cudak888 

I'd try finagling with the stem and bars before going with fenders. Probably the last thing you'd ever need to balance it out, for it is extremely well balanced for a frameset of that size already. Not that I'd ever really dissuade anyone from throwing on some long, elegant fenders on a Paramount

I think it's the balance of rear triangle to front triangle, combined with frame angles and fork rake, that determines the overall elegance / regalness. The more relaxed the angles, or the more rake in the fork, the easier it is to convey effortless forward motion. Then again, this can also go to an extreme, e.g., the Raleigh DL-1.

That leads me to rear triangles. Trek 720's look pretty good in tall frame sizes, due to the huge rear triangle - but they need fenders to fill all the airy bits. On the other hand, the Raleigh Pro Mk II-IV gets away with this balance by having those shot-back stays, which automatically relax the seatstay angle - making the rest of the frame appear 2cm smaller than it actually is.




-Kurt

Drillium Dude

I'm just quoting this for posterity as it's the longest sentence I've ever come across in my years on C&V

dd

Wildwood

I had a little 'borrowed bikes from friends' experience over 35 years ago. Enough to pick a 59cm bike as my first adult lightweight.

Today my dozen+ roadies are 58 - 61cm. i like the headtube to be 17cm or greater.

A 6'1" shorty.

I have lowered my saddles or shortened a crank a few mm over the years but not shortened the stems.

i am back to narrow bars = 38cm ctc.

RiddleOfSteel

As an industrial designer that studied automotive design, proportion and gesture are incredibly important. Some designers don't have regard for it, and other sweat the details. One of the reasons I think a 66cm x 57.5cm frameset (Land Shark) works is that the seat tube axis "takes the lead" and doesn't leave the horizontal/vertical result to chance. Many large frames get not only really tall, but really long, and it looks like a squared-trapezoid. Like there should be a pane of glass in there. Kleins and Calfees get super long in the TT as their frames get big and I just never think it looks right, especially on a race frame. The Paramount is a bit long, but it wears its proportions well. My Expedition is a bit long as well, but the 45cm stays set it right on the money.

Look at this classy lady--just walking down memory lane here with old setups. Saddle not too much lower than it is now. @Andy_K 's favorite tires in the world.

merziac

Tx Jeff, now that I got your attention my work here is done for now.

I found several sentences in this thread alone that are no more than 3-4 words less than mine so I'm not alone for posterity.

Wildwood

This Schwinnderella???



i think it must be so

SurferRosa

Feels like I'm the only one here over 5'10" riding 56cm frames. <sadface>

cudak888 

Funny how automotive design threw gesture out the window with the wedge and super-low rocker panels (raising the beltline). Or at least effed it up - admittedly, both styling cues work in exceptional cases, but with the frivolity that they're applied today.

At least tumblehome has been put to good stylistic use as of recent, but wouldn't you know, that lost headroom would show up at the same time as SUVs.

But that's all another story.

Indeed, the Land Shark's short top tube keeps everything nice and compact - it doesn't look like the seattube and everything behind it is lagging behind the headtube. But you've got to admit there's a point where appearance must give in to practicality for a certain body type; you're just lucky to fit the Land Shark's top tube. Even I'll admit that an ugly frame looks a lot more beautiful to me when it rides and fits better than a pretty one.

Admittedly, if wheels scaled up with frames, the problem wouldn't exist. I bet one could make a 67cm randonneur frame look like a 63cm frame by building it around 38x700C's instead of 650B's. Between the wheel size and extra tire clearance, the lower headlug would have to go up quite a bit, and the stays would lengthen a fair amount. One could also try the old triple-triangle design to relax the rear triangle angles and build it with Columbus EL oversized tubing.

-Kurt

RiddleOfSteel

Well, what do you know? That's the saddle height it pretty much needs to be/is now! I and even had drop with the bars. This is not helping the new frame size cause!

Now I'm wondering if I should buy it back from the guy I sold it to...oh boy...

RiddleOfSteel

It just means you ride bikes the size the pros do. You're basically Mario Cipollini.

RiddleOfSteel

Even older (like 5-6 years at least) photo of my former Peloton built up in her first 10-speed arrangement. I'd change the bars today, obviously, but otherwise this bears remarkable similarity in saddle height to today. Cranks were the same 175mm ones I have on the Paramount today. I suppose I'll just do some flexibility exercises and keep on trucking. lol.

RiddleOfSteel

A combination of styling trends, increased need for better aero for fuel economy (and NVH/wind noise), and higher belt lines for better crash (rollover) and airbag/safety reasons. Cars look so big on people today (unless you're my height), mostly because they are bigger. Drop the rocker panel down, pull it closer to the outer tire line (fender/body cover percentage requirements) instead of barreling the body under like the '60s/70s/80s and a good bit of the '90s. The number of wheel arch "flats" and features on modern SUVs and crossovers is absurd, and I get a chuckle out of it.

Car enthusiasts of my generation range (early Y/Millennial) lament the raising of belt lines in modern cars, praising early '90s vintages of Hondas and Acuras for their very low belt lines and great outward visibility. Sure, they will fail a rollover test and only had a driver's airbag, but they looked good and you could see out of them! And they were new enough for fuel injection and stupid reliability (built on the back of the "bubble era" in Japan, which many a bicycle benefited from). Now all those late-'80s and '90s Japanese cars are going up in price--well the fun ones. I can't even afford them, or I could, rather, but then end up with a 30 year old vehicle that's loud, a bit small, lacks a few airbags, and in general has old car problems that are hard to address when street parking. The early 2000s is, to me, the transition era between cars you can still work on in the driveway, that don't look crazy, that aren't huge, and that have a decent suite of safety features, to what we have now. And I recently put my money where my mouth/brain was and bought one. Couldn't be happier!

I will admit that the low roofline and big wheels look is really cool in a sketch. I mean, who are we kidding, and that proportion has been explored as early as, oh, 100 years ago. Big wheels then? Yup. The rims were huge, and then they made the sidewalls white for an even larger look. Many a car in the 20s/30s had tall glass, and then there was Stutz and all the rest (depending on body maker) that sported the slit-type side window profile. Great stuff.

As to tall bikes, the trend of 650B wheels and chubby tires, combined with lanky rigid forks and long stays, looks off to me. Upside down lollipops with sticks attached to them, or Ugg workboots on a tall supermodel. There is too much disparity between one visual form (chubby, bulky, heavy wheels and tires) and the other (slender steel tubing). The tires "don't want to be near" the frame and are running away from it. Sort of like early mountain bikes, but a lot worse. That's why fenders help, IMO--they bring wheels and frame tubes together. A component "blending" or "transition" if you will.

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, though some frames/bikes make that easier than others.

cudak888 

"You know, we just used so many metaphors I forgot what the hell we were talking about." - Oscar Madison, Odd Couple II

-Kurt

vintagebicycle

I completely agree and see your points, but the only frames that broke were converted bikes.
None showed any signs of rust.

I have broken a couple of seat posts but not on an upright bike, only with drop bars, one was Campy and one was an SR post. Both broke off near the top. The SR broke while I was sitting on it, but surprisingly I was able to catch myself and even sort of hold onto the seat. The large saddle bag fell back onto the rear rack and sort stopped the seat from toppling off the bike. The Campy broke while I was pushing against the saddle with most of my weight on the pedals, I heard a loud pop/crack sound and the seat was gone. I didn't realize what happened till I didn't feel the nose of the saddle there anymore. I replaced the Campy post, and the next time out I broke the right crank arm on that same bike. .
That was on a mid 70's Paramount P15. That frame eventually failed too with cracks appearing both around the seat tube and the right chainstay lugs in the bb shell. The crackes shows up after I took the bike apart trying to hunt down an odd creaking sound. I only found the cracks after finding a small mound of rust colored dust in the BB shell. It turned out to be from where the cracked stay was moving. After a complete tear down, I was flexing the frame to open the rear crack when I saw another crack around the front of the shell forming a ring around the DT lug that went about half way around.
The bike was a clean used ride I got from a guy who had put a ton of miles on it, so to be fair, I didn't have much history on that bike, but it wasn't all that old when I had it either. I actually had swapped the frame for a Panasonic frame. The guy was a mechanic at another dealer and wanted to get into frame repair. He replaced the BB shell and seat tube and rode the bike for a good number of years himself after that. The Panasonic frame was one I tried to convert to an upright bike years later but the amount of flex in that frame was shocking to say the least. I put it back to stock and sold it. I had the same issues with a few other larger Japanese frames, one a Shogun, another one an early 80's Lotus.
After you had a few frames fail, you get a bit gun shy I guess too. I've been lucky so far in that only one failure almost led to a crash, that was when I broke a crank arm on an 80's Fuji Newest, the Super Maxy crank snapped off near the taper at the bottom of the right power stroke, this resulted in the right side crank and sprockets come off, the chain at first hung off the mangled derailleur as my foot dug into the pavement, I sort of fell forward across the bars as my foot jammed into the ground making my leg sort of act like a pole vault, but what saved me from progressing from that to a face plant was the fact that the chain, now free of the front sprocket, tried to double wrap around the freewheel locking up the back wheel as it jumped up and jammed in the spokes. The end result was a mangled rear wheel, broken freewheel, broken right crank arm, mangled front derailleur, (bent when my foot took it along with the broken crank and pedal to the ground), and later I realized there was a bulge in the seat tube, which I think bent as the derailleur was pulled apart to the right. I also broke the right brake lever where the cable goes in as it was what stopped me from going completely forward. The bad part was I wasn't going that fast, we were climbing a slight grade and trying to maintain momentum. The guy behind me, a buddy from school, veered off the shoulder into a cattle fence to avoid running over my leg, he bent the forks and frame on his Astro-Daimler Puch Superlight, tacoed the front wheel and bent the frame of his saddle.He had ditched the bike and jumped when he couldn't touch the ground after going off the pavement, the bike continued on till it hit the fence and flipped over it into the field. The guy behind him veered the same way running over the guy behind me as he rolled along the grass he lucked out and only broke off one shift lever on his Paramount. My foot swelled up with a sprain but nothing was broke, my buddy still got some road rash, and I don't think I've ever seen the third guy since that day. The Fuji hung on my wall at my old house for years, I can't remember what I did with it or where it ended up after I moved from there. After that ordeal I got a bit more cautious about bearing down without any regard for a major failure. I was pushing 280 lbs back then, fit and built like a line backer.These days I bounce between 325 and 355 lbs or so. no where close to being in shape like I was back then. Bad knees, several broken ankles, five hernias, and a few pinched nerves and some back pain I'm not likely to muscle any parts to the point of failure any more but at my size, I keep a close eye out for cracks and listen close for any odd noises that may indicate something is about to give way.

cudak888 

But how are they going to do mad skid stopz with those boots?

-Kurt

mhespenheide 

About a decade ago, I had almost the opposite scenario.

6'4" here. My first decent bike was a 25", then 63cm, and a couple more in the 62-63cm range. I put in a lowball bid on a 62cm titanium LeMond on eBay and ended up picking it up. LeMonds had a reputation for a little different geometry, and this bike had 180mm cranks that I was interested in trying out, so the only fit/sizing measurement I transferred over from a Schwinn PDG "Paramount" was the saddle height. I set the saddle height, set up the saddle for the knee over pedal position plus a couple of millimeters, and eyeballed a stem length so that the handlebars were lined up over the front hub when I was in the drops.

The cranks took a few months to get used to, and the overall position was pretty aggressive but not overly so -- light, snappy, and responsive.

About a year after buying the bike, I finally had reason to take some actual measurements and found that the bike wasn't a 63cm frame at all but rather a 59cm! The combination of slightly steeper seat angle, slightly longer top tube, and 12cm stem got me in the right fit on the bike, with a 9cm drop between the saddle and handlebars.

So now I check out 59, 60, 61, 62, and 63cm bikes. The reach, and the combination of the seat tube angle and top tube length are the important fit parameters for me.

mstateglfr 

First off- great to hear you are riding pain free.
I have always been surprised at the bike setups you have, given I am 6'5 and about your age and weight(39 and 215#). Envious is more apt a word than surprised, I guess. None of my bikes have slammed stems and they would look cooler if they did.

I ride 63.5, 64, and 65cm frames. The best fitting road frame is one I built in a class a couple years ago and its the 65cm frame. Even with that, the stem isnt slamed, though it did allow me to use a negative rise stem and less spacers which was a win for me in the appearances category. The older 63.5 and 64cm road frames just have a higher stem. I refuse to use Technomic stems as the look is terrible to me, so Dynamic II stems with 0degree rise have been on all my quill road bikes for the last few years since its a better look in for me.

Anyways, all that paragraph was about vanity.

Ultimately, I got over the fact that a bike doesnt look fast pretty quickly since I am not a slow rider and also, I doubt 90% of people riding when I am out notice the stem height. I build my bikes primarily for comfort and use and the deep secondary consideration is appearance.
Slammed stems and a fistfull of seatpost is a realistic fit for like 15% of recreational cyclists, and often times it isnt due to if the rider is in shape or not, its just body proportions. The rest who have that setup are just uncomfortably riding on fast looking bikes, which is an odd decision to make for a hobby, but to each their own I guess.


65cm c to c...

plonz 

Never admit to this in public . 0 degree stems in varying reaches are a pain to find. The more people thinking Technomics are the better way to go, the better the supply of Ritchey and Salsa 0 degree quills at obtainable prices.

RiddleOfSteel

You can have all the 0° quill stems you want, guys! I'll stick with racy -6° to -8° threadless or "7" style traditional quills. No market impact from me!

As an update today, I had begun to set up the canti brake system and put the new 26.8mm seat post into the frame. Specialized stem on (max height) as well as 42cm Noodles, which effectively drop your brake lever hood/hood 'notch' elevation 15-20mm compared to compact bars. I have been measuring the sitbone point saddle height and the hood notch height of my various bikes since the fitting over a week ago. Here are the surprising results:

Davidson Impulse (aka The Mark) - 64cm:
Saddle: 1075mm
Hood: 1000mm
Difference: 75mm (3.00")

Land Shark Road Shark - 66cm:
Saddle: 1075mm
Hood: 1010mm
Difference: 65mm (2.56")

Schwinn Paramount P15 - 64cm (actual):
Saddle: 1077.5mm
Hood: 1020mm
Difference: 57.5mm (2.26")

Specialized Expedition - 63.5cm/64cm enough:
Saddle: 1100mm
Hood: 1010mm
Difference: 90mm (3.54") !!!

The Paramount rocks a tall quill stem (entry level Technomic height...) and compact bars, and thus enjoys the advantage there. I'll have to ride it with that setup as I have not yet. If I gave this setup to the Expedition, it'd be in the 70-75mm range, which would put it no larger in drop than the Davidson, though at noticeable physical cost. Man, this Fast Bike guy is just having the hardest time letting a non-race bike be 'slow' even if that non-race bike is fast! Don't want to hamper its true spirit!

I ran the geometry calculations for a 65cm CTC (66.5cm CTT) Expedition, the next size up. Even with the longer top tube, I only gain 0.7mm in actual horizontal distance, which at this point is quite doable.

Don't know if someone wants to trade a proven sublimely-mannered 62cm '83 Expedition frameset with practical front canti post re-spacing for a 65cm eh?

Murray Missile 

Once upon a time I was 6' 2-1/2" but Father Time and gravity have knocked me down an inch or so. My favorite frame is still a 25" but "one score and three years ago" I had a couple 27's. A Schwinn Traveler and a Fuji Supreme. I really miss the Supreme, this was right after I finished rebuilding it. Yes, I dropped the saddle and bars a "few" inches AND converted it to DT shifters when I actually started riding it.

RiddleOfSteel

Murray Missile I just rustled through Centurion's and Fuji's catalogs, scouting for and recording various super tall frames. Did you by chance ever measure the top tube length on that Supreme?

Fun nuggets of knowledge I found:

High end Fujis throughout the '80s came all the way up to 64cm CTT, with quite steep 75° seat post angles and 74° head tube angles.

A 1985 Fuji del Rey came in 27" with dual bottle cage boss pairs, DT shifter braze-ons and no claw RD hanger. Pretty nice for a mid-range model that is offered in the 27" / 68.5cm size.

Some early-'80s Centurions came in 25.5" / 65cm (CTT) frames.

Some late-'70s and early-'80s Centurions came in very unique 26.75" (68cm) and 26.5" (67cm+) sizes.

ctak

A late '70s (?) 25.5" Centurion Semi-Pro would be an incredible find, can't be many around. Just look at the lugs on this 25" https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/d...153209162.html

RiddleOfSteel

Man, by the end of the '70s, and definitely by 1981, the Japanese really nailed lug filing and paint work. I love the chrome lugs of that Semi-Pro, but there are some classic '70s rough under-the-paint areas. The geometry/wheel spacing looks a lot like my P15 Paramount. The guy's build is pretty ugly, IMO, which is certainly exacerbated by the rather lifeless totally-the-'70s light silver color. Almost looks like he's running 650C's.

easyupbug 

My paradigm shift hit me one day out of the blue. Being 70, now an inch shorter at 70.5", and fitting 56 to 58 CTC I have found my Italians are not getting ridden. I am a constant tinkerer and find I have over the last year or so raised and shortened stems and gone to less drop/reach bars on my C&V customs and a Trek and a Specialized. Now facing a dilemma; I can't bear to replace a Modolo Q-Even or Cinelli 1A with a Technomic or replace my Modolo or Cinelli bars with black Modolo Granfondo to gain a paltry few mm.

Standalone 

My father had a 25” Atala with 70/70 slack geometry, straight tubing, bike boom welds, and chrome lugs. As soon as I grew into it at age 13 or 14 I was off and never looked back. 25” steel (or for a while a 26” 66x58 Panasonic that fits me perfectly) is where it’s at.

Sometimes after a hiatus I’ll feel like my arms are stretching a bit or my bars are too low but a few good rides later I’m back in shape enough to feel
comfortable. As I age, I think those bars might come up and in little by little but I can’t see eve wanting a frame that I can’t really stretch out on.