Geometry Evolution, yours personally?

[robt57]

Originally Posted by Dave

I probably have a little shorter reach, but I'm also about 1/2 inch shorter than I used to be.

I have lost 1" in 20 years. My stems are shorter now, and shorter reach bars etc. I am 64 now. But still do not acclimate to shorter TTs for some reason. My long femur are still long, lost height in back, #typically.

I was a contractor and attribute my loss of height to disc compressions from all the lifting. Thankfully all cumulatively and similarly less thick with no trauma. Although a few down low cause issues if I have my saddle too high, yada.

[GregL]

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): longer and lower over time as I became a more experienced cyclist and developed a stronger core.

I began my life as an adult cyclist a few years after college at age 24-25. After a few short years, I had a arrived at a saddle height, setback, and crank length that worked for me. The only changes since then (30+ years) have been due to different shoe/pedal combinations that altered the saddle height a few millimeters to compensate for the pedal platform height and shoe sole thickness.

As I became a more experienced rider and competitor, my reach and drop to the bars have both grown longer. As a result, I ride smaller frames than I did years ago to allow more drop, but typically have longer stems to get the reach I prefer.

Greg

[robt57]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Over almost 50 years I have ridden the Bob Jackson stripped down with tubulars all the way to big HB bag and front panniers. Handles fine. It's slow when the front end is really weighted but once moving not a big deal. Was running 28-32mm tires when loaded, but the tubies were skinny BITD.

I guess I was [in my mind] intimating/digging for 'the low trail with front load weight" being self canceling. What is your experience with these with zero front load?


BTW, I was hoping this thread would be analytical going forward. And It does not disappoint...

[ripvanrando]

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

I think it's my muscle make up, drafting, and my racing "type" (crits with short hills being ideal).

My strong points are my sprint (which is an overt thing) but probably the most significant thing in my racing quiver is my ability to draft closely. After some online discussions (and accusations of being inaccurate) I realized that I draft much closer and accurately (wind direction) than most other racer. So for me, in a Cat 3 race, I might average 160-180w for an hour, and capped with a decent sprint (typically 1000w sustained, 1200w peak, not the 1800w number I've seen thrown at me), I can place top 5 or so, or win a field sprint.

My weak point is easy - I have terrible aerobic capacity. My FTP in my best years (upgraded to Cat 2 one of those years) were 218-220w. And my other weak point is I'm typically heavy. In the pictures above I was <103 lbs (I'd be 103 lbs 3 years later), 130 lbs, 168 lbs, and 180 lbs. So my w/kg is pretty bad, even when I was 100 lbs I couldn't climb, and I thought I would be a good climber.

So with that in mind...

I went on a regular group ride on a tandem, it has to be in the 2008 date range, maybe 2009. Riding with the Missus, who is not a "cyclist" per se but we get along well on the bike. I figured we'd struggle on some hills but if we could power over them then we'd be in good shape. Monday recovery ride with a local shop, no racers, and I could hold my own solo - I'd struggle on the longer hills (aka got shelled) but otherwise I was fine. I figured the tandem wouldn't be horrible. We'd probably get shelled on the 20 min grades but the short stuff would be okay and the flats and downhills should be easier.

To my absolute horror we got ridden off the wheels within 10-15 minutes (of a 2-2.5 hour ride), before we hit any real hills. And in the process I learned about something I do when sitting in a group.

On the tandem I found that I was making a short effort to close a small gap but that effort, due to the weight of the tandem+2people, would take extra long. In my mind I was thinking maybe one pedal stroke but each little dig extended to 8 or 10 revolutions. I blew sky high shortly after the ride started, and we got dropped. I adjusted so I wasn't trying to keep gaps as close but it was too late.

When I got back on the single bike, I realized that I made these "one downstroke" efforts to adjust the gap to the rider in front of me, reducing it by a couple inches or something. I did it all the time, sometimes multiple times a minute. I'd be pedaling relatively easy (for others anyway), 100-150w, but with the odd hard downstroke. I didn't really get feedback on the downstroke effort when I rode solo because the SRM didn't register it. But on the tandem (no SRM / powermeter so I'm guessing here) I was making multiple revolution efforts at probably 400-600w. This is not sustainable for me.

The 170s don't allow me to do a single downstroke to adjust those minor gaps. It takes me a full pedal stroke, sometimes two or three, and on the tandem it took 4 or 5 strokes. It's like doing over/under intervals, where you can't recover enough between efforts. Consequently I feel like I'm always out of breath, like I can't breathe well. And I find myself getting shelled in races within 8-10 minutes.

In each of those attempts to go to 170s (2008, 2011, 2016 was last time, then 2020) I would struggle simply to sit in. I'd get that "holding my breath" sensation early on, and 8-10 minutes later I was off the back.

When I put the 175s back on, I never had that "holding my breath" feeling. Sure, I was working hard, but not in a sense that I wasn't able to breathe. And this was immediate, like I'd race 170s on Sunday, decide to give up on them, switch cranks on Monday (with a short trainer ride to make sure they wouldn't fall off etc) then race Tuesday night. And that Tuesday would be like I was supercharged, I could sit in fine, I wasn't out of breath all the time, etc.

46 Kg, 220 watts FTP, 1200 peak power......no wonder you got to Cat 2, your sprint must have been off the charts.

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by rain dogs

Wait... what? 103lbs? Like One..Zero..Three? Is that an adult weight or is this a typing error?

If you're 100lbs, you only have to produce 227W to be climbing at 5W/kg which is pretty damn good W/kg

In the picture I'm 16. I was 103 lbs when I went to college (17-18). I was 112 lbs when I graduated. You'd think I'd have been a phenomenal climber, but typically I was the first to get shelled in the hills, at least as far as racing went (group rides weren't much better). It was quite frustrating. Reading all the stereotypical things about racers, I figured I'd be a climber, not a sprinter or a time trailer. And I had time trialer type friends, and what I thought were sprinter types as well.

I could barely bench 90 lbs in college, but I could do a lot of dips (like 30 or something) and around 10 pull ups.

During college I realized I could sprint. I definitely didn't train for it. But I realized this in one race where I did a sprint for a finish and thought I jumped a lap early because "no one else was sprinting". So I sat up, trying to recover a bit so I could sprint the next lap. And my teammate was on the side of the road screaming at me to "sprint to the line, sprint to the line". So I half heartedly sprinted to the line, hoping he wasn't wrong about the lap count as well. Ends up that he was right. I did jump on the last lap. It was just that when I jumped I thought no one else jumped.

Although I didn't realize it then, in that race where I'm 16 (first picture of my original response), in the final sprint the margin to the (small) group was huge. We were going for it because it'd have been a top 6 (we were going for 5th) and top 6 got points toward your upgrade. My teammate watched the field sprint - he's looking way to the left of the picture. He's watching the rest of the group rounding the last turn (I jumped just before it):


Weight, unfortunately, is not the only ingredient in being able to climb. It's also aerobic capacity.

[NHAero]

What I am saying is that in my experience a 73 HTA and 50mm of trail works fine all the way from a unladen bike with light tubulars to full touring front end loading. And no need for super short trail a la Jan Heine, where the bike then needs front end weight to steer OK.

Originally Posted by robt57

I guess I was [in my mind] intimating/digging for 'the low trail with front load weight" being self canceling. What is your experience with these with zero front load?


BTW, I was hoping this thread would be analytical going forward. And It does not disappoint...

[carpediemracing]

Originally Posted by ripvanrando

46 Kg, 220 watts FTP, 1200 peak power......no wonder you got to Cat 2, your sprint must have been off the charts.

I don't know what my power was when I was light. I assume the peak power was similar, because I was sprinting significantly faster than I am now, with less aero wheels (but by 1990 or so I was using aero wheels whenever possible). When doing sprints at SUNY Purchase Id' fit a rear disc and I often used Zipp 340s, 440s, Specialized TriSPoke, and Spinnergy Rev-X.

SUNY Purchase - the fast sprinters were hitting 42 mph on the slow days, 46 on the fastest tailwind days. The best sprinter there is now CEO of Zwift. But after him it was a toss up between me and a couple others. This was a slower day, 42-43 mph, fewer people around.


FTP... I don't think it was as good. I don't know. As a Junior I was pretty bad, but typically the winners of my races were riders like George Hincapie, Mark or Frank McCormack, guys who would turn pro, guys who were top 10 in the nation. It was all I could do to finish those races. I imagine that even a decent w/kg wasn't enough. For example, when I was 16, Pat Morrissey, a top 10 in the nation and essentially undefeated on the bike (he was between Hincapie and the McCormacks), lapped the Junior field solo in the state RR on a 5 km course. Pat Morrissey later raced briefly for some local very good teams before a back injury took him off the bike. So against guys like that... I was pretty bad.

In the Cat 3 races I did I often ran into the NY/NJ Cat 3 "mafia" (my nickname I just made up), a bunch of Masters who were former Olympic riders, former/current/future Masters crit/track national champions, guys who really should have been 2s (they're still around, still 3s, but now they're actually old enough that I can beat them every now and then). I remember one race where I was getting a massive leadout from a teammate (former Cat 2 so very, very strong), did a pretty sharp jump, and someone blew by me AS I WAS JUMPING like I was standing still. Like that kind of stuff never happened to me before, normally I was the one gapping people when I jumped. He got about 20 feet in front of me, turned around, stopped pedaling, and laughed. He would do a couple pedal strokes, look back, coast, then pedal a couple more. He did just enough to stay 20-30 feet in front of me. Then threw his hands up at the line. Again, against that kind of talent, it was very, very hard to get good placings. And back then only a top 6 got points, so if you got 7th you might as well have not started the race. There was a tremendous battle for the top 6 and I had to be lucky (certain riders don't show up) and fit (I can actually do a good sprint and be good/aggressive enough to be in decent position) to get upgrade points. I never earned enough points to upgrade until much later, when it became easier to earn points.

There was one race, Oyster Bay (same race as the 130 lbs picture) where I interrupted the "mafia" leadout train. I was to their outside, maybe next to their 3rd guy, going into a couple laps to go. They leaned on me until I went off the road. Luckily it was just a curb with yellow tape 3 or 4 feet off the ground. So I used a convenient driveway to get onto the grass, stretched the tape with my side/thigh/arm while I rode at 30ish mph on the grass, got to a point where I could jump back down, and put myself at the tail end of their train. I didn't do well in the sprint, I don't remember how it played out. That was 1990-1991, give or take. I think 1992 was my best race there (I got 4th - that was the race of the 130 lbs picture).

Racing was much dirtier back then. It was unusual but not unexpected to be shoved hard on your hip / shoulder / arm, hit on the helmet (backhand typically, sometimes forehand), etc. This is a shove contact between me and a rider that I'd consider a friendly rival (we laugh about this sprint). He was getting led out, his leadout guy started to slow, I jumped to the left, Nick jumped to the right. Pat looked around, figured I'd be easier to shove out of the way, so he shoved me pretty hard, pressed really hard with his forearm onto my shoulder, like it felt like bone on bone, it was hard. I shoved back, kept him boxed in, and sprinted away. And this was a friendly sprint! I beat them but we all got beaten - I got 4th. This is maybe 1997 or so, thereabouts. We hashed it out the following year, laughing about it. Then he came up on my inside in a sprint, and I contemplated closing the door on him, but decided not to. He beat me in that one. Anyway, this is the picture where his forearm is hard on my upper arm, this is maybe 200m to go in the race (Danbury, CT, the rectangular course).


The dirtiest was in NY/NJ to the point that I stopped going to the races. The normal "sprinting" thing, if you were't the best in the sprint, was to jump, then as the guy was behind you, you either brake checked him or, more likely, skipped your rear wheel sideways a foot or so. In one Prospect Park race a guy did that to me a couple times before I went around him. The first time he moved his wheel sideways I gave him a pass - I thought it was an accident. Then he looked back and did it again. So I just went around him, although he didn't make that easy either (he tried to shove me so I went around a very surprised USCF official at full speed). This is me at the finish, just about 200m later, for 6th in a hotly contested P123 race (I'm on the right - note the TriSpoke front wheel and "Carpe Diem" on the shoulders, and my bike throw beat everyone that was close to the line, although in the picture one guy already just crossed the line for 5th):


When I upgraded to 2 it was 2010. I was 158 lbs, 71.7kg. 220w FTP meant 3.1 w/kg. I felt reasonably unstoppable in the 3s but in the 123 races I did I was absolutely at the limit.

A Cat 3 race that I felt really, really good in. I was about 30 lbs lighter than the year before. I averaged 187w. I was riding my brakes on the hill on the easy laps because I didn't want people to think I was doping. My peak was 1200w, at the start of the race, in the sprint I didn't go quite as high, but I sustained a good sprint, like 1100w or something. I did some stupendous efforts in the race, especially a huge one where I hunt down one rider up and over the hill. Effort almost ended my race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqrPW4FWyQg

Same year, a 123 race that I could barely finish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPgvG_ccPmc

[ripvanrando]

I prefer a lot of trail to descend like on rails. I also don't like many of the new bikes with 73-74 degree STA on frames for 192 cm rider. Merckx and Lemond had it right with slacker STA or at least varying them by rider size unlike modern carbon where that angle is often fixed, obviously for cost savings purposes.

I'd love to have an old 62 cm Merckx with the Century geometry (and etap)

[Peter P.]

For context, I'm 5'6" and I ride smaller, 52-53cm c-c frames with a 54cm top tube.

Typically, frames in my size range have 73.5-74.5 seat angles. I never thought much about the rationale for steeper angles for shorter riders, and considered it standard. Never gave saddle fore-aft a second thought either. I would slam my saddle full rearward because it was "pro".

Long story short, for decades I suffered severe back pain while riding, and discovered it was because my saddle was full rearward! I now ride a bike with a 73 seat angle and my saddle roughly centered on the rails and decades of pain is gone.

For those same frame sizes I ride, they usually come with the oh so common 73 head angle and 43/45mm of rake. I never felt my bikes were nervous or twitchy but just that they steered faster than my poor reflexes. I now have a 72/50mm setup. It's not magical but it's definitely more calm and tolerates crosswinds better without flicking the front end around.

Again, the ubiquitous 7cm BB drop-I wanted to try the less common 8cm. I think the bike feels like it doesn't want to pitch over as easy; it likes the stability of staying as upright as possible. I'd go back to the 7cm if I had the chance but it's not a deal breaker.

Saddles-Here again; 145mm saddles were/are pretty much the most popular width out there. I tried a 130mm saddle and I was smitten! They look insanely narrow they provide a much better fit for my narrow hips.

I hope that's the kind of info you're interested in.

[NHAero]

For a 700Cx28, a 73HTA and 43-45mm fork rake gives trail values of 57.5-59.6mm. Dropping HTA to 72 and upping fork rake to 50mm gives a trail of 58.5. So trail hasn't changed if I understand you correctly.

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Snip
For those same frame sizes I ride, they usually come with the oh so common 73 head angle and 43/45mm of rake. I never felt my bikes were nervous or twitchy but just that they steered faster than my poor reflexes. I now have a 72/50mm setup. It's not magical but it's definitely more calm and tolerates crosswinds better without flicking the front end around.

I hope that's the kind of info you're interested in.

[spoonrobot]

All my bikes have been some flavor of "gravel bike" for several years so not talking regular road here.

Riding bigger bikes with shorter stems. "Normally" I ride a 54-55mm with 90-100mm stem and 42cm bars, but after a lot of experimenting I've found I like a much longer top tube like 59-61mm with 30-40mm stem and 50cm bars. It's sort of strange on the road but for whatever reason, it's really comfortable.

Only problem is, outside of custom, it's not easy to get that geo in a drop-bar bike.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by NHAero

For a 700Cx28, a 73HTA and 43-45mm fork rake gives trail values of 57.5-59.6mm. Dropping HTA to 72 and upping fork rake to 50mm gives a trail of 58.5. So trail hasn't changed if I understand you correctly.

I was comparing 73/45 with 72/50 and a 25mm tire. I only added the 43mm rake because 43mm rake seems to be the default. Using my numbers in the first sentence I realize it's only a 1mm difference in trail, but my intent was to increase the trail but not by a lot.

[ripvanrando]

I got a good laugh with Carpediem's NJ Mafia comment. I remember a few races thinking, "Who are these guys?"

Fast forward a few decades and returning to some racing, same old same old.

A perspective from the less pointy end.....the Mafia's key move in the old kids class and for a couple laps, it was fast and I am just barely hanging on during one race and survived to finish with the pack. Yippee for the pack fodder. Anyway, when the attack was over and many others were shelled. I look over to my right and say, "Thank God" and my buddy says, "No ****"

Nothing to do with geometry, probably a genetics issue with me.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

All my bikes have been some flavor of "gravel bike" for several years so not talking regular road here.

Riding bigger bikes with shorter stems. "Normally" I ride a 54-55mm with 90-100mm stem and 42cm bars, but after a lot of experimenting I've found I like a much longer top tube like 59-61mm with 30-40mm stem and 50cm bars. It's sort of strange on the road but for whatever reason, it's really comfortable.

Only problem is, outside of custom, it's not easy to get that geo in a drop-bar bike.

Can you post a picture of your bike, please?

[NHAero]

I get 58.7mm for the 73/45 and 57.6 for 72/50. Pretty close. And another mm of wheel flop for the slacker HTA.

Originally Posted by Peter P.

I was comparing 73/45 with 72/50 and a 25mm tire. I only added the 43mm rake because 43mm rake seems to be the default. Using my numbers in the first sentence I realize it's only a 1mm difference in trail, but my intent was to increase the trail but not by a lot.