Originally Posted by
urbanknight
I believe those bikes have different geometry as well, and trail is probably a key factor in the handling of the bike. But the more I read these responses, the more I realize that I was indeed (as someone here put it) only thinking of drop bar road bikes and not one of the many other types of bikes, some of which are designed to have shorter stems.
Post 82, just above your post, shows a stayer bike - drop bars, fork turned around to ensure that the bike can get maximum draft from a motorcycle. Motorpacing is fast. It's obvious from a glance at that bike that trail was not a "key factor" in its design.
The bikes used for artistic cycling violate all the rules that people in this thread have put forth. In fact, over many years of attempts to design an unrideable bike, the only version that seems to qualify is one where the wheel and handle bar move in opposite directions. Do a search for "unrideable bicycle," and you'll see a bike with sprockets between the handlebar and the headset to accomplish that.
Bicycles are astonishingly forgiving of variations in stem length, fork geometry, handlebar configuration, etc. If nothing else, people can learn from this thread that some of their fundamental beliefs concerning bike design were mistaken.