jepcr

I live in WA state and do RAGBRAI every other year, so rather than having to ship my bike back and forth decided to buy a second bike and have it sent to Iowa. It was listed as 51 cm, but if it is I must have grown a few inches on my plane ride here. I measured it to be 49 cm. Can't believe how much difference 2 cm makes. Realize not too many will care, but wanted to gripe a bit. Very annoyed!

hueyhoolihan

you might not be able to do much with the handlebars, but a new stem with a little rise might help, or maybe flipping it would help? then move the seat as far back as it will go and raise the post a bit. then ride across iowa. when you get back, who knows? maybe you'll like it...

my bikes (5) vary at least 3 inches (9 cm?) in height, yet i can get them set up exactly the same with adjustments available with stem, post and seat.

oh, and don't be too annoyed at the seller. it's easier than you might think to mismeasure a frame by a couple of centimeters.

pdedes

maybe seller measured centre to top and you are measuring centre to centre.

FactVord

Cripes, I'm guessing asking for a refund is out of question? I've never gambled on ebay.

bianchi10

Its not out of the question. you can send this to ebay and tell them and the buyer you did not get what was described from seller.

https://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/item-not-received.html

just to give you a heads up you should do this ASAP!!!!! also a heads up, ebay is a pain in the butt to deal with. I was selling some oakley radars on ebay and some jack hole made up a fake account and bought my item under my buy now option. I thought great, but never received payment. after desputing this with ebay over not getting paid it took them 4 months to straighten it out and even in the end I lost $25 dollars of it out of fees and other BS that they refuse to give back. EVEN worse about dealing with ebay is trying to get a hold of someone is a nightmare and goodluck getting someone who speaks any kind of 5 words of english in a sentence!

regardless, if you want, here is a link that will help you with your issue.

Nick Bain

what bike did you get? Newer frames with sloping top tubes have Virtual measurements which makes measuring pointless. My tarmac is 58cm virtual but the actual seat tube length is 55cm measured to the top.

rpeterson

Did you check the geometry before buying or did you just assume that a 51 is 51?

eofelis 

I often sell as Buy It Now on fleabay and I always make sure to check the box that says the buyer has to pay immediately if they Buy It Now.

jepcr

I have a 2002 Lemond Buenos Aires back in WA and the bike I bought off eBay was a 2005 Buenos Aires. I'll play around with more adjustments tomorrow and hope that helps. The ride starts Sunday so I probably don't have time to try to sell and find something else. Anybody in eastern IA looking for a used 49cm Buenos Aires?. It does ride very smoothly, but a bit small for me!

jepcr

By the way, thanks for all the responses.

oilman_15106

When buying on scambay I always ask the seller for a virtual top tube measurement. Only dimension that really counts and you have found out the hard way that many ebay sellers of bikes have no idea what size the bike actually is in addition to the various manufactures methods of measuring a frame.

You also have no idea how many sellers have no idea how to measure the top tube.

SlowOlympian

Im sorry to hear that! no matter where the mistake was made. i hope its still comfortable with a few adjustments. not that im any expert, but after being fitted to my bike at the LBS, even though i was a bit nervous about the aggressive geometry on my bike causing issues on long rides, i havent had any, except between my shoulderblades and up my neck. I think this is mainly due to gettiong used to long rides, and going from beach cruiser-ish bars that came with my varsity, to drop bars on my new bike.

And yeah, i think the other posters are right, some people just dont know how to measure bikes. its a 50/50, maybe cloer to 20/80, not in your favor, that its not what youre expecting. hope this is a lesson learned without a total loss on that bike! talk about a bad day... now get out and ride and see whats comfortable!!! GL

*edit* where in washington? im in olympia

Sundance89

If a seller does not know how to measure actual tube length, they sure as hell aren't going to know how to measure virtual tube length.

And just an open note: OP is talking about seat tube - not top tube, and "effective" is the more common term to reference seat tube.

big chainring 

Most people selling bikes on ebay have no clue how to measure a frame, or how to read a ruler/tape measure.

ILUVUK

Do you know what the effective top tube measurement is? Obviously, I live in the ending city.

FactVord

Flip it! or swap out for better components.

klutch.xls

Is this meant to be ironic? I've read a number of your posts today and they are mostly unintelligible. And you are criticizing their English skills?

AndyK 

"Effective seat tube"?? No such thing!

55/Rad

Sure there is. If the seat tube holds a seat post, and the seat post holds a saddle, and the saddle holds yer butt up without breaking, then its effective.

halfspeed

You do, of course, realize that the 2005 BA had a sloping top tube while the 2002's was horizontal. And you did, of course, account for that when you were measuring the '05.

zigmeister

This needs answering by the TS? Well, when is a 51cm a 51cm? Pretty much never. You need to look at the frame geometry specs.

DScott

I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around the idea of riding over 450 miles in 7 days on a bike you've never actually touched before the event...

Sundance89

The effective seat tube length is the distance between the bottom bracket and the point at which a virtual horizontal top tube would intersect the seat tube.

jepcr

I agree about the buying a bike and only have a few days to ride it before a big ride, but shipping a bike back and forth all the time is a big time hassle. I'm also fairly novice to the whole bike buying thing and don't follow all the changes in bike geometry. I'm sure I can get used to the bike and if not maybe I can demo different ones on the way.

jepcr

Wow, didn't mean to get all the emoticons!