Originally Posted by
Camilo
My standard for aesthetics for a horizontal top tube bike is about "a fist" of seat tube.
"Standover" is a stupid criterion, mostly (imo) brought to road bikes by the mountain bike crowd. As is the aesthetic of long seat tubes.
Standover is fine if you can stop the bike, lean it over to put a foot on the ground and have some clearance when you keep the opposite foot on the pedal. You have absolutely no need to straddle the bike with both feet down and the bike straight upright.
Both of my horizontal (or nearly horizontal) top tube bikes have about a "fist" of seat tube showing, and I have about an inch (at the max) of clearance over the top tube, flat footed, bike vertical - wearing my bike shorts and bike shoes. When I actually stop the bike, lean over and put a foot down, I have several inches of clearance.
Then saddle-bar drop.... what a mess. The old standard, for almost all riders, even racers, was handlebars at about saddle height, maybe 1-3 inches below (say 0-7 cm of drop). Comfort was achieved riding on the tops or hoods, and "aero" was achieved by using bent elbows and/or normal/deep drops. The body was able to get into the same position of horizontal back as with undersized frames. The above frame sizing benchmarks also achieved a head tube that was high enough to get the bars up within that high/low range.
Nowadays, frames are smallish, headtubes are correspondingly smallish, stems are longish, and handlebars are shallow because the position on the tops is so low that hardly anyone can use deeper drops. But the body doesn't get any lower - a body can only flex so much at the hips regardless of whether you achieve it with low drops and bent elbows or shallow drops and less bent elbows. Higher handlebars with deeper drops gives you a substantially greater range for comfort as well as race position - assuming you understand that elbows bend.
Bike fit and aesthetics for the recreational rider is nuts nowadays. THEY'RE NOT MOUNTAIN BIKES FOLKS!! YOU'RE NOT AN EURO-PRO RACER!!
I agree with many of your points. Also top tube length is paramount. Seat tube is not quite as relevant as top tube. Head tube is not really relevant with a quill stem since there is so much room for adjustment. With an aheadset the head tube becomes pretty important too.
But if you look at ye olde racers like eddy mercx, I just cringe because of their positions. The hip pointing straight upwards, flexing the whole back when in the drops and just over stretching the spine quite unnaturally. There is a number of reasons for that, like bad saddle design etc. Modern racers have much healthier positions. Back straighter and hip angle opened up. All in all modern bike ergonomics is way better than it used to be.
And why pray can one not strive for a sporty aero powerful riding position? Speed is power but most of all speed is aerodynamics. If you ride like mary poppins it's good bye to speed. A horizontal back will make one really fast. Assuming of course you can handle such a low position. Stretching stretching stretchin. And a saddle with a canal.