You, sir, are discussing a ride/handling theme I've been on about for a few years now. Extremely relevant and naturally not even remotely discussed (except here and there by me, very occasionally). A too-long stem AND bar reach combination (to say nothing of hood position and length) will make for tiller-like steering the yanks and drops and sweeps in exaggerated fashion due to one's pushing and pulling on the bars when rocking back and forth out of the saddle. I've ridden bikes like that, and it's taxing and very unenjoyable to ride, ultimately stifling the acceleration effort by bringing in muscles from the rest of the body to help and try and control the involuntary writhing around.

It's "all good" if you weren't already pushing your boundaries of comfortable flexibility. Otherwise, you have to choose between spending all day on the rivet and ripping the hamstrings off the back of your knees.

Yep.

Have you tried to ride no hands on both?

I predict that 72/71 will be much better for gravel and will ride better no hands. It's good to change bikes just for different feel BTW.

Sorry, I didn't see this message until now. I stepped outside with my tape measure - please ignore my front fender kludge. There is a slight kink in the tape where it's lodged in the crank bolt cover. The wheelbase is ~42 1/4", or about 1070mm. I will take your word for it that it's long, but at this point in time I don't have anything else to compare it to aside from my other two frames, one of which I no longer use. I'm a little long in the torso, I think, FWIW.

I can't do no hands very well on 72/71. It seems to want to travel the opposite direction. 73/73 I can ride hands-free way longer than is ever practical.

42-1/4" is usually regarded as a very long wheelbase for a road bike. Limousines corner slower than sports cars. Also front center in your photo looks like a touch over 25-1/4", or 642mm. Not 650mm. This is exactly the sort of error I make all the time.

No one has mentioned that 71 degrees is also a bit odd for a road bike. It happens a lot on small frames (which then handle badly) and it has come back for gravel grinders and 29ers. On 29ers the idea is you don't bother with dodging small obstacles, you just plow straight ahead and let the big tire handle it. The yellow bike does look a lot like a current era gravel bike. It does have a lot of fork rake, as it should with that head angle, and would likely be better than a lot of the new bikes if used for gravel.

Had a conversation recently with a framebuilder who must remain nameless. Have known the guy for almost 50 years now. He built lots of race frames, and some fairly well known riders used his frames. When he didn't know much about his client they got 60mm of trail. If he did know them, and knew they couldn't ride, they got 62-65mm of stability so they wouldn't fall down. If he knew them and they could ride they got neutral handling with 57mm of trail. If they were very good riders other factors were considered and the bike would have 50-57mm trail depending on how it all sorted out. Those who wanted less than 50mm were referred to other builders who knew that end better.

Recently my Eastman DL-1 had a nasty bike rack incident and needed a new fork. Much easier to replace than try to straighten. The old fork was 3-1/4" of rake and the new one is 3-1/2". So with 66 degrees of head angle the bike is down to a near normal 62mm of trail. (With 700x42 tires) And suddenly the DL-1 corners in less than calendrical time. Still distinctively a DL-1 but that 1/4" made a huge difference. Other times a small change like that would be meaningless. It is not all predictable. Riding lots of different bikes is the best teacher.

The tape shows 25 5/16" but I mentioned that the end of the tape was kinked. I had to hook it in the crank cover bolt to take the photo with my other hand. Straighten the kink and it measures 25 1/2", 647. I don't really want to split hairs over 3mm, but if it's important I can take a video of myself taking 3 measurements from each side and using the average of the 6. Limousines do corner slower than sports cars, but I'm not sure the analogy is the right one to use in this context, as with this bike I am experiencing more agile handling than with the other, smaller frame.

It's agile because of the fork rake. The Raleigh looks at first glance to be high trail.

42-1/4" is long. Real long. Long is not bad, the DL-1 is something like 47" and is a lot of fun. But no quick sharp handling at 42+ inches. You can massage the numbers as much as you want, when you have a standout like that it's determinative. So is the fork. That rake is a very unusual feature. A positive one IMO. There's a lot of not seeing forest for the trees whenever frame geo is discussed. Adjusting the stem a centimeter this way or that, or getting a wider or narrower 'bar will have effects, you just won't get away from these two bikes being quite long.

You might not even like a short or medium wheelbase bike. Long might be your favorite. You have two long bikes and should give a try to something more normal. You need the point of comparison.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of plowing into/through anything. 73/73 OK on gravel I guess, better when tire pressures are lower than higher. I haven't spent that much time on gravel, there's just a one mile stretch on an alternate route of my commute that I use to avoid traffic sometimes.

Maybe I'm not as bad a rider as I thought if I do OK with 50mm of trail?

You may be right about all. Whatever it is about 73/73, I like it and want more of it. It would be nice to have it in a little smaller frame with better standover and maybe to get the bars just slightly lower, but it's the best riding/handling bike I've ridden to date. It's not light or high quality, I just like the way it rides. I have never felt fatigued on this bike, it's always comfortable to hop on it in the morning and again when I leave for home in the afternoon. I don't need to plan time off the bike over the weekend to recuperate. 150 miles a week is not a lot for a competitive/sport rider, but it's sort of a lot for commuting I think. I wish I were a more experienced rider, I think I'd be able to better articulate it.

Edit: a little earlier in the discussion, I mentioned that the trail for the Raleigh (72/71) is 63mm and 50mm for the yellow Fuji (73/73). I used a plumb bob and long straight edge and marked onto masking tape on my garage floor, average of 3x.

Edit 2: I could try maybe a little shorter wheelbase, but two things that are important for me personally are (1) ability to fit full fenders front/rear and (2) need a little room up front for toe overlap, I wear size 12/13 shoe. I don't have any overlap on 73/73 but I had a little on 72/71 when I still had fenders on it.

On this pic angles measure like STA=72, HTA=73. Are you sure it is 72/71 bike?

Okay, I looked at Strava and pulled some numbers about last Saturday's ride. I did this ride with [MENTION=384048]greg3rd48[/MENTION], so he may have a better sense of how long I was out of the saddle... but here's what I learned from Strava:

There were many steep climbs that took 3 minutes or less;
There were two steep climbs that took 7 minutes;
there were two steep climbs that took 21 minutes;
there was one steep climb that took 24 minutes.

I needed to be out of the saddle for most or all of the climbs mentioned.

Yes, I have measured the angles several times. The photo is not level, it's tilted slightly down from left to right.

I always level the pic before measuring. Nice photo for measurements and I like the bike.

Yellow bike fork looks a little bent to me. Most often bend adds stability.

The BB is the one contact point I cannot change. Seats are east to move in all directions except side to side. Likewise handlebars. I spend 100% of my rides with my feet rotating around the BB in perfect circles. On a big climbing day, I might spend 20% of my ride not even touching the seat. I've been known to ride miles at a time no-hands. I don't track seat to handlebar, partly because I put the handlebars on a line that is a near constant distance from my shoulder. (Actually an arc, but a line is very close for small changes and fart easier to document.)

I think of the "triangle". BB to seat, BB to line for the handlebars and seat to that line. I rotate that triangle to match what kind of riding I plan to do on that bike. For comfort, leisurely riding, it rotated back. For fix gears that will be ridden upwind, forward. I see the BB/seat relationship like a car's crankshaft, pistons and cylinders. That relationship is exact and never changes (outside a major engine re-build) but you can tip the entire engine anyway you want and it doesn't care. (Airplanes fly just fine upside down.) Everything revolves around the crankshaft. It makes little sense to pick any other place as a reference.

Ben

SOME airplanes are capable of sustained inverted level flight, most are not. Lift and control surface geometry are one factor, fuel and oil delivery to an inverted engine are another. Has nothing to do with your point, I just felt like splitting hairs.

I found a few other pics of that bike and plugged them into CAD and as much as it irritates me, I think I should re-measure the frame angles on that bike. I'll have to do so from home tonight.

Don't say it looks like my fork is bent. That's below the belt.

You funny guy.

Maybe you've found your perfect bike and shouldn't look any further.

How do you measure frame angles?

I use image editor for that for some years. It's my most precise tool for the job. Direct measuring of a HTA often too tricky.

Hey! We are talking about geometry here and why the bikes handle the way they handle!

I have 72, 73 and 74 HTA bikes and like them all. They are very different in handling and have the same handlebars. 72 is very stable, 73 (Raleigh) is more or less stable and I can't ride my 74 bike no hands, but it is the bike I like the most.

Moving the BB forward/backwards a couple inches is not pushing my boundaries. Not at all.

Although I now have my third herniated disc. Hmmm...

Damn.

That's a lot of time out of the saddle. Long climbs I'm out more, but maybe 20% of the time at the most. Unless I'm gassed at the end of a ride, then a lot more sitting. But no matter what, every 10-15 minutes I got to get up to air out the junk for a minute or so.

Just a little counterpoint here. I never even think about position triangles. The bike tells me where the saddle should be. Where the handlebars should be. My position on different bikes is very different. Saves a lot of time and trouble searching for stems and making adjustments.

If the Raleigh has less head angle than thought, then trail is higher. But this amplifies a previous point. Measurements must be accurate and they seldom are.