Originally Posted by corrado33

Hm, now I'm even more confused... I went to the only bike shop in town that actually stocks Surlys and I rode a 58 cross check (only size they had in stock.) It was certainly too big, but was it two sizes too big? I'm not sure. I wasn't bent over too far, heck I was bent over less than on my Motobecane, even though the bike had a massive stem on it. (Must have been at least a 120-130mm stem.)

They offered to order me a 56 to see if it's the right size, but I have absolutely no intention of buying the bike from them, so I can't ask them to do that. They also couldn't really identify the size of the frame very well. He first told me it was a 56, then 58, and at one point a 60cm! I don't think it was a 60cm as the standover height would be larger than my inseam, and I could stand over this bike just fine. I could even lift the wheels a few cm off of the ground simultaneously. The bike didn't feel "un-ride-ably" large, however there were a few quirks when I was riding it. One was that when I was out of the saddle the bike was very unstable. Much less stable than my 56cm Motobecane. The saddle was probably 1 cm too high for me, but it was still a good 12cm out of the seat tube. (By no means slammed.)

I'm just thrown off because the bike didn't SEEM large. It seemed... only slightly too big.