Bike porn

Notice that too, cheer.

75 degree seat tube is definitely an idea angle for an audax frame.

Steep seat tubes and short chains make good courier bikes - hence the fashion.

Now, with the sudden realisation that you're allowed to make the chainstays from something meatier than ¾" tapering to ½" thin walled steel tubes, it's hard to see why the fashion for short chainstays persists.

Grant is a promoter of short stays?
I thought, compared to modern bikes, Rivendells were longer.

Read it again.

the marks around his name threw me off

Now, with the sudden realisation that you're allowed to make the chainstays from something meatier than ¾" tapering to ½" thin walled steel tubes, it's hard to see why the fashion for short chainstays persists.

Because a longer chainstay would make the wheel base longer and effect the handling.

I think what christofk and tester were kindly trying to point out is that it's not generally considered OK to post your own bike in bike porn. Put it up in current projects somewhere and then be flattered when someone else post it here.

It's suffering from the same problem as the latest range of Cervelo bikes. Manufacturers are increasingly giving high end road bikes more comfortable upright geometry to meet the market demand for sportive bikes with all the gear but no long and low racing position.

Edit: actually comparing the hight against the horizontals on the brick wall behind suggest that a -17 deg stem would give a pretty decent drop.

Yes http://images04.olx.com/ui/1/96/48/10088848_1.jpg

Understood!

Because a longer chainstay would make the wheel base longer and effect the handling.

More stable, better traction, better climbing and descending can all come with a longer wheelbase.

Some would say it does't feel as fast/fun though, nor good for nipping round London buses.

Because a longer chainstay would make the wheel base longer and effect the handling.

It's affect, and the effect would be largely positive as explained by miro_o above.

Anyway, we're talking about small changes here; eliminating 25-30mm of seatpost layback while maintaining clearance between tyre and tube only needs about 10-15mm of extra chainstay length, so no more than 4%. Nobody is suggesting we all ride Bauer's 1993 Roubaix bike. 10mm change in stem length makes more difference to handling, and nobody turns a hair at the idea of using stems from 80mm to 120mm on road bikes to tune fit and to hell with the (insignificant, as it turns out) handling issues. The extra length also improves gear shifting and reduces drivetrain wear by reducing the chain angle, by way of another marginal benefit.

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A change of wheelbase of 15mm is very easy to test if you have a frame with track ends and a good test at that as all else stays equal.

Add or remove a link or two and go and see if you can tell the difference. Be interesting to do a blind test as whenever I have changed my wheelbase I can't say I noticed any difference.

In my experience fork rake combined with head tube angle, stem length and height and seat position (fore/aft) all make a noticeable difference but not 10 or 15mm on chain-stay length.

http://www.pelizzoliworld.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Schermata-2012-10-16-a-22.29.27.png

More stable, better traction, better climbing and descending can all come with a longer wheelbase.

Some would say it does't feel as fast/fun though, nor good for nipping round London buses.

aye and being a smallish dude on a really light frame with short wheelbase/chainstays accelerating in the drops can sometimes see your rear wheel slip a bit. especially on the wet, wich really sucks.

^^ nice paintjob!

Never thought I'd say it but I really like this Trek.

Never thought I'd say it but I really like this Trek.

stripped the us postal livery and repainted it black huh :D

aye and being a smallish dude on a really light frame with short wheelbase/chainstays accelerating in the drops can sometimes see your rear wheel slip a bit. especially on the wet, wich really sucks.

Longer chainstays will actually make that worse, one of the few detriments of the change.

Depends how steep the climb is.

;)

No, it doesn't. Wheelspin is only one of the problems on a climb, keeping the front wheel on the ground is the other. Longer chainstays help with the latter, but never the former. As a corollary to our old friend maximal braking deceleration, maximal resistance to wheelspin is achieved when the front wheel is touching, but not pressing on, the ground. It's nearly always possible to move your body to keep the front wheel down, in fact the climbing attitude when the going gets especially tough usually results in far too much weight over the front, so shortening the back of the bike (or moving the front wheel forward, by adding top tube length and correspondingly reducing stem length) is generally desirable if wheelspin is your problem. Of course, it is so infrequently a problem (on a road bike, at least) that compromising everything else to prevent it is a poor bargain.

If I remained seated I had to hook my little fingers round the brake levers to move forward far enough to keep the front wheel on the tarmac in some places on Zoncolan.

i.e. if I held onto the hoods as normal the front wheel came off the ground.

Yes, that's a situation in which the predominant problem on the climb is tip, not grip, and that's the issue that longer chainstays would alleviate.

But if your wheelbase is longer and bike less willing to lift at the front you can then sit down in the saddle/dip-your-heals etc and that give better traction no?