How tall are you & what size frame do think is best for you?

[ultrazenith]

I still ride 19" M Trax and Dynatechs, but at 6'3" with the beginnings of a bad back, I think this is a bit on the small side for me now. Plus, it's not easy to find super long seat posts, and it's a bit of a shame to always have to discard the lovely (but too short at 350 mm) Dynatech seat posts every time I buy a new M Trax.

I'd say 20 inch is the lower limit, 21 and over would be nice, and 22 or 23 inch with a long head tube would be awesome.

 

[munkey_bwy]

I'm 5'10" and I feel that my 17.5" & 18" frames fit perfectly. I have had to shorten my stem on the 18" from a 150 mm to a 120 mm as ive got older.

 

[kalex]

Re:

i'm 6'1" and i have medium framed bikes, my new specialized camber evo is medium, my trek elite hard tail is around 17.5" and my specialized road bike is 54cm.

size wise when i buying a new bike all the bike shops say i need the next size up according to their charts but i don't feel comfy on them which to me is more important.

but this could be like others on here i spent my youth on bikes with the seat high up and bars low with long stems and i could have just got use to this style of riding.

 

[gradeAfailure]

6' with shorter legs/longer torso - my Voodoo is old-school Kona geometry and a 19", the Genesis is a 19", but the Pitch is a 17.5"/Medium as they come up big. However, I'm thinking of swapping the frame out for a Large and running a 50mm stem instead. Of course, it's reach and stack that are much more important that the "size" of a frame anyway. What I've discovered is that anything less than 26" from bar centre to the centre of the saddle rail clamp and I feel cramped.

Modern geometry theory is that pretty much everyone is riding bikes that are too short - have a look at the length of the Mojo/Nicolai Geometron and the Pole Evolink bikes for examples of how things are headed.

 

[shauno]

I ride simple singletrack and around town lately, nothing steep.

Endowment land trails, mostly?

Well, sometimes yes. Sometimes I just hit the sea wall

 

[John J]

Interesting how so many of us old timers seem to have bad backs.
Perhaps we've all been riding the wrong size frames ☺

 

[24pouces]

Re:

160cm and I ride around 14 or 15"

 

[reindeer]

There are modern geometry L sized frames with 620 mm top tubes, where I can't imagine how that would work out for me. And it's not clear to me why I should get a long frame and fix it with a short stem. I'm 5'11. My 4 (had some more) retro rides have top tubes from 55.5 to 58 cm in length. Road, hybrid and mountain. Seatpost setback, stem length and height, bars, seat tube angle, front stack, crank length... it's some kind of science to find the right fit (or trial and error, in my case).

That in mind I bought a new allroad frame (Soma Saga Disc), after comparing geometry with the ones I have and figuring out what felt right or not. I landed at 56.5 cm effective top tube length, 90 mm stem with compact drop bars (better for my wrists), no setback post, 172.5 cranks. And a frame with a tall head tube, as I'm not getting younger, so saddle and bars are almost level (without a dozen spacers). At the moment it feels like the first bike that really fits me. Took me some years, but it was worth it.

 

[Ghosty]

I'm half an inch under 6", and I have been since I was about 13, so so far I've only ridden 18"s, and they seem comfortable. I've experienced a bike that's too big (23.5" Raleigh road bike) so I'd know if one was the wrong size.

 

[JonTom]

As mentioned, it's about proportions.

I'm 6' 2" and have mainly been riding 19" Marins (and a few other retro bikes of a similar size) since the mid-90's. I tried a 20.5" Marin frame but it was too big.

That said, I have one post-'95 bike - a modern full suspension Trek - which is badged 21.5".

All this talk of getting old, it's getting me down my love.