Originally Posted by
Joe Remi
That's my height and I bought a used 52 (53?) that works well with city bars, but I'd recommend the 48 if you want to stay with drops. Normally the 51cm top-tube on the bigger frame would be great for me with drops, but on this Mini the seat- and head-tubes are angled so that as the stem and seatpost rise from the frame, they grow in distance to one another. This put my shortish arms into too much of a stretch to the drops.
How about if I ride on the hoods the most? I'm just afraid I'll feel to scrunched up with a size 48. I have a 51cm frame OTS that I would say fits me pretty well.
I'm not sure what you mean by the stem and seatpost getting farther apart as they're both raised. There's only a 2 degree difference between the head tube and the seat tube so wouldn't the difference be negligible? Would it change enough to make it fit like a bigger size frame?