masi61

That is a nice repaint on that frame. Note that it is 126mm rear spacing so if you intend to get it re-spaced to 130mm you will need to pay the additional fee. It is nice that he makes that service available and that he says it is done professionally. Personally, for a bike like this I would build up period correct wheels with 6/7 speed spacing and if I needed more gears I would use a triple crank up front.

As for the sizing, I agree that “stack” and “reach” are newer fit metrics and I am struggling to understand these. To me these two measurements are more like final measurements that take into account not only head tube length but also stem height, length and fork rake. You might ask the seller to take the head tube length and then write that number down and compare it to your existing bike’s head tube and then be thinking about what type of quill stem you fancy for the build.

There is plenty of sizing information for traditional road racing bikes available in older cycling guides such as Greg Lemond’s Complete Book of Bicycling which is the one I self taught myself on back in the early 80’s. The information he gave was relevant, was a bit ahead of its time in my opinion as he helped the rider not make the mistake of selecting too large of a frame.

In a nutshell, in Greg’s book he repeated his French coach’s fit method that involved determining your cycling inseam while standing against a wall in your socks with a book between your legs at the top of your crotch you take an accurate measurement in millimeters to the floor and write it down. This measurement is always longer than your pants inseam. I do remember that their saddle height formula was the product of cycling inseam x .883. I may get out the metric tape measure and analyze my main 2 road bikes to see how close they are to that ideal. It should be mentioned that Greg preferred a longer top tube so his frame top tubes were custom and never “square” where the seat tube center to center and the top tube center to center were the same number.

Once you have this measurement, you can determine a suggested frame size (he always used center to center seat tube) according to their formula. I have forgotten the formula but could look it up. I remember learning road cycling in the 70’s and how at 5’11” It was suggested by the bike shop that I get a 25” (!) frame. I rode many years on 25” frames and eventually gained the insight that this size was entirely too big. My Masi61 was going to be my racing bike and while it was better, it was also too big.

ezmiller I don’t know your age, your flexibilty, how competitive you are or if your upper body is proportional to your leg length. But you do. I would say that keeping a fit notebook and getting a metric tape measure might be instructive.

I feel that modern notions of bike fit can be very instructive for dynamically fitting yourself to a vintage bike. I started a thread last year called the non French fit where I argued that (classic & vintage) folks were missing out on many of the advantages of using what they formerly thought of as too small frames for themselves in favor of comfort bikes that to my sensibility did not have the climbing or comfort/handling traits I was after. For example: modern (long-ish) carbon seatposts give more compliance when they are raised closer to the limit line. My Ritchey Flexlogic 330 mm seatpost has tactile shock dampening advantages that are real, not imagined. Also, the same small frames bike is fitted with a 13cm stem which is a bit slow to respond to steering inputs at slow speed but at high speed descending the non-twitchy disadvantage becomes an advantage. Same with climbing while standing (using the smaller frame with longer stem) - using my upper body in the configuration, I’m able to train for and get better at standing climbing thanks to this tossable configuration.

If you decide that this Olmo could be made to work for you from a fit standpoint and then you set it up with traditional drop bars you could play around with shallow drop gravel bars and or/upward rise stems. Doing this with a classic like this might not make you popular with the C&V purists but for a rider that you plan to spend a lot of time on, you do what is necessary. Also, tastefully spec’ d seatpost/stem/handlebar combos can enhance the aesthetic of your ride instead of appearing garish or gangly....