In the Aspiring Giraffe height class, I/we naturally have much less to choose from, and I'm ok with that. In a lot of ways, I don't know low-volume/custom builders' full offerings over their years, so a 66-67cm frame from them that pops up is a nice surprise that warrants investigation. I'm a bit done with 25mm tires and overly-stiff bikes, and thus look for that to avoid. I'm also fairly familiar with what I'd like from a frame with regard to ride quality and playfulness, and those characteristics are not exclusive to top end bikes
in my size (necessarily). Case in point: my eternally beautiful 1982 Trek 720. It is a bike well worth the money, but the nearly 400g heavier (frameset) 620 I have has always been more playful and punchy, especially out of the saddle. Thus my conclusion is that I don't mind a bit of extra weight in the frame if it works with me for what I like to do. I'm always pushing the 720 for whatever reason, and that bothers me (and my lower back). Sad!
All that to say,
my definition of attainable, which makes sense to me, is mid-range or slightly better, and in my size range. That range starts at 65cm, which excludes most everyone save for lower end models that came in huge sizes. To that end, I have recently bought such a bike: a 1985 Fuji del Rey in 68.5cm size, putting my (ebay) money where my mouth and mind were. No more low top tubes and super high stems, I'm here for the rolling scaffolding. Love these gentle giants, and they have room for 32s and fenders, easily. Their top tubes are 23.5" (59.7cm), not the 24"+ of many other companies' offerings. The shallow BB drop means that the Fuji frame says a warm "Hello!" to my human frame, but you know, there's always 650B to run bigger rubber and still not solve the stand over issue.....
As bought, adjusted for safe riding (minus seat tube FUJI lettering, soon to be applied).
The del Rey was the highest ranking model available in the 27" frame size, and was available in that size from 1984-1986, and 1988. 1985 and 1986 were what I would consider "peak feature" years in that you had DT shifter braze-ons as well as two pairs of bottle cage braze-ons. 1984 had one, and clamp-on DT shifters due to earlier-'80s design/feature ethos, and 1988 had one (but DT braze-ons, though lower on the tube than before) as they moved it down market. The 1986's looked great, and Fuji had a lot of fun with black-painted componentry (a continuation from 1985), but I'd like a 1984 as the Oak Green color played beautifully off the gold anodized rims and silver componentry. There was one that came up for sale several months ago (shown below), and I passed on it due to seat tube decal condition and wanting two bottle cage mounts. Now that I have my "dream" del Rey, I'm happy to add one in. Logic, I tell you.
