Question about stand over and head tube

[Lee Legrand]

This is a question towards people who are involved in frame design but anyone can respond.  I have been thinking about this but it has been more academic than of practical use.   I have looked at bicycles on Flickr of MAP, Rene Herse, Grand Bois, Rivendell, Mariposa and others but I have always thought how can these frames have such headtube lengths with stand over of the top tube that fits the rider. It would seem that most bicycle should have a slight, slant towards the head tube from the seat tube to give stand over clearance while feet on the ground but my mind keeps saying that the stem should be much longer that what is shown in these picture.  You can only go so high on the top tube due to stand over and to get any adjustment for handlebar, it has to be mostly stem if you are somewhat of a average size person but the stem on these bicycle are not long at all.  In fact, they look sensibly and lend towards the aesthetics of the bicycle.  Can anyone explain that?

[Patrick Moore]

If I understand you correctly, you are asking why frames designed to get the bar high enough don't all have sloping tts to ensure adequate standover; otherwise, you have to jack your stem to non-normal heights. Is this right?

At any rate, I think it is clear that there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat (and isn't that a very weird idiom?). Here are 2 of them, both of which look far better than 12" of quill showing above the headset.

Note that the bar on the Herse was about 1" below saddle; that on the Matthews is really about 1/4" below saddle, not higher than saddle. But both frames allow considerable bar height without resorting to stems of absurd quill length.

1. 60 X 56.5 (both c-c) frame. 1958 Herse. *

2. 20" frame with 57 effective tt (both c-c). 2016 Matthews "road bike for dirt".

* I took the photo and posted it to the list several years ago. Bike Tinker Tarik Saleh liked the bike but was so appalled by the negligible quality of my photo that he took it on himself to clean it up. This photo courtesy of his Bike Tinker blog.

The Matthews photo is much as the Herse one was before Tarik fixed it. I hope he'll see this one, be suitably enraged, and fix it too. Thanks, Tarik.

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 9:33 AM, Lee Legrand <krm...@gmail.com> wrote:

This is a question towards people who are involved in frame design but anyone can respond.  I have been thinking about this but it has been more academic than of practical use.   I have looked at bicycles on Flickr of MAP, Rene Herse, Grand Bois, Rivendell, Mariposa and others but I have always thought how can these frames have such headtube lengths with stand over of the top tube that fits the rider. It would seem that most bicycle should have a slight, slant towards the head tube from the seat tube to give stand over clearance while feet on the ground but my mind keeps saying that the stem should be much longer that what is shown in these picture.  You can only go so high on the top tube due to stand over and to get any adjustment for handlebar, it has to be mostly stem if you are somewhat of a average size person but the stem on these bicycle are not long at all.  In fact, they look sensibly and lend towards the aesthetics of the bicycle.  Can anyone explain that?

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[Joe Bernard]

My 51cm Appaloosa has 6 degrees of rise to the headtube, then the headtube juts up an inch over that, plus the steerer adds another inch. So I get a couple inches of standover in front of the saddle, but don't need a tall stem because so much height has been added to the frame up front.

The front height can be duplicated for me with a mostly level toptube, but would require a 53 or 54cm seattube, robbing standover clearance. In the olden days this was a common setup..folks didn't concern themselves much with standover, they just rode big frames with slammed seatposts and stems.

Joe "not a frame designer" Bernard
Vallejo, CA.

[Garth]

It's just a matter of choice of the builder, the seller, and the buyer .  But why do we choose what we choose ?   Pick a story, any story ....after all . . .  it's just a story :)

[Lee Legrand]

I am asking how frame builders are designing bicycle that look the way they do, without sloping top tubes.  My mind says it is not possible without a high top tube, yet bicycle frame builders are designing frames that look like the Herse you have in this email.  Part of the reason I am thinking like this is that I have a old bicycle with a pretty flat top tube or looks like there is no slope in it at all, yet the bicycle requires a dirt drop to get the handlebar high enough.  The top tube is high so there isn't room while standing over it.  Its weird in my mind but I do have alot of seat post and stem to get me up there.  More than what is shown in the pictures you have Patrick.

[Joe Bernard]

Lee, if you're getting a lot of seatpost and stem showing, but little standover clearance, you're probably on a frame with a high bottom bracket and 700C wheels. For an extreme example of this you can search stuff about the Pashley Guv'nor. That bike is based on an ancient path racer design with a bottom bracket almost level with the rear dropouts, and when properly sized has no or even negative standover clearance.

I hope our answers have helped a little bit. There's quite a few variables involved, which is why folks like Grant work so hard to sort them out.

[Steve Palincsar]

On 01/15/2017 11:33 AM, Lee Legrand wrote:

This is a question towards people who are involved in frame design but anyone can respond.  I have been thinking about this but it has been more academic than of practical use.   I have looked at bicycles on Flickr of MAP, Rene Herse, Grand Bois, Rivendell, Mariposa and others but I have always thought how can these frames have such headtube lengths with stand over of the top tube that fits the rider. It would seem that most bicycle should have a slight, slant towards the head tube from the seat tube to give stand over clearance while feet on the ground but my mind keeps saying that the stem should be much longer that what is shown in these picture.  You can only go so high on the top tube due to stand over and to get any adjustment for handlebar, it has to be mostly stem if you are somewhat of a average size person but the stem on these bicycle are not long at all.  In fact, they look sensibly and lend towards the aesthetics of the bicycle.  Can anyone explain that?

Here's my MAP.  Level top tube, handlebar at seat height, fist full of seat post showing and acceptable stand-over for me.  This bike has a head tube extension and uses a Technomic Deluxe stem, which has a longer quill than was common back in the day, allowing the bar to be raised higher.  It fits me, as it ought to, as it's a custom made to fit me.  I'm not really sure I understand your question - for one thing, "long" when it comes to stems usually refers to the forward extension of the stem, and this bike has a 10 cm stem, which isn't "long" by any means, but forward extension doesn't have much to do with how high you would be raising the handlebar anyway.    You can see the headtube extension more clearly in the original size image.

[iamkeith]

If i understand your question correctly:

1) bottom bracket height matters a lot. For a given (& workable) standover height, the saddle can come down closer to the top tube with a corresponding drop in bottom bracket height, which then brings saddle and handlebar heights closer to equal - before even looking for other tricks like extended head tubes or tall stems.

2) the riders of most of the bikes you're looking at probably dont sweat the standover clearance (they're not "crotch-worriers" as riv terms it). It is likely much more minimal than you're used to.

3) most bikes fit better for people of average proportions, or those with long limbs (inseam) and short torso. Someone with shorter legs, of an otherwise identical height on an otherwise identically sized bike, might actually prefer the top tube to slope down from the headtube connection, and have more seatpost.

[Lee Legrand]

Hi Joe,

It is definitely a 700c wheel but the bottom bracket may be low compared since it looks somewhat like Steve P has on his.  The chain stay is not level with BB and is actually slanted downward to meet the bottom bracket.