Originally Posted by
Palmer
I'm just a hair over 6' with a 33" inseam. Longish arms. My first "adult" bike (fitted by the bike shop) was a 25" Raleigh. Back then, the only measurement that mattered was the rider's ability to straddle the top tube. If you could do that with a little room to spare, the bike fit.
After I crashed the Raleigh, I bought a 58cm Dawes. I've ridden 58cm ever since. The owner of my LBS thinks that I should ride a 56cm, but he's never actually measured me.
That's the way it was done back in the day. And it's so wrong. And maybe you could ride a 56 that's almost as big as the 58 you're already on, but hey, that's splitting hairs.