Originally Posted by JRider
... I'm a small guy, about 5 feet 4.5" which would, by all usual accounts, put me on a 49 or 50cm c-t seat tube. right? But i've taken my inseam measuments and my standover is just shy of 28 inches. Yes, from attempting to get into cycling i have discovered that i have freakishly short legs and a long torso.
I read that for 700c wheels, the minumum standover is 30 inches....
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hey JRider. I'm almost exactly the same size and proportions as you and I have 2 road bikes that fit me very well; both are 700c. One is a sloping top tube, and the other is level.
First, standover height is almost meaningless in relationship to how the bike actually rides. If you check out the geometries of some of the best frames (DeRosa, Pinarello, Look, Colnago, etc), I doubt they even list the standover height. What's more important is top tube length, seattube angle/setback, headtube angle/trail. I suggest having someone help you take your body measurements and run them through a good fit system like they have at Wrench Science (the fit system link is on the right side of the page):
http://www.wrenchscience.com/WS1/default.asp
Then use the results and compare them to frame geometries you can find on various manufacturers websites; see which geometries fit your body proportions best. Also consider your preferred riding style. For example, I ride in the drops quite a bit and prefer an aggressive TT (time trial) type position, so I like bikes with steeper seattube angles (74-76 degrees), like the Felts (in a 50 c-t size).
On the question of sloping top tube or level, that also isn't going to make much REAL difference in the way the bike rides. Either way, what matters is the shape of the triangle formed by the saddle+bottom bracket+handlebars. If you prefer the looks of a level top tube better, but you don't like the looks of having a very short seatpost, you still have options. For example, my Bertoni's (level TT) seattube is 49cm (c-t), but the bottom bracket drop (bb's vertical distance from the horizontal plane between the two axles) is only 6.0 cm instead of the more common 7.0 cm. Fits me great and still looks good IMHO.
Anyway, all this to say you've got plenty of options in 700c sizes. Test riding as many as you can before you buy will also give you a good idea of what will work.
Cheers! - RJ