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It slightly concerns me you are involved in a frame building company but don't understand bike fitting.
There is a fit triangle (saddle, bars and bb assuming same crank length) and this can be rotated about the bb. One thing people don't rotate the orientation when rotating the fit triangle is the saddle angle, perhaps the saddle is also helping to keep your pelvic girdle more upright, which may also reduce the weight on your hands.
You may find that because you are just doing short rides on the Klein you are pedalling harder so putting less weight into your hands/neck/shoulders. The shape and orientation of the hoods may also be encouraging a better shoulder orientation and posture.
The lower front end may also be making you more aero and faster. It may also just be new bike syndrome.
Have you actually measured the contact point orientations?
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dancing james
Riddle me this, Internerdz.
I've been riding my Klein Criterium for the past couple of days, and it's been rather eye-opening.
It's (by what I thought I knew) too small for me - it's a 56, so I've got a 130mm stem on it.
However, the front is low- properly low, so I was expecting this to be a bit uncomfortable.
It's so pretty i was prepared to forgive it this foible.
But - it's really comfortable. It's also really, really fast.
Now I started thinking about that on the way home - the why is it fast - and it's stiff, but so are my other bikes, this had to mean that I felt that putting out the power was easier.
Tootling round Dulwich Park I considered this, now one thing that always happens on my other bikes is that when I'm on the drops and really cranking my knees hit my chest.
Not on the Klein - a lot of clearance between quad and rib.
My thinking is that I've got a much more open hip angle due to being further forward, hence the lower front being fine and the chest/knee thing not happening as I'm essentially rotated forward around the BB in relation to my other bikes.
Oddly, also, and this might just be the short nature of the rides, but I've suffered from dreadful shoulder pain for years now, which I blamed on having a lot of weight on my hands, but on the Klein, despite definitely being quite far forward and having a fair amount of weight on my hands I'm not suffering from the usual pain at all.
Pain:
No pain:
