Geometry

Set­ting up the new bike, and I’m real curi­ous to see how it rides.

It’s a big­ger frame than I’m used to—a 55cm frame, where my rac­ing bike is a 53cm frame. Hope­ful­ly I won’t have to make any rapid dis­mounts (!!!!). The fel­low who set up the bike rec­om­mend­ed the 55cm, as he said “most peo­ple ride frames that are too small.” Interesting.

Well, very very inter­est­ing, actu­al­ly. the frame geom­e­try of this bike is so very dif­fer­ent from my rac­ing bike, although I did­n’t notice at first. It may be a taller frame, but it’s a much short­er frame—a full 2cm short­er by the top tube mea­sure­ment. So no won­der peo­ple are rid­ing road bikes that are too small for them! Even this one which may be too big may be too small!

I don’t real­ly know enough about frame geom­e­try to know what the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of dif­fer­ent frame pro­por­tions are. I’m guess­ing that a short­er top tube makes for a more upright ride, which might also explain why the han­dle­bars are so far up in the air. Not only does the stem rise much high­er than on the rac­ing bike, the han­dle­bars are angled much high­er up than the rac­ing bike’s.

The han­dle­bars and stems can be adjust­ed, but I’m going to try rid­ing it like this for a lit­tle while, and see how it goes. Maybe I want a more upright ride in traffic.

The “trail” of the bike is a lit­tle longer than the rac­ing bike, and short­er than my hybrid. They are 8cm, 7cm, and 10cm respec­tive­ly by my quick and slop­py mea­sure­ments. That means that this bike prob­a­bly won’t be respon­sive like the rac­ing bike, but will be a more sta­ble ride. The wheel­base of the two bikes is sur­pris­ing­ly close, both about 99cm. My hybrid comes in at 108cm.

The han­dle­bars on the new bike are not just high­er; they are also much wider. Close to 3cm wider. That’s got­ta be good for climb­ing, right?

This is sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing that this bike seems (in my untrained) to be oth­er­wise set up more for tour­ing or com­mut­ing rather than rac­ing: the wheels do not have the clear­ance nec­es­sary to install fend­ers. With a rear rack this isn’t so much of an issue, and maybe I can find much small­er fend­ers than the ones I have.

I’ll post again after I’ve tak­en it out for a short ride. Don’t want to go too far, as I’m still not feel­ing 100%. But I’m 100% bet­ter than I was yes­ter­day. Even being wok­en up twice, it’s nice to get enough sleep. I slept from prob­a­bly 9:30pm until almost 7am today. It was weird wak­ing up after a few hours sleep and see­ing the cor­ner store’s light still on. Still would­n’t be sur­prised if I need a nap before too long.