Originally Posted by
Duragrouch
With the small wheels on a Tikit, I would bet a bit more wheelbase is helpful in bringing it closer to typical handling.
john m flores has noted significant differences in handling between his (very similar appearing) Bike Fridays and his Zizzo Liberte(?), IIRC, positively toward the BF. I think this was due to both wheelbase, and probably other factors such as fork trail, but I can't recall.
I was not sophisticated enough upon my '89 Cannondale crit racer purchase to know differences in handling resulting from its geometry, I hadn't sampled other bikes, I just bought it because it looked really racy. Based on the riding I did (not criteriums), I would now have chosen a different bike.
Yeah, I've ridden small wheelers raging in wheelbase from 91cm to 105cm, and in 305, 406 and 451 wheel sizes. I've probably got the most experience across sizes, and their feel and handling on this whole channel.
There's also a lot of confirmation bias in these subjective assessments of handling. You as the engineer should be attuned to these biases and the various confounding factors that make human accounts unreliable.