly above the rear wheel, so the road shock goes straight to your body. But with longer stays, the seat tube is offset more from the rear wheel contact patch, and so a given size of bump on the road produces a correspondingly smaller jolt to your body. (Draw out a picture of a bike and imagine the rear wheel bumping up and down to see this.)

EDIT: I'm sorry that the cars in Latvia drive recklessly around you. That's a harder problem to solve, I guess :-( I had the impression that European drivers were mor courteous to cyclists, but maybe it's not true everywhere.

Thanks. Mabey I'll give this frame a go.

As for drivers and bikes (or anything smaller than said drivers) Latvia is really bad. Westerm Eurpope is a bike paradise, but the Baltic States are a different world. Latvia has the fourth highest per capita death rate in the world by auto accident. The local paper even keeps a running tally. As of this morning (15/11/04) the total for this tiny country (2.5 million) is 416, with two pedestrians killed this weekend.

On the bright side, stores let you take your bike in, and no one has ever thrown a bottle or spit at me!