You know it's a bit subjective, the bike is BIG and even with shorter stays it would still be big, but longs stays . . . How long is too long!? The bike was made as a homage to or at least evolved from the idea of early 80's mountain bikes, which had longer stays, steel forks, etc. The difference is in the 80's they made the stays long because they had too, their limited choice of components determined frame design to a large extent, but even then the bikes were built by road racers & they weren't going to make them any longer than they had to. Today, we have too many choices, you could do like many 29'ers & curve the seat tube to make a very compact rear triangle (I am not advocating that). So, in the end how do you know when the chainstay is too long? Simple, when it's longer than it needs to be! Need heal clearance for bags and panniers, etc. Fine determine how much that needs to be, but no more! My Clementine has 2.2 wide tires on it now & could probably go 2.4 without much fuss. Amazing when you consider that the stays are almost straight and the bike uses a narrow BB shell! This all tells me that they are too long, even if you did not have the anecdotal evidence of riders saying how hard it is to lift the front wheel over obstacles. I also notice the additional wheelbase in tight turns, I really have to slow down more than I normally would, because otherwise I clip the inside apex or blow off the outside of the turn. One more thing is in addition to the medium I have a small and partly because it uses 26" wheels, the stays are much shorter. I think they are still slightly long, but they feel much better, the small feels a little taughter. OK whining aside I think the Clems are great bikes, they definitely have a unique character & charm. The design is 90% there, just needs some tweaking, chain stay length is the main thing though.
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