Originally Posted by
raria
Correct. I was interested in geomtry. I've read of people here who choose (or don't) bikes based soley on geometry and I can't for the life of me understand how you could know that a bike with x degree head tube angle and y degree rake (for instance) is what you absoltely need.
Short of ride experience, it is possible to make an educated guess about what changes to certain specs will do based solely on the geometry which you do have experience with. You already know the terms-- e.g. head angle, rake-- so it's just a matter of learning what changes to those parameters does to handling.
So for example, if you're current bike has a 72º HT angle and you find it a bit unresponsive to turning inputs, you could decide you want a quicker handling bike and say, "my ideal bike would have at least a 73º HT," and, in fact, I think a lot of people do just that.