A reason not to have a sloping top tube
 

Just when you think you've seen about everything.... On my commute home today I came upon a young man riding a Schwinn LeTour (I'm guessing late 1970s vintage, in that great yellow color they had then) with a fully inflated basketball jammed between the down tube and top tube near the head tube. I asked about the fit, and here was his reply. "Man, you got to have a flat traditional top tube to pull this off. I got two other bikes, but both have sloping top tubes and the basketball just won't fit." I asked if it fit other flat top tube bikes. We pulled over and tried it on my Cannondale 800T. Fit just fine. So, if you have a basketball to transport and no racks, you can't get by with a sloping top tube. Live and learn.

Who would have thought!!

Shoot, I'd just ride one handed and palm the ball the whole way.........right!!

Pretty standard when growing up in Oakland. Brings back a few memories.

If you let some air out, I'm sure it would fit a sloping top tube.

And it would be lighter too! :)

Just dribble the darn thing and be on with it!

backpack!

It would appear that both sides of the design question (sloping or not sloping) are concerned with providing extra space for balls.

Then you'd have to carry an adapter for your pump. ;)

He already had one completely filled by the looks of it. I'll tell you in a very few short minutes I came to admire this kid. He was working full time, in college full time, and headed to the PAL to coach basketball with some middle school aged kids.

Oooooh... you didn't. ;)

Back when I worked for a newspaper, I stopped to take a picture of a guy riding a bike down a busy street with a plastic garbage can over his head--a full-sized, 32 gallon can, not a wastebasket. The top was bungeed to a rack. When I was getting his name, he told me the story: He'd been riding and stopped at a hardware store to use the restroom and fill his water bottle. He started wandering around, got caught up in the sales and realized he'd been meaning to buy a new garbage can, so he picked one up. He claimed he forgot he was on the bike until he got outside, but then decided he could make it home.
I've also seen people riding with livestock--pigs, sheep and once a foal--over their shoulders, and when my wife and I had a few chickens in a backyard coop, I used to bring home 50-pound sacks of feed either slung over the top tube or tied to the rear rack.
Of course those were real STEEL bikes, not your plastic or aluminum foil toys...