Originally Posted by Ken Cox
I like the so-called "twitchy" handling of track framesets.
I call it "agile."
Each head tube angle, fork rake and wheelbase combination has a unique sinusoidal path the front wheel follows, and then the rear wheel behind it.
High head tube angles, short rakes and short wheelbases mean agile, not twitchy.
My bike automatically threads its way through road debris with astounding precision.
Additionally, I can easily ride very slowly in a very small space, such as a parking lot, much to the amazement of my roadie friends.
Yes, they can do something similar on their road bikes, but they think I have some special skill because of the ease with which I ride slowly.
Not me.
My bike has "twitchy" handling.
Fighter aircraft, helicopters and track bikes have
dynamic instability, or, agility.
Did I mention the agility of track bikes?
have to agree with that, same observations
my Schwinn road to fixed conversion for example has more relaxed tube angles and at slow speed its like trying to turn a truck around when doing small circles like when trying to do a 180 on a sidewalk for example, however, even at slower speeds it tracks quite straight and easily no handed, it would probably go quite far w/o a rider before it fell over, some of that is fork rake/trail, but some of that is frame geometry too
my track bike on the otherhand turns like your a surgeon using a scalpel, very precise, very tight turning and quick to turn in but other than that the ride quality is pretty close to any other road bike ive ridden
both bikes have roughly the same emasurements as far as rider position
both bikes have a BB height of about 11.5 inches, I just measured them to see(wasnt sure)
the track bike is shorter by about 3.5 inches
Ive done centuries on the schwinn, but not on the track bike yet, but I will later this year. Isnt any different than doing 60 miles a day slinging packages, heck, a flat century takes less time and energy.