I rode a bike with 57 mm trail and a handlebar bag for years, and tens of thousands of happy miles. Never thought that there was anything wrong with it.
Then I rode a few low-trail bikes (also with handlebar bags), and I found that they were significantly better even with a lightly loaded bag. There was no adjustment needed when I rode the low-trail bikes, even though they were unfamiliar to me. When I switched back to the 57 mm-trail bike, I tended to run wide on that bike, and hit things I thought I had barely missed, even though this was the bike to which I should have been most attuned, since I rode it all the time. So the conclusions for me are: • Mid-trail and bar bag is fine. You can ride it, and be happy. • Low-trail and bar bag is better. Almost anybody who has done a direct comparison appears to agree. Beyond that, it makes sense that if you change a significant handling parameter, such as the load attached to the steering or the tire width, that you would have to change the other parameters to suit if you want to keep the handling the same. Finally, I have ridden many unloaded bikes with high trail figures that handled wonderfully. The Calfee test bike in the latest Bicycle Quarterly is a case in point. It appears that wheel flop and trail counter each other, so that racing bikes with 50, 55 and 60 mm trail handle similarly. Adding a handlebar bag changes the picture, though. Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly http://www.bikequarterly.com Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
