Thread: Vintage steel rigid for a very short rider (road & gravel touring)?
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Old 07-31-24 | 09:54 PM
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Originally Posted by abdon
Not necessarily so. Many of the early ones had an overall geometry similar to a touring bike. Looking at the 1984 Trek catalog I see the 830 and 850 had a 21.26" seat tube, 22.83" top tube. that's about inch and a half which makes it a comfy frame, and reach can be easily addressed with a suitable stem. If you look at the catalogs a lot of the early one shipped with rather long stems.

'm sure there were some as you describe them but there were plenty with numbers similar to these.
No, they did not. Even the earliest mountain bikes were sized and sold 3” to 4” smaller than a road frame. For example, I bought a new Miyata 610 in 1983 and a new Miyata Ridge Runner in 1984. I bought a 23” (58cm) 610 and a 19.5” Ridge Runner. Here’s a comparison of the two frames from 1984. The letter C is for the top tube length. The 19.5” mountain bike bike better matches the 23” touring bike.



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