A couple of days ago or so some of us were having a spirited discussion about head tube length, current trends in that area, the importance of it all, etc. We never agreed on some things, but I have kept thinking about it. I realized yesterday that we weren't taking the type of headset, integrated or non-integrated, into account in our claims of head tube lengths on certain bikes. Not that it would have made any difference to our disagreement, but it is still an important consideration in understanding the contribution the head tube will make on total stack in the finished bicycle.

So I was talking about the big difference between my 1990 54 cm Romic steel frame with a level top tube and a 12 cm head tube and my (recently sold) medium (~54 cm) Giant CF frame that had a sloping top tube and 15 cm head tube. Wow, a 3 cm difference. That sounds like a lot. But the Romic has a non-integrated headset while the Giant had an integrated headset. As best I could I just remeasured the Romic including the pressed in lower cup and upper race as well as the two bearing cartridges and found the total length to be APPROXIMATELY 13.5 cm. So while the modern Giant frame does (not to mention many others) still have about 1.5 cm more head tube than the vintage Romic, the difference isn't as great as I had thought.

When judging the fit and suitability of a new frame, be sure to compare apples to apples. If you are thinking in terms of integrated headsets, you need to add about 1.5 cm to the length of a traditional head tube (for non-integrated head set) if you want to compare the two types.