Originally Posted by gattm99
Compact geometry comes from Mountain bikes. On a mountain bike its generally a positive thing to have as much standover as possible. Since mountain bikes were very cool in the 90s some guy said, "Hey lets make road bikes look more like mountainbikes, if we do this we can use less metal, make less sizes, and have stiffer and lighter bikes."
While originally, the compact geometry was created to increase standover in the presence of a higher BB, it wasn't until the mid-90s when MTBs started getting longer travel front suspension and even higher BB heights that sloping designs started becoming more and more extreme and necessary. Up until the early to mid-90s, there were still plenty of horizontal top-tube MTBs being made. Take a look at say a 1990 Trek 8000 for instance. BTW, sloping the top-tube isn't the only way to create a compact frame or to increase standover.
