What stem is on your Mercian? Looks unfamiliar to me, but it's interesting. On Apr 17, 2014 4:24 PM, "gunnara" <gunn...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Michael, i'm 6'4" and heavy enough for my size, i had at least 6 bikes > with normal tubing, most of them didn't fit me very well. Then i got a > Roberts with all the important numbers similar to a 65 hh, also the > oversized tubing, for the first time. It fits fine, I liked how stiff it > felt when going up The hill, how well it carried my groceries and so on. > But my neck started to ache, I looked for bigger tires, lowered the > pressure - same as the Rivendell people seem to do. A stiff frame with soft > tires feels funny, and my neck still hurt, so I ordered a new Custom, this > time a Mercian, normal sized tubing, Reynolds 631 which is softer and more > comfortable. I went for a low trail geo 73.5° 59mm which is about 40mm of > trail. Low 80mm bb, 72° seat angle. TT is now 61.5 , stem is 132mm > horizontal. I love my bike. I enjoy cycling on rough city paths, towpaths > by the river, rough gravel roads in the forest. The bike feels stable and > fast, down the mountain, in the storm, on icey roads with my Conti premium > winter tires in 700 37 c. With a big load of groceries the bike feels a bit > soft, it's not made for going off road with a heavy load but with the stuff > I need for one day outside it's fine. The bb feels stiffer as with my old > 531 frames, the cs are bigger, at least at the end of the bb and the custom > bb lug stiffens everything up. I don't care about tire pressure any more, I > pump them hard, drive for a month or two and when it gets too soft I pump > it up again. Lowtrail geo is fine, at first I had to take care when turning > around, but I fast got used to the more responsive geo and I don't want to > miss it. Have a look at my bikes > https://www.flickr.com/photos/40626759@N06/ the Mercian now has a > Speedhub but could also be used with other components, I really like it to > be flexible and not being stuck to one system like you are with vertical > dropouts. My neck is much better now, I come home because I'm exhausted and > not because something aches, and the next day I go back on the road. The > tubing of my Mercian is light, the ss is thinner, forkblades are thinner > and you can feel the tt moving when touching it and pulling the bike > around, it feels alive. Given my size and 225 pound some people would say > it's impossible, a local frame builder completely refused to build for me > but when I think back, my 80s Bridgestone was taller and longer, had a > softer bb and in that time it was totally normal. So why shouldn't it work > these days with better tubing, custom lugs etc. So have a nice time looking > for a custom builder. I'm fine with Mercian and would always go back there. > Best regards, Gunnar. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
