When did stack & reach become a thing?
 

I’ve been at this game for 46 years-raced in the 70’s and &0’s-bought and sold more than a few and the specs -stack & reach- were never uttered. Now I it’s all over PL. BTW I’ve have few made-to-measure frames an the builder never mentioned either word. If I buy a used bike now I look for 57 square and 73 parallel and I’m good to go. I do t like long HT’s but other than that does stack/reach matter?

Same with long HTs for me.

Reach when you know your saddle setback staring point, shows in a glimpse what your stem/bars/cockpit is going to lay as more easily to me.

Stack, I love since this came into the equation. being based on BB drop/HT length ratio, yes!

I am between sizes on so many frames due to long femurs. Being able to see if I can get the bars low enough, drop bar reach needs to make me fit on it, or if I would have to use more spacers than desired helps rule out off/peg frames in a glance for me.

Some bike company started pushing it a decade ago, I think

This says the author came up with it in 2003:

https://www.slowtwitch.com/Bike_Fit/...er_One_95.html

It was my impression that these became a thing when horizontal top tubes went out of fashion. With those compact geometry bikes the length of the seat and top tubes no longer tell you what you need to know about sizing. So stack and reach take their place.

That's what I heard anyway. Is this correct?

Nice find. Dan kinda knows what he's talking about too.

When I bought my Cannondale 9 years ago I did a whole lot of measuring and determined the 58 was just about exact to my Serotta Ti 57L so bought it and worked perfectly for me.
Once you know S and R it is easier to compare frames to me.

Exactly. With sloping top tubes and the resultant flexible head tube length, handlebar height can be all over the place. Also, reach to the bars will be affected by seat tube angle and top tube length, so stack and reach give the buyer a better idea of whether the bike will fit like whatever known frame they have.

It’s a fallacy. Head tube lengths in isolation mean nothing, or little to be kind. One needs to be reminded that the bottom of the head tube is a function of many dimensions, fork stack, frame drop, and head tube angle among them. Without keeping the discussion wide and including these variables, the actual finished (overall) length isn’t as telling as some would like to believe.

around 2003 sounds good.

My impression: it came with burgeoning usage of the internet when consumers (bike riders) could effectively swap information about what worked for them and what didn't and convince each other that they absolutely positively had to have a custom built bike for their totally unique and otherwise impossible to fill requirements.

In this scenario, the more measurements to cogitate, play with, and disagree about, the fool with the most measurements wins.

It may be there are some framebuilders who were complicit in this process for their business model, since probably 90% of everyone can fit a standard frame size off the peg, regardless of that they have been told.

Stack and reach was in use when I bought a Cervelo R3 in 2011. It gave a good way to compare possible handlebar positions on two different size R3s (which have sloping top tube geometries.)

Serotta started to use stack and reach a long time ago. But slightly different, they measured the height and reach of the handlebars using what they called the XY tool. It would nestle in the crank bolt and then cradle the handlebars. The two arms were graduated and calibrated to give you a measurement of how many millimeters above and in front of the BB the center of the HB is. Works well and when combined with a Size Cycle would be a great way to get repeatable custom measurements.

Yes. It was a Tuesday night, as I recall.

Yes, it was at 7:53pm, just before "That 70's Show" came on at 8pm.

We very popular in the Tri community before expanding to other bikes. Honestly - it's the easiest and most direct way to assess fit between different frames. If you know what your preferred stack and reach are, it's almost mindless to check fit for a prospective frame and workout out stem, bar, post configurations to get your contact points in the right places ahead of time.