Originally Posted by
cormacf
Howdy!
Short femurs, long-ish torso for my height (between 5'9" and 5'10"), so I usually ride 54ish roadies with longish top tubes (my Lynskey has a 55.5cm ETT) with steep-ish seat tubes and 165 cranks (to keep my legs from overextending), and suck it up with "brushing the bits" standovers.
I did a few days with track rentals last year, and the Langster 54 cm was decent enough, but that's a pretty roadie geo (74/73) compared to legit track frames.
I've been looking at the Bianchi Super Pista, but:
- It comes in (nominal) 53 and 55cm sizes
- The geo is much steeper and track-ier:
Any idea what I should be looking at?
Total height 5'9.5"
Jeans inseam 30"
Flexibility = 48 year-old guy.
A few things -
So, first off, if you want to compare the relative sizes of two different bikes, you should be looking at stack and reach measurements, which normalize bike geo without the effects of the seattube and headtube angles. Unfortunately the Bianchi's stack and reach measurements aren't on that diagram but there are some bike geo calculators on the internet that can do the math for you.
Secondly, re angles, as nosaad said 73 and 74 degree angles don't mean "not track geometry." You're thinking, perhaps, of sprint geometry where 74 and 75 degree angles are common, but for the past few decades now track bikes have been built in a range of geometries that suit a range of different purposes and fits. So don't let that sway your thinking too much, but do know how different angles can produce different effective top tube lengths and make decisions accordingly - specifically, if two bikes have the same ETT measurement but one has a steeper seattube, it will have a
longer reach. Quantifying that difference is where looking at Reach instead of TT measurements comes in handy.
Thirdly, I have a Dolan DF3 in 55CM available "for trade." If you're interested, feel free to PM me.