Originally Posted by
cyclezen
You're not giving much info about yourself, cycling & bike equipment experience and intent/desire.
without that, the current suggestions pretty much cover the options.
go by manufacturer recommendations
talk to a local bike shop
do something else...
if you'd like more thoughts & conversation here, which actually might help - type in some info about yourself, cycling & bike equipment experience and intent/desire.
The more you give, the more you get...
Ride On
Yuri
Actually this is very helpful and one of these don't know what you don't knows. Perhaps I'm a silly sausage but hey ho. Live and learn?
So I usually go on 1-3 hour cycles. I've ridden steel bikes for a while now that in all honesty have probably been a bit big for me. I've never really had any back pain upper or lower. I'm pretty flexible and can fairly easily touch my palms on the ground in the morning when I get up. Point being I don't mind an aggressive position for periods of about 30 mins or so. Where I live is basically up hill all the time for some reason. Yes there are down hills of course but as you know 10 mins to climb is 1 min back down. I'm maybe a bit shorter leg and longer body. My current frame is 58 and I'm constantly pushing forward rather than down. Went for a preliminary fit and was told that they could see right away that my frame is too big from the saddle being so far forward and so steep and angle, the stem being 80m, the bars being short reach and angled up. I'm actually not too uncomfortable on that bike all things said. But as I do more cycling and want to progress my speed and endurance while maintaining a steel vintage I'm looking for a frame that fits me a bit more. Given my in seam is 800mm 55cm frame seems to be what I'm getting out of that.
From what I'm hearing here and elsewhere my stem and bars may need to increase in length but I'm also throwing into the mix now that I'm wanting SRAM double taps similar which again have more reach than your old school bar brake.
I reckon I can get away with swapping stems and bars a bit to make my ride more comfortable over longer distances and increase performance. My seat post will be more exposed but I don't mind that. It's a beautiful seat post so why not show it off a bit.
Hopefully this info is helpful to my riding style, what I'm currently doing and hoping to achieve. I realise that this is all probably pointing towards dropping 150gbp on a fit but in a world where that wasn't possible... Would you recommend sticking with my current frame or getting a smaller frame (55cm) ...