Thread: Hot or Not
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Old 08-22-13 | 01:38 PM
  #462  
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Andy_K
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From: Beaverton, OR

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Originally Posted by Germany_chris
get you stem parallel to the rise of the top tube or perhaps buy a bike that fits preferably not sized like t-shirts.
Unfortunately the laws of physics are against us on this one. You can't just go buy an off-the-shelf bike that "fits" in all proportions unless you can use a lot of drop from the seat to the bars. I've spent a lot of time thinking about bike fit, and I think what it comes down to here is body weight distribution. I'd love to have the bars on my road bike set up in a way that gets me "low and aero" but I've got enough of my body weight above the waist that it just doesn't work that way without putting too much weight on my hands (maybe it would if I had about a 65 degree seat tube and could really stick my butt out behind the balance plane). So, like PatrickGSR94, when I buy a road bike that has the right top tube length (i.e. the size that fits for this model), I have to point the stem at the sky to make it comfortable.

You could make a case (and I sometimes do) that bikes should be made with longer head tubes relative to the top tube, but then the skinny guys would have a hard time bending at the waist as much as they need to for a proper fit.

FWIW, I happen to also like the look of an upward sloping stem. Feel free to draw whatever Freudian conclusions you feel are necessary from that.

Here's a pic of my own wünderbike (not used for commuting) which probably goes a long way toward explaining why I like Patrick's so much.

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