nlerner

I'm a bit concerned about standover height with a bike that I found at a garage sale. I really like the color, so I want to make this one work. Should I be concerned? Pic below.

Neal

Charles Wahl

Well, you'll have no trouble if you learn how to do an adroit leg-over dismount whenever you have to stop. With those girlie shoes, and that small chainring, you better not be planning to stop, because the carbon-fibered bullies will be making your life a misery if you do.

pastorbobnlnh 

Neal,

Certainly you can tell, that bike is meant for another era and different location. Just look at the scene; dirt roads, stone walls, pastures, old farm houses, quiet, civil, and helmet-less riding. It is not a city bike!

I'll let you keep that bike here in NH and you can come and ride it whenever you feel the urge. When you do, you must wear your knickers, wool hose, tweed jacket (complete with a flower on your lapel), and of course, the straw hat!

Black Sunshine

You look awfully proud of that fine machine.

nlerner

BTW, that photo is from a cool collection:

https://www.rogerco.pwp.blueyonder.co...w/collect2.htm

Neal

RobbieTunes

Ride what you want.

Simply don't stand over. I try not to, and if I do, I LEAN.

roseskunk

Maybe they weren't knickers until the first time he had to stop.

USAZorro

That lad should be more concerned about what his sister will do when she finds he's taken her shoes and stockings.

steppinthefunk 

I remember when I was about 7 years old we had a bike that was way too big for me. I rode it more than a few times but the only way for me to stop was to just slow down and fall onto the grass.

SingeDebile

haha im looking at a 70cm bob jackson...

JunkYardBike

So you've felt more like this your entire life:

JunkYardBike

Check out the young hipster doing a trackstand for the photographer. Mad skillz!

USAZorro

Is that a mirror image, or would the chain really have been on the left side?

Kommisar89

Kommisar89

It's Sheldon Brown in his youth!

Kommisar89

Somewhere there is a picture of my grandfather dressed like that. The same outfit but in white. He's holding a candle for his first communion. Must have been 1922-ish.

Kommisar89

Actually I think my first Bottecchia fit me like that when I got it. I was 12, maybe 5' 4", and it was a 23". My current Bottecchia is a 23" and I'm 5' 10" now and I can just barely stand over it with no clearance for the boys.

tatfiend 

Not the lad's bike in the OP's photo. The seat is way too high for someone his height unless he has accordion knees.

I have however seen many old photos of what appear to be large frame bikes with the seat tube close to bottomed out, obviously much larger frames than would be ridden by average height people today. After all this was not that long after the high wheeler era and apparently they did not worry about being able to touch the ground while straddling the bike.

Even now the Chinese and Indian roadsters come in two sizes as I recall, large and larger.

cudak888 

I'll wager on an educated guess that it is a mirror image - I've already seen two other photographs from this period treated in the same manner, and at least one was proven to be reversed.

-Kurt

OLDYELLR

Looking at the original picture, I bet that kid could ride that bike, even if he had to put one leg through the frame. Now, that's a bit before my time, but when I was a kid we often learned to ride on full size ladies bikes, or even a man's bike way too big. The concept of "stand over height" was unknown back in the days of that picture, or even in the 1950s. Come to think of it, it's probably irrelevant for today's "modern" bikes and mountain bikes with their funny compact frames and sloping top tubes.

graywolf

That would have been a direct positive print. So the image is reversed just like a negative.

I forget the name of the process but the photo was taken then the print held out in the sunlight until it was the right density, at which point it was fixed. Sort of like a Polaroid only different. Lots of photographers in resort areas used them as the could sell the print before the customer left the studio.

graywolf

Notice how high the bottom bracket is on that old bike, the seat is not as high above the pedals as you may think at first glance. On most of those old bikes the BB was at the same height as the hubs. Remember, few paved roads back then, you would have quite often have to ride through 4-5 inchs of soupy mud, so you needed the pedal ground clearance. The funny thing is that often people think that they did not know what they were doing back then, but usually it is we who do not know why they did it that way.