Originally Posted by
steinbra
Could you elaborate? What makes a geometry "Dutch criterium style"?
Just cuirous.
The usual circuit for a Dutch criterium would be about 1500 meters in length, with four corners (although the Ronde van Blijdorp, in the city of Rotterdam, only had three corners, for 900 meters length in one lap and 100 kms in total for the amateur race; the officials explained to the riders that the sign that said '10 laps' at the start, would change after a while ... to 99; sweet memories).
So corners is what its all about, braking (or rather not) and sprinting out of corners.
Besides the agility and the short toptube, there's the bottom bracket height (distance between floor and centre of bottom bracket, preferably measured with tubulars of course). As I remember it, the normal bb height would be about 268 mm, and criterium height 275 mm. When I ordered a custom frame in 1981, LBS shop owner Teun Visser called it 'Gazelle height'.
Not all Dutch race frames have that height though, I'm not even sure all Gazelles have that height!
In the early 80s the Van Herwerden bikeshop had a raceframe aptly called 'Criterium', with an even higher bb height. Made for pedalling through corners, assumed to give you quite an advantage. I'm not sure that was a really stable frame in a straight line though ... Maybe thats why guys that rode that frame always were out in front, giving a 110%, eyeballs out ... no time to relax ..