dealcatcher

I just bought a new 56cm Cannondale R600 road bike. I was wondering if I bought the wrong size frame. I'm 5"11 with a 31.75 inseam. When I plug my numbers in over at wrenchscience.com it comes back with a 54cm frame. However, when I road the 54 my arms felt a bit cramped, I have a long upper torso. My seat post is only up about 3 inches or so. This is my first road bike and everything feels pretty good. One of the bike shops I went to recommended a compact frame Specialized Allez to fit my build. Does anyone here with a similar build ride a 56? Did I make the right choice with a 56cm non-compact frame? Thanks in advance.

- dan

dealcatcher

Here's a photo of my new bike, notice how low the seatpost is with the Brooks saddle.

condor63

5'8" - inseam 31.6" and I ride a 56cm Trek 5200, fits perfect with no need to change stem. 54cm I felt cramped and binded, 56cm is perfect, purchase what fells right and let the numbers just guide you to the general area of fit.Then you do the final fit and decision to what feels correct for your stature and comfort. Nice looking bike thou

KennethToronto

wow, there's hardly any seat tube showing!

As long as you're comfortable, it's fine. However, I would've probably gone with a 54cm and swapped the stem for something with a longer length and less rise.

dealcatcher

Yea there's not to much, howerver the Brooks is a fairly large saddle. I could always flip the stem to lower the rise. Coming for a mountain bike its hard for me to judge if its comfortable. It feels great overall very smooth and fast. The stem is a 110mm, I thought about trying a 120mm.

margoC

As long as you are comfortable riding it I wouldn't worry too much. I had a bike that was too small for me and I could never get it to fit right. Seeing as you are coming from MTBing it might be a bad idea to jump right into road biking with a low aggressive postion. Later on if you want you can get a differernt stem and achomplish the same thing.

I would think the major thing would be too long of a reach with a large frame, if you are not in pain and comfortable I would just ride it and not worry how it looks!

canonball

Nice bike! I have the exact same inseam as you except that I'm 5'10. I ride a 56 cm with no problem.
You will need to eventually flip the stem to get a little better body angle. When I started biking It took a while for my back to stretch out so that a road position felt comfy.
I did the fit measurements at www.competitivecyclist.com and it came out to 56cm. You might try their site and plug in your numbers to see what you get.

velocipedio

to be brutally frank -- since you already bought the bike -- 56 cm is too big for you. period. the problem with the 'dale is that it is a square bike -- that is, the top tube and the seat tube are the same length. like a lot of guys, you have a long torso, so consequently, you need a longer top tube. in a square bike, that means going up a couple of sizes. a bike that would fit you better would be a 54 with a 55.5 cm top tube or, as you have been told, a compact 55 or 56.

since you've already bought the bike, there's not much that you probably want to hear about this, but in my opinion, the 'dale is the wrong bike for you. you were poorly served by your bike salesman.

Al.canoe

I wouldn't worry about it if you can stand over the top tube with out the pitch of your voice changing. I bought my last road bike (used) too large to get a long enough top tube. I just wanted that bike and new if I waited for the right size it would take too long. It was out of production. It's just comfortable that way. Some writers recommend low crotch clearance for road bikes any way. It's given me zero problems in over 3 years.

That said, I'm about to get a new frame which I will get allowing about a half inch or more of crotch room. I've going with a manufacturer who has longer top tubes. At my age, it's just harder to lift the old leg that high.

Al

Murrays

Why would this be a better fit? Imagine the seat, pedals & handle bars in the same place. Essentially, you would be lowering the top tube and laying the seat angle back. More seat post would be exposed, but what difference does that make?

Personally, I think bikes should be sized by the top tube instead of the seat tube; changing the seat post to accommodate the seat tube is probably the easiest adjustment on a bike. Changing the stem to accommodate the top tube, however, affects balance, steering & handling.

A 54cm would be too small, IMHO. I’m 5’5” and I ride a 53cm with a 54.5cm top tube. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride

-murray

velocipedio

i agree that bikes should be fitted by the top tube rather than the seat tube, but with the amount of seatpost showing on the picture above, deal's testicles are probably just about squashed on the top tube when he's straddling the bike. that's dangerous. period. ideally, bike fit should be a function of both st and tt, a balance of both, using stem length as a variable up to a point. after all, st and tt lengths are relative. the fact is that not all bike geometries fit all riders, and riders with long torsos should stay away from square bikes.

the problems arise when people shop for bikes by brand rather than fit. deal could not get an ideal fit on the 'dale, so he should have looked at another brand, no matter how much the 'dale sang to him.

[by the way, according to cyrile guimard's formula, deal's optimal st height is 53.8 cm, and guimard is quite liberal with seat height. it is not difficult to find a bike with a 54 st and a 55.5-56 tt. such a bike would have been an ideal fit.]

shaq-d

*yawn*

there are many bikes that would fit any one, including dealcatcher, depending on what kind of riding is desired. a 52, 54, or compact frame would give him a nice racing geometry. a 56, 58, etc., would give him a more comfortable geometry.

judging by the height of the dealcatcher's stem/handlebar, it's clear he would NOT be fit well on a smaller frame. "frankly", on a smaller frame, his stem would be extraordinarily high with tons of spacers.

dealcatcher: competitivecyclist.com has a rudimentary fit calculator that would give you results that would fit you on at least 3 different size bikes, probably. they call it the "race", "eddy merckx", and "french fit" bikes. you probably have fit that's somewhere between merckx/french, that is, a comfortable road bike. if that's what you're looking for, then your bike fits you fine. if you want something racier, then you can look at compact/smaller frames next time.

sd

Ebbtide

FWIW, I ride a cannondale 54, my inseam is 30.25" and I have a whole lot more seat post showing. That makes me think your saddle may be set too low.

shokhead

A little late for this question?

55/Rad

Exposed seatpost doesn't mean much in this case - look at how thick that saddle is. With a racing saddle set to the same height, more post would be exposed.

Dealcatcher - I wouldn't worry about it as long as you are happy. Yes, you might have gone with a more aggressive fit as opposed to comfort, but you are in well within the zone of what is considered a good fit.

As far as Wrenscience goes - I love them and recommend their sizing program all the time. But they say my ideal frame size is a 56. What I've discovered that REALLY means is a frame with a 56 cm top tube. I'm 6' with a 33.75 inseam. The 58 Trek/57 Lemond/55 Lemond I own all have a top tube within 1 cm of each other, making it real easy to match them

55/Rad

RonH

I have to disagree. On a smaller frame the saddle would be a little higher, the top tube would give more crotch clearance, and the stem would be about the same. On most road bikes the stem is lower than the saddle.


Dealcatcher, did someone at the bike shop fit you to this bike or did you just walk in, like it, and buy it?

DVDaze

I just bought the exact same bike. I'm a little over 5'11" and ride a 56 frame as well. When I was getting sized from my bike at the LBS they put in all my measurements and at first I came out with a recommended 54 frame. The guy doing the fit figured that can't be right - he did the measurements again and realized he measured my arms incorrectly. After putting in the longer arm measurments it came out to a 56 frame.

Mine fits me perfectly - and my seat post is quite a bit higher too.?.?

michael_tn

i have almost the excact same body as you, i could not get comfortable on the R600/56cm, i test rode it several times. finally they put me on a 57cm lemond and it fit like a glove. my seat sits rather low as well, but its comfortable and rides well.

michael_tn

shoot, i meant to post a pic of my bike in the previous post, here it it, i've tweaked the seat up just a bit from where it is in this picture. you can see the compact geometry gives me sufficient clearance for my, um, gear while the size fits my long torso nicely.

-- michael

Crispin

If the Cannondale had a 'straight' (not gowing upwards) stem, the top of his saddle would be a little heigher than his steer. This combined with a normal 'saddle' would make the bike look normal

dealcatcher

I just found out Cannondales are measured center to top. So there 56cm measured center to center is 54.61cm. My stand over height on the top tub is pretty good, I can still lift the bike up 1.5 inches from the ground. I was setup at the bike shop, they said I could go either way 54 or 56. I have a long upper torso and I felt a bit cramped on the 54cm. The top of my seat is 71.12cm from the center of the bottom bracket.

Gonzo Bob

Looks like a very good fit to me. Don't worry about how much seatpost is or is not showing. The key thinkgs are 1) can you set the saddle to the correct height? Answer: Yes. 2) Can you set the handlebars to the desired height? Answer: Yes, and there's room to lower them plenty by flipping the stem and/or removing spacers. 3) Can you get the saddle-to-bar reach set correctly without an extremely short or long stem? Answer: Yes.

Yes, a custom or compact frame will give you more standover clearance, but that is not really an issue on a road bike - at least not as much as it is on a mountain bike.

Stubacca

Is it comfortable to ride? Can you straddle the frame without the boys touching?

Personally I feel more comfortable with your kind of setup than with a smaller frame. Online fit guides seem to want to put me on a 56cm frame (6', 34" cycling inseam), as have a couple of LBS employees, but I've felt cramped on every 56cm frame I've ridden (Fuji, Bianchi, Surly, Specialized, Trek, Klein + more). If I were a racer, a 56cm might be fine. As a recreational rider, a 58cm is a better fit. I have a bit more seatpost showing than you do (Fuji and Surly), but not really by much.

The Brooks (B17 by the look of it) is a very tall saddle. Every time I've installed a Brooks, I've ended up putting the seatpost down a bit. If I were you, I'd try flipping the stem so you're a bit less upright when riding it.

crestdude

I agree with Shaq-d about the competitive cyclist website. I ride in a more agressive frame position, so when my uncle purchased a nice Raleigh road bike, I questione why he got such a huge frame. It looks like he is riding a horse, but after reading about the way competitive cyclist does the fitting, I realized my unlce went for comfort. He keeps up pretty well with the fast rides because he is comfortable, so the bigger frame works for him. The only thing he asked them to change were the stem length and the handlebars to fit them to his reach. I recommend you check out the competitive cyclist fit calculator, even if it's to give you another point of view.

jshct

I was grappling with the same issue of proper size, but I think it all has to do with the type of riding you do. If comfort is a priority the larger frame might be the choice. If you race, the smaller is your choice. I'm 5'8" and have an inseam @ 31.75 and ride a 53cm ti c to c frame. If I went with the 52 cm my seat would have to be higher and the bar would be lower(with the same stem 110) and at my age with neck problems that would not be desireable. Its all about comfort if you ride long. Try riding a 54cm just to satisfy your curiosity. Hopefully it will reinforce your having made the right decision and eliminate the cognitive disonance.