front end geo question

[MadRocketSci]

Hi all,

I used to ride a stock 56cm '97 serotta atlanta. Earlier this year I upgraded to a stock '05 56cm legend ti. Differences in geo were mostly in the front end; 73.5 HTA for the atlanta, 73.0 HTA for the legend, 43mm rake for both (though I'm not positive on the atlanta...if someone could confirm that would be nice).

There's a pretty noticeable (to me) difference in the handling. After about 7 months of riding the legend, I'm pretty sure I prefer the atlanta's handling, especially for the types of descents around palo alto.

Question: can I replicate the handling of my atlanta on my legend by replacing the F3 43mm rake fork with an Ouzo Pro with 45mm rake? The main difference will be changing the trail from 59mm to 56-57mm. The atlanta has 56mm trail achieved with a steeper HTA rather than different rake, so, will the bike handle the same if the trails are similar?

The other effect will be lengthening my wheelbase and front center by 2mm, will that make a difference? I don't think that would be noticeable but then again I didn't think a 2-3mm difference in trail would be noticeable either.

Thanks for your help!

[NateM]

your Atlanta had a BB drop of 7cm while your Legend Ti has a drop of 8cm.
I will let the experts address your trail rake concerns.What was it about the Atlanta's handling that you liked?

[MadRocketSci]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that as the (only?) other difference.

With the BB drop change, I was expecting to prefer the Legend's handling. However, I think it's a little too stable. As an analogy, it feels a bit like skiing down a slalom course with giant slalom skis....doable, but requires more effort. Another skiing analogy would be skiing on traditional vs. the shaped skis. When I used to ski on 200 cm skis, initiating a turn was a series of steps....bend down, pole flick, weight front of outside ski, angulate, etc. With the newer shaped skis you pretty much just tilted them on edge and they turned on their own.

So back to bikes. We've got some pretty curvy descents here, which head down at a 14 degree slope and hit consecutive 150 degree tight turns. The atlanta enters turns easier. With the legend, you have to pay more attention to countersteering and braking....in fact, after riding the atlanta for a while I think I forgot about the whole countersteering thing and spent some time taking turns too wide on the legend. It took me a couple of months to remember to countersteer again. With the legend I can still get down stuff quickly if I consciously do the right things, and slow down a bit more before entering the turns, but with the Atlanta it felt like I just needed to lean the bike over and it would fall into the turn naturally. I can also take a tighter line with the Atlanta at a given speed vs. the Legend. This feels safer as I can be towards the inside of the lane on a sharp right corner.

The only downside of the atlanta's handling was the tendency once in a while to oversteer in the middle of the turn. Very occasionally I'd have to prevent the bike from overturning off the side of the road, but it really wasn't a big deal and was easily compensated for. Much preferable to not turning sharply enough and ending up near the centerline of the road.

I've never felt that the atlanta lacked stability at speed...it still felt great going down the col du glandon, where there are some nice straight sections.

Oh, the only other difference was the steel fork on the atlanta vs. the F3 on the legend. I'm not assuming a difference in steering due to material.