Originally Posted by
terrya
You're definitely taller than 6 foot! by the way...very nice bikes! I'm an old school kinda guy, and you've just made me realize why I miss my Miyata!
For some reason, my Specialized Allez 58cm fits larger than the 63cm Miyata I had. With a 120mm stem (had that on my miyata), the Allez was just too long regardless how far I pushed the seat forward.
I used to be 6'1" but just checked at the annual health screening and, yup, now I'm right at 6'0". Thankfully all the shrinkage is in my torso, so my bikes still fit with taller shorter stems.
I definitely follow the bike fit school of thought that you should start by putting saddle in the best place relative to the BB and pedals, then put the bar and brake levers in the preferred location relative to the saddle. In my experience, the best saddle location doesn't change much with fitness, flexibility or desired type of riding (except for time trial extremes), but the bar and brake locations do change with those factors.
What are the TT lengths and ST angles on the Allez and Miyata? I have access to old Miyata catalogs if you need information on them. FWIW, big Miyatas tended to have shorter TT's, and the racier models (710 and up) had 74 deg ST's.