alexihnen 

Who wants to chime in on which of these two they would rather buy/own/ride?

Fuso:



Gangl:

miamijim

FUSO

Without question the best craftsmanship I've ever seen.

repechage

Gangl.

That Gangle is being offered right now for an unbelievable low price.
One just needs to be in Denver.

merziac

Hoowee, tough question, Dave is one of the greats without a doubt, The Gangl has classic cool for days, flip the coin.

top506

I've seen examples of both-coin toss.
Given the difference in sizes, go with the best fit.

Top

natterberry 

I dig the Gangl. Reminds me of my Trek760

alexihnen 

It’s settled then!

francophile 

You can't go wrong either way.

Except for the fact both of them are waaaay too small for me.

repechage

The Fuso is smaller, and Dave decided on the steeper seat tube angle as a way to get a shorter top tube. He did to his credit not slacken the head angle to get a longer front center.
Small frames are a challenge to design.
They really need 650c wheels.
There are a few other tricks that I do not see often, like dropping the bottom bracket, small bikes can easily live with 165mm cranks, if using modern pedals, 8 cm of drop should be no issue, it helps lower the standover height.
Often mfg's did the opposite and raised it to achieve a given seat tube length.
Small bikes can tolerate rising top tubes. A threadless fork and stem system can get better positioning.
The front center can be reduced and still avoid "toeclip" overlap due to the typical smaller feet and short cranks.

alexihnen 

FWIW - the Gangl is currently listed for $650 and the Fuso is at $400. If not me, someone's going to get a bargain.

SurferRosa

The Fuso is dressed up like a sad, tiny clown. The Gangl looks legit.

Choke 

Gangl

merziac

Both of these are a good deal, the Fuso is without a doubt sporting a challenging colorway while the Gangl looks pure class.

That being said, the Fuso could be helped with some effort and would be well worth it.

Kuromori

I pretty much think the opposite of this, and I usually ride frames on the smaller side, so it bothers me when frames are designed this way.

Steep seat tubes are bad, in the modern school of bike fitting, and the older school of KOPS or balancing over the cranks, seat position is relative to BB/cranks. There should be maybe 1-2 degrees of seat tube variance evenly spread across the full range of 48cm to 62cm because you don't actually sit in line with the seat tube. Extreme deviation of +3 degrees only at the small end forces smaller riders to be much further forward,just like buying a crit bike with a 76 degree seat tube in a medium size would. Sometimes solvable with a nice setback post and slamming the saddle back, but that just means the steeper seat tube angle did nothing to improve fit.

There is nothing wrong with slackening head tubes as long as there is a corresponding adjustment in rake (this has the additional benefit of also increasing FC). There's nothing especially magical about 73 degree head tube angles, the overall HTA, rake, trail, flop, etc. package is what affects handling. Keeping wheelbase near constant keeps the weight distribution similar on all sizes if chainstays are kept constant.

650c is really only needed on sub 48cm frames, and that's mostly because 48cm is about as short as you can reasonably make a head tube with 700c without making too many alterations.

Dropping the bottom bracket more really only applies to ~50cm frames. Shorter than that, and the limitation is the head tube for horizontal top tubes (standover is less of an issue for sloping anyways) and stack. Bigger than that, and the rider is considerably less likely to be riding 165mm.

On the other hand, raising the BB doesn't hurt much. Fit coordinates are reasonable, there's a reasonable lack of stack on the bike, bikes don't really need to be straddled with both feet down, French fit standovers work fine, and center of gravity is still reasonable, since overall seat height isn't higher than larger frames.

Modern small bikes suffering sloping top tubes offer more standover, but less water bottle clearance. For every ~1mm of standover clearance gained by sloping the top tube, you lose ~2mm of seat tube. It's not too bad for moderately sloping top tubes. It's worse when it prevents you from having the option of XL bottles. It's really annoying when a manufacturer decides simply not to include a 2nd set of bottle bosses at all.

FC can be reduced somewhat, but usually not enough to just shrink the top tube. Commonly available cranks don't shrink that much, a short 165mm crank is only 5mm less than a medium 170mm. Shoe sizes don't have as big of an impact as you might think. Let's say there's something like a ~2cm difference between a small foot and a medium foot, about 2/3 of it is behind the pedal spindle. Smaller feet and shorter normal cranks only gain about 10-15mm of FC clearance, or about one top tube size.

So as a rider of smaller frames, I'll basically pick the opposite of all that given the choice. I generally don't like the "solutions" medium/large riders have come up with for smaller frames.

repechage

I agree that steep seat tubes are a cheat.

quill stems on a small bike were a compromise that can now be avoided.

8 cm of drop, (700c wheels), 165 cranks and if one has smaller feet are a all factors of that can help get a well designed bike for the 5ft club.

i designed one for a woman who had a Terry with the “ 24” “ front wheel. She had dumped the bike too many times. The handling of the bike was not working for her.
i knew that designing a bike with any overlap for her was a non- starter. 650c got everything in proportion. The only problem was locating tires with a decent cross-section, most were tri oriented at that time and too narrow. We left room for larger tires in the future.

forcing “French fit” on someone is not I think an acceptable feature.

Kuromori

Yes, quill stems are awful on small bikes, I've cut many a quill stem to length, but that's just the nature of the vintage beast. 5ft is short for 700c, doable, but short.

8cm of BB drop doesn't really do much of anything for XS frames. For standover, it's about top tube placement which is limited by the ~70mm minimum headtube in the front, and whatever seat tube length in the back that won't really care about a 1cm deviation. 8cm only cheats 1cm of seat tube length, and we're talking about short riders with standover issues, so they're not running up against the max seatpost height limit because seat height in necessarily low. You can place a short rider on a 49cm frame with 8cm of drop, or a 48cm frame with 7cm of drop, top tube in the same place, the only difference is the seatpost and bars are 1cm higher on the 48cm. Unless the rider specifically wants a higher handlebar and a lower BB, there's no major benefit to a lower BB here. It technically lowers the CG, but CG is still lower than tall riders on large frames. On the other hand 7cm of BB drop lets them get an extra 1cm of potential saddle to bar drop. It's not nothing when the headtube can't be shortened any more to size down to adjust for fit. 8cm isn't wrong, but there's nothing wrong with the default 7cm. Size up to 50cm, and standover shouldn't really be such a big concern since the frame can still be sized down. All that's really changing is 1cm of seatpost and 1cm of stem height sticking out. It's fine as a frame builder philosophy but it doesn't invalidate frames with 7cm BB drop.

Again, 165mm cranks and 3cm smaller feet only cheat about 15mm of FC compared to a medium height rider on a medium size bike. Of course shorter proportional specialty cranks can cheat even more, and should be encouraged for especially short riders who can spring the money for a custom frame, but it so rarely happens. Short cranks are actually more important than small wheels if you can get the right fit on 700c. 15mm isn't nothing, but it's not enough to make up for the shorter TT. I think a shallower HTA with increased rake to make up the rest of the FC deficit of shorter reach is the mark of a well designed small 700c bike. Shallow HTA with standard rake is indeed bad, and I don't like to put up with total lack FC just because the designer wasn't comfortable with anything but tried and true 73 HTA with 45mm rake, but it happens because few people want to experiment at the tail end of the bell curve.

And yes, 650c has drawbacks, wheels, tires and tubes have less availability, and gearing options are generally designed around something close to 700c. It's easy to design because it's just a 92% scaled down bike. Parts availability is better now, but I still think 650c should only be used if you can't meet design goals with 700c for a 700c kind of bike.

Concerning French fit levels of seatpost, not an issue while riding, not an issue while stopped, not an issue while starting, not an issue to French people, not an issue to M/L riders who were told to ignore standover in favor of sizing by TT , not an issue when doing slow speed maneuvers, not an issue with handing, not an issue with a 2nd bottle, not an issue when looking at parts compatibility. Possibly an issue for someone buying a custom bike who wants to straddle the bike with both feet down while the bike is perfectly vertical, and could be solved by sloping the TT for anyone that really cares about this complete non-issue. It's not even a sort-of issue, you have to deliberately straddle your bike in a specific manner, the standing there not doing anything or ready to ride but refusing to dismount the bike pose, in order for it to matter.

repechage

I think 15mm of front center change can be significant.
If someone does not want to only be able to place one foot on the ground at any one time when the bike is stopped and straddling the top tube, I am not going to try to convince them otherwise.

The bike should fit, it should feel safe. It should handle well to their expectations and ability.

Rider's are very adaptable, they get used to compromises.
Aside from shorter stature riders, there are many who got a bicycle way too large when young that they were expected to "grow into"
Too bad for them that was the choice made. They adapted, were less efficient or comfortable than they could have been.

Kuromori

15mm of FC change simply isn't big enough to deal with scaling of the top tube though. It's pretty common for wheelbase/FC to shorten with size since it's what happens if you shorten reach/TT length without adjusting front end geometry. So even in cases where FC is completely ignored it naturally gets shorter. The 15mm shorter FC requirements only really matter to designers adjusting the front end geometry to increase FC, and I'd rather ride a bike with a thoughtfully designed front end geometry with reasonable trail and 15mm too much FC than a slackened HTA with extra high trail and just the perfect amount of FC to only sometimes glance my toes in slow speed maneuvers. If front end adjustments are being made, FC is only being brought closer to the FC of an ideal geometry medium size, and not increasing past medium like it does on large sizes. The only real harm of a FC too long are the compromises made to increase FC. If trail is kept reasonable, not much is being comrpromised, and if the builder cares enough to alter steering geometry, there's a good chance they already shortened the wheelbase from medium anyways. If only HTA is adjusted, that bike is going to handle poorly anyways, just that the bike will handle less poorly with less front end FC compensation.

A small bike with reasonable trail and perfect FC might handle marginally better than a bike with reasonable trail and FC of a medium size frame, which handles noticably better than a bike with extremely high trail and the perfect FC, and an even more extremely high trail bike with a medium bike FC handles even worse.

You don't have to "force" anyone to deal with a standover they don't want to deal with when you have sloping top tubes or 650c wheels as an option, if the rider says that's important to them. It's not a matter of forcing, it's a matter of a couple cm of extra standover are so useless that I'd rather give it up for water bottle clearance and parts compatibility, which is at least sometimes useful. It's also what short legged people give up when sizing by top tube even if they're M/L riders, and French people apparently did because they were French. What really shouldn't be forced on small riders is the inability to mount seat tube water bottles. Just because one rider has a preference for a step-through frame doesn't mean a step-through frame is the ideal way to make a bike or that many people don't have a preference for diamond frame bikes. We're not talking "forcing" anyone to do anything. We're talking small frame compromises and preferences, where one thing or another is always being compromised and some things are generally more useful than other things.

Standing with both feet on the ground with the bike perfectly vertical is amazingly useless because you can just tilt the bike with both feet on the ground to gain some addition standover, or you can stop with one foot, then dismount like everyone else normally does. If a rider specifically requests that you make compromises to maintain standover clearance, then of course you should comply, because that's the design criteria, but other compromises shouldn't be forced as the ideal way to make a small bike for smaller riders that's don't have notions about needing to stand over a bike with both feet down with the bike completely vertical at the same time. This is merely hoping the rider adapts to more subtle compromises on actually useful things the begin to notice when actually riding, while making them feel like they're not compromising on an immediately noticeable but ultimately useless thing when they first throw a leg over it in the shop.

If the fit coordinates are right, and everything else useful while riding is in the range of reasonable, the bike is the right size. Funny bikes aren't inefficient just because the reverse sloping top tube increases standover height. Doing something like dropping the BB increases stack and forces the minimum bar height up and potentially makes the bike less efficient, just the same as forcing 700c and 7cm BB drop on someone who needs less than 500mm stack. I suppose I could subconsciously be really uncomfortable when standover is a few cm higher on one frame versus another frame and I'm just trying to force high standover on everyone, but I rather doubt it.

merziac

Not disputing the wackiness of the Fuso in it's current state, BUT if the original owner worked correctly with Dave on the fit, I would bet that it rode just fine when it was built.

Very few here or anywhere else for that matter are qualified to second guess Dave.

Doug Fattic 

If I wasn't a frame builder already, Rich is one of the few builders I would want to build me a frame. It is a short list. The names of the few others on that list are not mentioned in this subject thread. Gangl's shop is a marvel. I've never seen a better equipped one. Besides his skills to make steel, titanium and aluminum frames, he is also a superb painter.

Last ride 76 

Exactly, DAMMIT!

Kuromori

Dave is a great framebuilder, but clearly other qualified master frame builders disagree with him, if only qualified master frame builders are qualified to disagree with him. It's not like Dave himself didn't second guess other experts before he was established, and it's fortunate he has tried to explain his views instead of just saying "because I said so." His geometries are based on his preferences in racing geometries in his size, and other sizes are extrapolated from normalish geometry in medium/large, then backed up by input from racers who liked the handling. I somehow doubt that these bikes are going to be used for serious racing. Dave is in the camp of not only does toe clip clearance not matter, he altered steering geometry to minimize FC because he likes and adapted to trail on the upper end of what is now considered normal with high 60's "on rails" trail and thinks low FC and increased weight over the front wheel aids in out of the saddle handling. And it's true, toe clip clearance doesn't matter in racing, at all. He also admits that his frame building philosophy is one of many and his isn't necessarily the "right" one.

The thing is 76 in XS really just isn't equivalent to 73 in M. You can find a racers that like steep seat tube angles in M and people who like normalish seat tube angles in S. Mini scale 650c bikes typically have pretty conservative angles. Steepening the seat tube angles pushes the rider forward in small sizes just like it does in large sizes. Since apparently only expert opinions are appreciated, if you fit saddle position like Hogg, this becomes pretty obvious. 76 degrees works for some people who happen to be small. 73 works for some people that happen to be medium. They are not equivalent to each other. 76 is an aggressive STA in any size. He found himself scooting forward on the saddle to make up for long reach during racing and zerod in on STA instead of reach from the BB because he'd rather not actually ride the rivet when riding the rivet, and would rather just have the saddle support that position, limiting the ability to scoot back.

If a ~76 STA race geometry frame is objectionable in medium sizes, it's objectionable in small sizes. It's an aggressive race geometry frame. A cubit reach fit where CG is forward of the BB is different than a cubit reach fit where CG is rear of the BB. The difference is that if the bars aren't brought back, in S it's an option between aggressive position vs stretched out position, instead of aggressive position vs normal position. Without a holistic approach to frame design, it's a lesser of evils. With a preference for an aggressive forward leaning race fit, it's not even an evil. There's a couple more factors like cranks being too long which means knees come up too high for small riders and they either have to be more upright or they have to be more forward to open up their torso angle. 76 absolutely works for some people, the same way 76/75 might work for some M riders. It's not what normal riders use in M and it's not what should be forced as normal in S.

So if you want an objection to Dave's XS frame design, it's that it forces the rider into an aggressive race posture because the geometry is based on aggressive race bikes, just like the same criticism would apply to a M frame with a steep STA. It might be arguably better than being stretched out over an excessively long top tube, but it's not the same as normal road bike geometry but smaller. It's not really a way to offer a shorter TT with the same kind of balanced fit as a 73/73 M frame. It's a way to offer a shorter TT by forcing an aggressive race fit. It's fine for that kind of racing and aggressive posture, good even. But it's not equivalent to normal road bike geometry. He thought steep seat tube angles might even be beneficial for large riders, but it never seemed to translate to L frames.

It's a quirk of how he designed frames, he thought he had a winning formula in regards to steering geometry and wheelbase. Wheelbase only varies 1 inch from the smallest to the largest frames, but the steering geometry was basically the same on most frames, with a slightly altered steering geometry on the smallest frames. The bottom half of these frames was very similar. Most of the adjustment was basically done by altering the standover height, and steepening the STA to get the desired TT length, such that riding a frame too large with a set forward seatpost was almost like riding the smaller size frame. He was willing to compromise on STA because he didn't even feel like steepening the STA was even giving up anything for racing applications.