cormacf

Does anyone happen to know of any Eroica-friendly road frames have long front-centers and steep seat tubes? I have a long torso and short femurs, so the recent move toward slack-front gravel frames has been a lifesaver. Basically, the back-end of a track bike and the front-end of a Stumpjumper.

thook

is your request brake style limited? ie. side pull calipers vs cantilevers?

also, frame size can be a determining factor in your criteria. in some instances i'm aware of, smaller frames tend/ed to have steeper seat tubes with equal or longer front ends relative to their larger counterparts to account for wheel size, top tube length, and toe overlap.

on that note, and to offer some answer, some sport touring models would fit the bill. trek made some as did schwinn and miyata/univega

brief examples from personal experience:
'82 trek 614
'85 schwinn super le tour and le tour
'94 trek 520

the latter is a full on touring bike and 80's models at least had semi-horizontal dropouts allowing you to take advantage of the rear aspect of wheel base length. the former two...same thing; adjustable dropouts. the only caveat would be unable to install larger than a 35mm tire in the rear. the fork/s could easily fit up to a 40mm depending on the brake/s used

Dylansbob 

early 90s cannondale hybrid. ~70 degree HT and 50+mm of rake.

cormacf

Thanks! I seemed to recall an old 80something 520 fitting me pretty well, and maybe one of the 600 series--though I had no idea what I was looking for, and my 15 year-old body could forgive more things than my 50 year-old version.

With the straight top tubes of the day, probably a 52 or 53cm -- definitely no more than a 54. I'm 5'9.5", but my jeans inseam is 30 on a good day. The best-fitting bike of the era that I ever personally owned was a cheapo Peugeot Saint somethingorother hybrid that was 53 in the seat tube and 55 top.

thook

i'm 49 and 5'6. my pants inseam is also 30", but my pubic bone height is 32.5". so, kinda long legged for my height, i suppose...haha. anyway, i like to ride bigger frames so i can get the handlebars up high enough without really long stems or tons of spacers. mostly that lends itself towards traditional diamond/level top tubes frames, but even sloped top tubes...vintage or modern. my "newest" bike is an early 2000's giant fcr3. it's a woman's large hybrid frame, but i switched it to drop bars and the 56cm effective top tube is just right since the stack height is pretty tall compared to what i'd technically fit in a men's size....which'd be in the medium range.
i don't see how you don't feel a tad crowded on smaller frames that you exampled. longer stems? lots of seat post height and offset? lots of drop from saddle to bars?
my largest frame is a 57cm top tube 58cm seat tube. i have to use pretty short stem and shorter reach bars, but i like it. still have a fistfull of seat post showing. french fit....lol

RiddleOfSteel

Do you have a desired tire width you'd like to handle? With or without fenders? Between that and brakes, let's get those metaphorical un-fun vegetables out of the way with, otherwise there's going to be a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Also framing the discussion is the expectation that no vintage bike was ever made with that (40 years in the future gravel) geometry in mind, save a 47-50cm frame with the jacked up ST angles and slacked out HT angles (though for other reasons).

Vintage tourers will consistently give you the slacker front end angles. Cannondale STs run 72° as do Trek 720s. Those are also spendy. My '85 620 has a 73° HT and 73.5° ST. Trek did this mild steep/slack thing, as did Schwinn (73° HT, 74°), though on their road bikes at least. You're probably going to have to go catalog diving, and there is a stickied thread with a ton of them. Looking at Schwinn catalog scans, their Voyageur and Voyageur SP (even nicer) tourers came with 72° HT and 74° ST angles from 1984 through 1988. Very nice.

I would say that if a frame has a modest or shorter than normal top tube, then ST angle won't matter as you can run a zero-offset seatpost or a saddle shifted forward on its rails--meaning, you will have the headtube/stem point closer to you (modern frame parlance: Stack and Reach) anyway and thus won't have to worry about ST angle. This bike fitting stuff can get intricate if you're so inclined, as it has for me, with reliable methods for achieving the same fit across multiple bikes.

mpetry912 

don't over think this. A Moto - like a Grand Jubilee or Grand Record - will take tires up to 32 / 35 and will handle moderate off road just fine

/markp