Hybrids: Selection and especially sizing.
 

OK, I am getting way outside my comfort zone here; considering buying two hybrid bikes, my first non-road bikes ever. Likely used (presuming availability and pricing might preclude new) if not strictly C&V by my definition but might qualify by yours, and only partially for me.

Yet again, my wife’s brother is tossing us the keys to the beach house. Lovely place, and apparently bought already furnished; that includes bikes in the garage, but “beach cruisers” and we both found them brutal to ride as much as a mile. They should be used in a coral reef building project. The location is such that it’s at the limit for walking to most places (including the ocean) but absurdly short for driving. So, thinking about picking up two hybrids, using them and leaving them behind (brother in law is a cyclist, indeed raced somewhat long ago).

So, searching CL and “hybrid” gets results. Unsure on sizing. I’m seeing 21” and described 'fits riders 6”4 to 6”6”’ which seems absurd, I am 6”0” and mostly legs and all of my bikes are 24”. Spouse is 5”2” and rides 19” road bike. Sizes seem goofy… there’s a 15” frame? Yeah, yeah, some but not all have slanted top tubes. I found a size guide https://www.evanscycles.com/help/bike-sizing-hybrid , but, bluntly, unsure why it’s different than a road bike. What am I missing?

Are there other pitfalls? I presume I won’t be seeing any Campy! Instead, I presume it will the the Shimano flavor of the month, and shifting will be indexed and via thumb shifters or twist grips — fine by me, not going on any 50 miles rides on these bikes. Depending on age, I figure that componentry will be black finished and not polished or chromed — again, should be fine especially in a beach environment. Sealed bearings on cranks, headset, pedals and hubs would be sweet but perhaps unlikely at lower price points. Basically, a transportation bike, shouldn’t be looking for collectors’ item features.

i'll add, firstly, there's a hybrid subforum you might want to peruse.

the sizing is that way to keep the standover height appropriate while the reach is tuned to the type of handlebar they're intended for as well as riding position. for someone like me at 5'6 (mostly legs, too), i need a 22-23 top tube before getting too stretched out and to keep from needing a long ars stem. otoh, the standover has to remain at most 32 inches. in the world of hybrid "comfort", less standover is ideal so it's not an effort to dismount and also be safe
one of my hybrids has a 19" seat tube and 23" top tube, just as an example

also, out of the three hybrids i have, they all came with low end parts (tourney and altus, respectively). i've upgraded two of them to mid range stuff, though

I'm going to get on my soap box and say that if you are going to get some leisure riding bikes, the typical American hybrid with almost straight handlebars is not your best choice. It is what people in the US think in their minds is what is best. It has become the road version of a mountain bike - which was often ridden on the road and seldom on trails. What is more comfortable and natural to ride is "north road" handlebars like on English 3 speeds. The Dutch - which actually use bicycles constantly to ride to school and work and just to get anywhere - use M shaped handlebars for solid reasons.

My antidotal case in point is that I turned my wife's touring bike into a hybrid style with MTB straight bars (I say "straight" but they have a 6º bend). This was for slower recreational rides - especially on bike trails. She has always enjoyed riding it (with triple cranks and 8 sp Campy cogs). Having done a huge amount of exploration on what bikes work best for leisure or errands, I made my own bike with north road handlebars. It was the example of how to braze a frame in one of my framebuilding classes. She tried it out one time and that was it. She had to have one too. She loves that style a lot more than her old "hybrid".

The only reason more Americans don't insist on this type of bike is because it isn't what is commonly sold and not because it isn't a superior.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e92c96172.jpeg

I think this is the way to look at it. There was a Triplecross built as a Porteur bike in a previous thread and it's a beauty.
I'm building a similar one right now and the frame is even smaller than this example. I have a 28" inseam even though I'm 5'9" so smaller frames are out there.
Here's the first example.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f6e8a39aa4.jpg

And here's my frame as bought, slightly smaller, about a 19".


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a4d1fafc73.png

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you mention "especially sizing"

keep in mind that purpose built hybrids tend to have high shells for greater ground clearance over uneven surfaces

this is similar to a mtn bike in that you generally use a smaller frame size for a hybrid than for your road machines


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I refurbed a couple of vintage hybrids for my parents a couple years ago. They are in their 60s and aren’t dedicated cyclists these days, although my mom was a bicycle commuter in her younger years.

Like you, hybrid sizing made no sense to me, so I guessed. My mom, who is 5’4”, got a 15” Trek Multitrack 720. My dad, who is 6’4”, got a 23” Univega Via Montega. Both turned out to be close enough.

I am 6’2” and ride 62-64cm vintage road bikes, but the 23” Univega is a little big for me. It has a 61cm top tube and a high BB, and I feel way higher off the road than on any other bike I’ve ridden.

On both, I swapped the stock flat bars to swept back cruiser bars for comfort and a more upright riding position. Worked a charm and was not expensive.

I think I paid $100 for the Trek and $130 for the Univega, of course this was in the Before Times.

From my chair, the early 1990s 700c hybrids were as good as this kind of bike ever got. Well-made, well-designed frames, often that manufacturer's touring frame. Solid-but-not-great parts. 700c wheels, cantilever brakes, flat bars. (If you don't like 'em, grab a cheap set of North Road bars, cables, and housings, swap the levers, and ride off down to the bar... the conversion costs like 40 bucks, an hour or two, and a couple of beers.)

And, the best thing about 'em is...

Rigid forks.

Seriously. The suspension forks that every bike company puts on every affordable hybrid bike are totally worthless garbage that make bikes suck.

Rant mode off, but I really do think that a top-of-the-line early 90s hybrid would do you up right.

The two that I remember:
Cannondale H-series (model #s are Hx00, all models used the same frame and fork as the T-series touring bikes.)
Trek Multitrak, especially the 750.
But there were many other, For a few years, every good bike brand had one.

--Shannon

Bonus: They're C&R now!

I converted an early Trek road frame into a city ride by getting many braze-ons and adding a riser stem with 2" rise bars. Recently sold this frame. If searching the ads, forget what the seller says regarding sizing and trust your own knowledge about road bike sizing and go with it.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8ebe0a46d0.jpg

not to speak for all of them, but there are some really nice modern hybrids. i have no idea what model it was that i saw, but i was window lusting at the bike shop years ago while on a ride one night. i stopped to fantasize over the new fargos and saw a trek hybrid that was really sharp looking. looked quite functional, too, with the racks and bags they had it adorned with. no suspension, either. it had an mtb riser bar, but a butterfly bar would have topped it off nicely

anyway, definite love here also for late 80's early 90's hybrid. at least a few....including my mongoose crossway...could fit a 700x45 very comfortably. who needs a shock when you have that kinda cush?

Another is the Schwinn Crosscut. We got two of these in 94. Only negative to me is the gripshift. Ours have held up fine, fairly light use.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...85c9fe0186.jpg

Regarding 90s hybrids (Multitrack/Crossroads), the fit is more MTB like with longer top tubes and slightly sloping top tubes. For example, a 21" (54cm) Trek 750 has a 570mm top tube. I used bikegeocalc.com to match my position to my 55.5cm top tube cyclocross bike.

At 5-10, I went with a 21" Multitrack 750 for my drop bar conversion

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1802cbcba6.png

Wow, got lots of good feedback here from so many of you. Thanks!

Aah. I knew there was a General Cycling one, didn't look for a Hybrid sub-forum. Still, betcha I get better input here at C&V.

Hmm, sounds like I will need to go see bikes in person to determine all this; bummer, wanted to do a lot of the selection on-line and not make this a protracted project. OK, I "get" that standover is a critical criterion here, and if the seat post is raised more than I am used to, so be it. Plus the brother in law rides IIRC a one inch shorter frame that I do, and he'll use it far more than I. And a really long top tube would be uncomfortable for me. And perhaps look at the CL ads with a critical eye to whether the "Hybrid" design in question is more road or more MTB. Yup, front suspension would not be needed. Rides would usually only be a couple of miles, very flat, pavement but at the beach one often gets sand on the pavement.

Early 90s hybrids tended to mimic mtb geometry with higher bottom brackets, sometimes less than 55mm of drop. That means the seattube measurement would be virtually longer by starting at a higher place. I just sold a Barracuda that had a higher standover in a size 17" than my 56cm steel touring bike.

Sizing of hybrid bikes is far less critical than sizing of drop-bar bikes. That's why even better hybrids are generally offered in size increments of 2 inches or more whereas high-performance drop-bar bikes usually come in 2-cm increments at most. At about 5'8" or so, I could easily accommodate anywhere from a 17" to a 20" or 21" hybrid, though the 21" might be a bit tight in stand-over height.

^^^^^^^ This. Then throw in the already-mentioned variations in BB shell clearance and top-tube angle, and the real sizing answer is -- "Test ride it". Well, you can eliminate extreme outliers based on standover height, if you can get the seller to measure it for you before you venture out.

As for selection, along with the above-mentioned Schwinn "Cross" series (esp. CrossCut) and Trek 7-series (esp 730/750), I would throw in Specialized Crossroads and the various Univega models of the era as good candidates.

I'm delighted to see I'm not the only one who finds the US flat bar hybrids (the leisure hybrids, not other interpretations) uncomfortable, squirrely-handling bastardizations.

I still maintain that they would not exist if it wasn't for bicycle companies trying to play to the dummies following the MTB trend for the "cool" factor - only to discover that looking cool meant being hunched forward, which Mr. and Ms. Cool didn't consider as part of the prize package.

As such, after giving the middle finger to producing North Road-equipped 3-speeds, one bike company (not sure who started this) got the idea in the late '90s to jack up the headtube and stem of an MTB and called it good - to which everyone followed. It took them years to figure out that they hadn't worked in fender eyelets onto those (generally) unnecessary suspension forks either, for fenders got the boot in the process as well.

Leisure/comfort hybrids are completely unnecessary, bloated, inferior interpretations of a so-called "comfort bike" that continue to convince newcomers that bicycle riding for utility or commuting cannot be an effortless activity. Their effective top tube length is also quite short and front trail often ill-suited to converting to North Roads, so many of them don't retrofit well either.

Thankfully, traditional North Road IGH bikes have begun to crop up again from some companies and the online contract job retailers, but they're often overpriced in comparison to their hybrid cousins.

-Kurt

What Kurt said. At the beach, an English 3-speed would be ideal. Modern versions of same, like Linus, Public, or Retrospec, have been around for more than 10 years now and are starting to turn up used and cheap.

My conversion to north road handlebars over kinda straight MTB bars began when I got involved with providing transportation bicycles to Ukrainian pastors. We started this project over 20 years ago and found some almost suitable bicycles made by the XB3 company in Kharkov, Ukraine. I personally brought Shimano Europe directly to them but eventually it wasn't enough to save them from extinction since they were now completing with quality bikes coming in from Asia. Since part of our mission was to spend as much money as we raised as possible in Ukraine (because most people are poor), the decision was made to make the bicycles there (including the frames). I had to figure out what kind of bicycles to make. I was heavily influenced by the Dutch that actually use their bicycles for getting around purposes. They have internally geared hubs (7 or 8 instead of 3 gears) and of course north road handlebars + other sensible accessories. When I tried out both kinds of handlebars, I clearly liked north road handlebars better than MTB bars. It wasn't close and I had no opinion before I started because all of my many adult years had been spent riding a road bicycle.

However the problem with using swept back bars is that they work best with specific geometry. Because the hands are coming back from the stem instead of going forward, that requires a longer top tube. The more upright position also requires a shallower seat angle.. And there is no advantage to having a higher bottom bracket to ovoid obstacles or leaning hard while pedaling fast through corners. That is why converting a road frame to north road handlebars won't always go well.

Interesting. I have One experience on a "hybrid" and was pleasantly surprised... perhaps a 20 mile ride on rails-to-trails.

Thanks. Just tried a search and apparently "3-speed" is a dreadful CL search criterion. :(

"Raleigh Sports" or "Raleigh Sprite" are good places to start. OfferUp too.

-Kurt

I have a bunch of project hybrids and time spent riding converted hybrids. So far their all either too big or too small. I've been riding the too big ones successfully, but realy want to try dirt drops on one of the too small frames, some day.... I do have a clean but to big Specialized Cross Roads Cruz frame in a light green that I think would make a great 20 yard squint Riv with swept back bars.

:thumb: Tried simply "Raleigh" and got more hits; even eliminating road bikes and children's bikes, might be worthwhile to keep looking. Have not tried OfferUp yet.

Maryland's selection of 3-speeds are no longer safe from you now ;)

-Kurt

:lol: :roflmao::lol:

I’m going to make a plug for a Trek Multitrack with rigid fork as well. Before I gave it away in the bike giveaway to a student (last bike picked...go figure), I found it to be pretty darn spry. And I am not a big Trek guy.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...951022004.jpeg