Yes. Lots of our bicycles are built up from frame and parts, so there's no chance to try them before we buy them.


Back in 2003, I had a Marinoni Ciclo custom built for me because I wasn't entirely happy with the fit of the Giant OCR3 I had, and I needed a bicycle that fit me well for 1200K randonnees. There was no way I could have tried that bicycle before I bought it because it wasn't built yet. Nevertheless it was a very good fit and I had many wonderful years of riding.

I also had the sense to measure it and my Giant.

In 2010, my Marinoni Ciclo was stolen. I was just about to do a 300K, so I needed another bicycle, and my Giant was back in Canada. Rowan modified my GT mountain bike, set it up as close to the measurements as possible ... and I rode the 300K. I had all of about 5 minutes on a trainer a couple days before the event to make some fit adjustments, and about 5 minutes riding around the motel parking lot to ensure gears, brakes, etc. were satisfactory.

Then, of course we had to find me a new long distance bicycle. I have always wanted titanium, so we found HASA frames from a shop in Melbourne, and got one that was really close to my Marinoni Ciclo's measurements. Rowan built that bicycle up for me, and it has turned out to be quite a good climbing bicycle.

We did do a short test ride on our tandem before we bought it, but we had been riding a borrowed tandem for about 8 or 10 months before we bought it so we had a pretty good idea what we wanted. And again, we pulled out the measurement spreadsheet to check that my area was within the ballpark.

Next up, we wanted to travel the world for 8 months and needed touring bicycles. So after browsing through several options online, Rowan ordered Thorn frames, based on the measurement spreadsheet, of course. When I got my Marinoni Ciclo, Thorn had come up as "runner up", so it was nice to go that route this time. The frames were delivered ... and Rowan built them up.

Toward the end of the trip we had been talking about getting folding bicycles for subsequent trips, and so we stopped in at Bike Friday and did a test ride on a pair of their bicycles ... and were quite pleased with them.

When we returned from that trip ... happily ... my Marinoni Ciclo was recovered.

So ... about a year later, we started the process of ordering Bike Fridays. Out came the measurement spreadsheet again, and I double checked the measurements of my Marinoni Ciclo, as well as adding in those of my HASA and Thorn. We also added some measurement columns as suggested by Bike Friday. Rowan did up a spreadsheet of measurements of his own bicycles. And our Bike Fridays were order from those measurements.

There have been several other bicycles in the mix as well ... frames we've picked up at tip shops which Rowan has built up, etc..

In my collection, there aren't many bicycles I actually test rode before I bought them.


And this is a thread where I talk about the measurement spreadsheet
http://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...surements.html