My experience closely mimics yours. I'm 6'3" with long legs, and I think the couple of times Riv has measured my PBH it's been somewhere around 95cm, for which they would recommend a seat height around 85cm, but over many years of riding I've arrived at 79-80 cm being the ideal seat height for me, depending on crank length. I think it's most because of tight hamstrings/glutes and preferring a midfoot riding position with flat pedals.
When I bought my Surly LHT, I followed the Riv sizing recommendations and bought a 64cm one. Like your Sam, I originally had Albatrosses on it, then Boscos, and it was great with both of those bars. About 2.5 years ago I swapped in drops, and found that short-ish reach drops (Ritchey Biomax) with a short reach stem (70mm, +17 deg) worked well with that setup. I've since done some really long rides on that bike, including some 100+ mile days. I'd say it's probably one of the better fitting drop bar bikes I've ever owned. It doesn't hurt that in the same time I've done a fair bit of yoga, working on my core strength and flexibility. Recently, I've been thinking about swapping in some bars with a flatter ramp. Noodles are a natural choice but I think their reach would be a bit much. I've got a pair of Salsa Cowbells in the bin that I'll probably try next. If I were designing a drop bar bike from scratch I could see that something with a shorter top tube might open up the reach a bit more and allow for longer bars like Noodles, Rando bars, or Maes Parallel bars. I've recently bought a used 64cm Rambouillet that might fit the bill (it's got a 60cm TT versus the LHT's 62cm), but it came with Albatross bars and I really like that setup. I doubt that I'd want to go to a smaller stock frame, as I don't think that I'd want the bars any lower than they currently are. My eroica bike, a 1980's Medici racing frame, was 62cm and that required a short and high Technomic stem to get the bars up where I wanted them. On Wednesday, October 17, 2018 at 11:08:22 AM UTC-7, Eric Myers wrote: > > Up until about a month ago I rode 58cm sized bikes, in varying degrees of > (dis)comfort. Then I started riding my new significantly larger Sam > Hillborne and realized all my older bikes are too small, so I've basically > decided to replace one of my old bikes with something similar (mid-80s > sport tourer) in a larger size, and sell the rest. Now I'm trying to > figure out that sizing. > > > > I'm a little over 6'1" (187cm) and long in the torso but with only normal > length arms, according to my dress shirts. So to paraphrase an old joke, > my arms aren't quite long enough to reach the handlebars, and I need an > extra couple cm of handlebar/stem height to compensate. > > > > My PBH is 89.5 cm. According to Rivendell, my saddle height should be > 78-79cm, and my starting frame size should be 62-64 cm (The Sam is > different because it is an expanded frame). For whatever reason, that > saddle height is not comfortable and I tend to use something a couple cm > shorter. (Possibly because I keep my feet further forward on the pedal?) > > > > On the Sam I have Albatross bars and love them, but would like to have a > second bike with a different cockpit. Stretching forward has generally not > been as comfortable to me as riding in the drops against a headwind, so I > am hoping that a larger frame, plus a short reach stem (I'd try one of > Analog's w(Right) stems if they were cheaper), and short reach drops like > the Soma Highway 1 bar might add up to something comfortable. > > > > If you have a similar body challenges, or a preference for a slightly > shorter saddle height, I'd love to hear about your thoughts and experience > on bike sizing. Ditto for drop bars. I know I'm going to have to try > riding a number of different bikes, but I'd like to start out trying the > right size. > > > > Best regards, > > Eric > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
