Originally Posted by
phughes
What years did they make the 64? I didn't see it in my 2011 catalog, or others I looked at. It is good they are making it again in the new Disc Trucker.
The 64cm LHT was made when I bought mine but I can't remember when that was exactly. 2014 - 2015 maybe?
I am aware for the way the LHT fits. It is though, the way old school bikes used for touring fit. As I said, as long as you like the fit on your bike, that is all that matters. I simply take issue with why Surly designed the new Disc Trucker as they did, their reason is they saw a lot of people with ridiculously high spacer stacks. I will repeat that had they wanted their bars that high, they should have bought a larger frame. You can go round and round on this, but you can run a shorter stem without causing issues, and you don't have to go to a 50-70cm stem to get the fit right if you can run the stock stem on the smaller frame. The long top tube was because many tourers like to be a bit stretched out.
They saw people riding high spacer stacks because the frames were too long and too short. You can't go to a larger size if you're already pushing your reach limit. In size 62 going under 90mm stem with a drop bar starts making handling twitchy. 70mm was already pretty bad. You can add more than 2cm to the effective handlebar reach when you size up if you keep the same handlebar stack. So if you're using a 90mm stem with a 62, you'd then use a 70mm stem with a 64. That's not great.
The design principles in the old LHT/DT were not optimal because getting more handlebar reach is typically always easier than getting less. If you're already using a 140mm stem but need more reach, 150mm stems are available. And that just makes the bike more stable. If you use a porteur type bar you can get something like a Surly Moloko or Open bar, both of which add significant reach. Or if you use a drop bar you can get a long reach drop bar. The differences between a short reach drop bar and long reach drop bar can be centimeters plural. Also there's typically very little chance of making a bike too front heavy. You'd need to have a reverse setback seatpost to achieve that and if that is required, then something is way off. On the other hand a too rear heavy bike is quite achievable with lots of setback and too short a stem. Doesn't do wonders for handling I can tell you.
You can only go so short before handling and weight distribution take a nose dive. Also I suspect that a too short a stem can be a contributor in speed wobbles.
Once again, it is simply my preference, and the preference of many, to have the old style frame. That takes nothing away from the new Disc Trucker, it is a nice frame, and was well thought out. I just prefer the old style. They traded the alleged ridiculously high stack of stem spacers for a ridiculously high seat post.
If you look at touring bikes from the 70s and 80s, or rather, bikes used for touring, you will see very little seat post showing, some seats almost down to the top tube. That is what people ran back then, and the way the LHT was designed. Somewhere around here I have old pictures of Ragbrai from the 80s, and that is what you see, very little seat post showing.
I am just sad that there is one less old style frame available for touring, one that worked well, at a great price.
Preferences are preferences but you're going in looks first and not really considering the functionality.
A high spacer stack is not optimal even with the sturdy steel steerer tubes Surly uses. It adds flex to the front end of the bike and that can cause issues in either headset wear or unsteady handling. Better to have as little spacers under the stem as possible as long as there's at least one (but that's a headset bearing thing). So lengthening the head tube while simultaneously shortening the frames to account for the spacer stack effective reach effect serves a definite purpose.
On the other hand very little seat post showing or a horizontal top tube serve no functional purpose.
Seat post flex is something you actually want because it adds to the ride quality. You won't have that if you have less than a fistful showing. However if you have more than two fistfuls showing and perhaps even have a post made with flexing in mind (basal post for example), you can greatly increase ride quality. Frame flex is something you don't want because even with a horizontal top tube the frame does not flex vertically practically at all. However the frame does flex in the horizontal plane both from side to side and in a twisting motion. In a touring frame you'll generally want to minimize that flexing, because it can cause wobbles and unsteady steering when heavily loaded. One way to do that is to shorten the tubes. Shorter tube = less flex. You can easily shorten the frame tubes by incorporating a sloped top tube. In this way you don't need to use the other stiffening measure, ie. adding more wall thickness and larger diameter tubes.
So as an end result you get the seatpost ride quality effect and a lighter, stiffer, more durable frame with the single downside of the frame doesn't look as good to some. Oh, and the frame is more forgiving if you come to a sudden stop and slide off the saddle.