What are some road bikes with short top tubes?
 

I have long legs and a relatively short torso, so I'm looking for a bike with a short top tube. Vintage or new, any recommendations? I don't really have any special requirements besides that.

I am the same, and found Italian maker's frames usually have shorter top tubes. Also, the older frames had shorter top tubes than today's.

Check the geometry of bikes you want, and see which has the top tube size you need, while keeping your seat tube size constant.

This is only my opinion so take it for what it's worth: At one time when most bike had basically the same geometry you could look at the length of tubes or stand over height and pretty much pick the most comfortable bike for you. Now there are so many differences in geometry that you almost have to get on one and see how well it fits. Case in point is the old KHS I rode for a year. I always seemed really cramped and it felt like the bike was to small. My new raleigh (same size bike 56cm) has a shorter top tube but higher head stem and is way more comfortable.

The frames and bikes at Nashbar are very tall and short. My 58cm is a 56 in length and almost a 60 in height.

What size do you need, seat-tube wise?

A bike with a taller head-tube/more "relaxed" geometry in a smaller size is effectively a shorter top-tube.

Depends on what you mean by older. It seemed to me that top tubes got short in the late 90's. Before that, they were about equal with the seat tube length and before that, they were super long.


That's actually not a bad idea. The slacker seat tube will compliment the longer legs while keeping the reach short.

True. It works for some not so relaxed bikes as well. The best bet for the OP is to calculate the stack and reach for a bike that is known to fit and use that to search for other frames. Plug in the geo and it is pretty easy to convert and be within 1-2mm.

I also have long legs and short torso and found that the Giant TCR geo would be spot on for what I would like. It has a slack STA which effectively shortens the TT.

Among race-focused bikes, Ridley tends to have a longer HT and a steeper seat tube angle (both of which come handy if you have really long legs). I have very long legs/very short torso, and Ridleys fit me very well.

The latest BMCs (Team Machine and Race Machine) have quite tall head tubes for a given top tube. So much so that the pros were having trouble getting their bars low enough on them. But good for a long-leg, short-torso, not very flexible old guy like me. :)

get a size smaller and use a longer stem, unless you want to avoid an aggressive position

Miyata is the only one that comes up for me, there must be more.

Colnago C59, short top tube in standard form but can be built with almost any reach you want. Might cost a bit though...

Gios.

Or custom if you have a body off the bell curve.

My current road bike has a 64 st and a 56 tt. It's custom.

Tsunami custom geometry frames start at $750.

Gios frames are notorious for very short top tubes, my 60cm has a 56cm top tube length.. The bike was fast and responsive..