Originally Posted by
Velognome
nope...have no ide-r what your talkin' 'bout
Come on, spill it!
Originally Posted by
zukahn1
I notice that on the succesfull bike you used a road touring stem and on the not so much one a cheaper riser stemm. My guess is if you changed the stem on the first bike to a road touring stem to match you bar choice it's ride should imrpove greatly. Mismatched stem and bars often tend to result in bad riding. When building up its best if the type of stem and bars are a good match also I personaly avoid quill riser stems on builds unless they are orginal to the bike.
As for no riders just didn't quit work I had one recently also a Lotus. Great wheels decent components everything set up right and it looked assume yet it just didn't perform when it came to ride. It was bad enough that rather than sell it I donated it back to the bike coop from where it came. Strange thing is the person who got it thinks its just great and it is still rolling around in my hood.
Look at the chainstays on that beast! The geometry is actually pretty similar to my Lotus, I wonder how it would have worked with the cruiser bars? Your Lotus also reminds me of an oddball Peugeot touring bike that I had - it had slack angles and lots of wheel flop that never felt quite right, but it wasn't horrible.