Originally Posted by
L.Shaner
A newbie follow-up question. You are quoting all sizes as TT, which is great because reach is also a concern (I have been relegated to too small rental bikes in the past where my knees hit the handlebars on out-of-the-saddle climbs and sprints)...
So is TT or effective-TT the typical way that track bikes are measured, not seatpost length?
Clearly I need to know both measurements, but unfortunately frame manufacturers aren’t consistent.
A day before you mentioned Dixie Flyer, my LBS sent me a pointer to their site where they list a 62cm frame, but the dimension is for the TT, but the seatpost length is only 58cm. There again no info about maximum seatpost length from center of BB to top of saddle rails. :-(
Incidentally, if I don’t get this Fuji Track Elite question sorted, my next first choice is a Cinelli Histogram in 64cm. According to their rough guidelines I am exactly in the middle, i.e. sweet-spot of their geometry, which would be a welcome thing vs. always being the upper limit (and in practice, me being too large for the “guidelines”).
As @
Baby Puke pointed out, the Dixie takes a standard round seat post. This opens you up to a very wide range of options that I'm sure should be fine for you.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with bike fit, but here's a basic rundown. The core of the process is getting your hips or saddle into the right position. That is based around things like knee over pedal position, leg and hip angles and if the fitter is good, around any physical limitations that you have. That saddle position then becomes fairly critical. Basically, you should be able to achieve that position on pretty much any frame you can get (that has a long enough seat post). From there, where your bars will be becomes dictated by your body dimensions, flexibility and the style of riding you will do. Track riding lends itself to a long and low position. That is essentially because track racing is much shorter than road racing, and so comfort is less of a concern when compared to aero. So track bikes in general are about more upright seatposts and longer top tubes.
So because you saddle position kind of becomes set in stone, the reach dimension becomes important. If you had a 55cm TT frame and a 59cm TT frame, the saddle in relation to the BB would be in exactly the same position on both bikes. If for arguments sake we then kept the seat tube angle and head tubes the same, the 59cm would afford a handlebar position that is 4cm longer than the 55. So the reach begins to become an important consideration when looking at frames, because the advertised size could be based on the top tube length, the seat tube length, the BB to top tube length and just about any other crazy dimension of the frame. So advertised sizes aren't a great idea for comparison. For all of that Cinelli's "size" at 64cm, it's reach 7mm shorter than the Fuji. But then it gets more complicated with head tubes being different and then it looks like the Cinelli may actually be a similar size.
TLDR I would go out and find or try to get rides on big framed bikes. See how they feel. Do you feel like you could stretch out more? Do you feel like you could get lower? I would buy something second hand and save some money, because from what you've said about your physical dimensions I would say you will be looking for something a fair bit bigger in the immediate future.
** I went back and looked at the Dixie 62cm dimensions (I think $ for $ and sizing this would be your best choice frame). I have a similar inseam to you and a standard 400mm seatpost would still be too short. My MTB has a 400mm seatpost and same seat tube length and it is too short. But only by about an inch. It's pretty easy to get longer (and much much longer) seatposts online though. E.g. SJS cycles in the UK have seatposts up to 600mm long that would fit!!