Originally Posted by
MassiveD
Problem with SOH is that I spend far less than one percent of my time standing over the bike. So I mostly just care about how it fits and handles for me. My wife is of the old school were she pushes off and swings over the saddle, she spends pretty much zero time standing over. i never liked doing that after I got traps on the pedal. Do people still do that with bindings? What I do agree with is that real numbers are more useful to me that "sizes". In many cases the numbers the bike is sold with do not exist on the bike itself. The bikes are what they are. Stuff in a catalog is marketing. If they think people want a certain wheel base number, they give it to them, knowing everyone else is playing the same game.
Agree completely; But for the scenario posed of sorting out a few bikes that are close enough to look at further, the SOH is what I would like to see (but rarely do).
Oh and in complete agreement...argh, just get me started on the sm, med, lg, xlg crap.
A while back I got wired on the issue so I traveled to and measured a half dozen bikes on the then current craigs list (circa fall 2010). The actual SOH measurement for the bikes (all with level top tubes), all listed as XL, varied from 30" to 36"... Two of the sellers admitted that they had listed there wares as XL based only on their own eyeball judgement of the bike they found next to a dumpster and scarfed up to flip them on C/L. Since both sellers were 5'7" tall at most, I had to guess that the "21 inch bikes" looked "huge to them" and thus they must be "size=XL..." What a way to waste a day! Not to say that I didn't take the one bike for $50, pulled its full Campy group off, replaced it with adequate misc Shimano parts from the bin, and sold it for $60 to a cousin needing a commuter bike.