Originally Posted by
sailorbenjamin
Lately I've picked up a really pretty Trek 612 with a 60.5cm seattube and a 57" top tube. I'm a little more fit now and the bike just looks sooo good just the way it is that I thought I'd give drops an open minded shot before I threw the old Northroads on. That and I live in this armpit town between NY and NJ. Not much to see. It feels pretty good but my hands get sore. I'm thinking the brake levers are in the wrong place and the stem is making me reach too far, thus putting too much weight on the hands while they're in an awkward position on the hoods.
Fortunately, I just picked up an ugly Trek of the same vintage with a short reach stem, 3" instead of 4" and I can monkey with the brake position without wrecking the pretty tape.
I'm probably more of a Sloane style rider than a LeMond style rider so maybe I should look for a taller stem as I can't get the bars any higher than about 2" below seat height. It's 24 degrees out right now. I'm not sure I'm going to go out tonight. A real good night to sit here and think about biking.
Is this the pretty one or the ugly one? Not being disingenuous, since beauty is ever in the eye of the beholder. You'd probably find the bars more comfortable if rotated up about 5 degrees -- try getting the tops level roughly, and the drops angled perpendicular to the head tube, roughly. And move the brake levers down a bit. I really like the Dirt Drop stem by Nitto for getting bars higher and not looking bad in the process. Only disadvantage is that it only comes in one extension, about 80 mm; but that pretty much works for me.
Oh, and here's a decent summary of different ”saddle height“ formulas, including the LeMond:
http://www.bikeradar.com/road/fitnes...t-right-14608/
The comments at the end are interesting, too.