>From my first Grant-designed bike, a 1992 XO-1 through my 3 Riv road customs to my 2nd edition Rambouillet, all had about 57 cm c-c top tubes though the seat tubes (all 73*) c-c were 54 cm, 54, 57, 58, 58; and my 2020 Chauncey Matthews drop bar road bike also has a 73* sta with 57 cm tt and a 58 cm st. My Matthews dirt road drop bar bike has a slightly longer tt with a slacker seat tube angle and dramatically upsloping tt with a huge ht extension, so still a ~57 cm effective top tube. The Matthew’s road bike has a 58 cm c-c st and the Matthews “road bike for dirt” has a ~47 cm st.
With all of these bikes, once I get the saddle positioned properly in height and in fore/aft relation to the bottom bracket, I get a very similar reach and torso angle from hips using either 38 cm bars and 8 cm stems 3-4 cm below saddle, or (dirt road bike) 42 cm bar on 9 or 10 cm stem with bar level with saddle — this last gives a very slightly more upright position, appropriate for our sandy dirt. The first edition (~2010-2011) Sam Hillborne was different. It had IIRC a 59 cm c-c tt but it also had (IIRC) a 71* sta instead of 73*, so the effective tt only slightly longer. The bike shipped with a 10 cm stem and 46 cm Noodle bar (Riv sold me their floor model) and I compensated by raising the to very slightly above the saddle, ending up with a more upright position than with my other Rivs. I didn’t find this as comfortable or as conducive to “intuitive” handling and I sold the Sam more quickly than I sold the others (I have 1 custom road left, the perfect one). I agree: Get advice from Rivendell, but parse it according to your own needs. I personally do not like Grant’s solution to too-long top tubes, which is, raise the bar high. I like my bar in a certain place relative to a properly positioned saddle, and this means a top tube of a certain length given the seat tube angle. On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 10:54 AM Peter Fray <[email protected]> wrote: … @Patrick - thanks for that guidance. Are the top tubes between your Riv vs other drop bar bikes very similar..? I feel the newer Riv’s are less and less designed for drop bars, the ones that are in my pbh have pretty long tubes. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgsh5t4m%2BRwQTu%2BHf1MS%3DFg1UnkSdxTfB8viAkgCCcqjmA%40mail.gmail.com.
