They like the lower head tubes. Carbon fiber frames make up so little of the total weight of the bike and rider that the weight difference between two or three frame sizes is negligible. Frame size was a bigger deal when they were made of steel, and handling and stiffness were at least as much an issue as weight.


The stretched out position was the fashion of the period. It started around the early 1970s (it was called the Belgian position) and reached an apogee an the late 1990s or earl 2000s. Torso angles were dropping. By the '80s, crank lengths and bar widths were increasing. And you needed to get the hips behind the bottom bracket to push those big gears over mountain passes. Only the smallest frames had seat tube angles steeper than 73.5 or so. Nobody but some US crit and UK time trial specialists used zero-setback seatposts. Handlebar stems where higher, but mostly because the brake hoods were lower on the handlebar bend. Handlebar bends were deeper. There was no such thing as a short-nose saddle. Saddles and handlebars were designed for a greater variety of positions (and the metallurgical limitations of the day).