Joe's comment got me thinking, and I realized I never really said what I meant to say about the qualities of long bikes. I really didn't mean to meander off back to Leah's bike fit, and stem shopping. My bad ...
*The opinions expressed in this opinion are entirely opinions. I'm not trying to disagree with anyone. Just my interpretation of my experience of long bikes.* The thing I like about long bikes is swoopiness. I may try to describe swoopiness, if anyone wants, but maybe everyone knows what I'm sayin', and I'll leave it at that. It's the feeling of riding that I find enhanced by the long Rivs. I'm speculating about geometry, but maybe swoopiness comes from the combination of how far in front of the back wheel you are and how far behind to front wheel you are. Also, the bike has to maintain a somewhat normal riding position to qualify as a bike, so seatstay angle and length have a fairly narrow acceptable range. I've been trying to figure out exactly how chainstay length relates to that. Grant says 'stability' right? I think basically more bike out back increases the bike's tendency to return to vertical. Maybe it has to do with mellowing the impact changes in rider weight when dancing on the pedals and steering with thighs and hips in a way that makes it easy to ride standing up no hands, or to use your hips as leverage for countersteering when digging into a curve. Like, you can just sit down into the bike and get it turning, but you have to push the handlebar pretty hard to keep it from stabilizing. Long top tubes put the rider further behind the front wheel, which may also reduce the impact of rider movements/minor imbalances on the steering. Slacker head tube angles may play a role, but it's not everything. Riv makes swoopy bikes that aren't particularly slack these days, and there are very slack modern MTBs that aren't exactly swoopy. But head tube angle does impact how straight the wheel tracks, so it's another factor in stability. So the swept back handlebars are an answer to a long effective top tube, but they also make it possible to run a long stem. And IMO stem length enhances the swoopy effect. It may give more leverage for countersteering. I really don't know. Maybe the more leverage for countersteering that's built in to the setup, the less it feels like you actually have to push to keep the bike leaning. So maybe upping leverage keeps the swoopiness and minimizes the perceived effort of swooping. So, long effective top tubes, long chainstays, long stems with very swept back bars make swoopy bikes. Assuming the front end geometry is complimentary. I like swoopy bikes, but I doubt everyone does. Swoopy bikes are easy to ride standing up with no hands and they are easy to carve turns while going fast down double track. Fun to jump up and down on the pedals and howl at the moon or stand up and surf on the top tube. All the added stability of length makes sure the the bike returns to vertical anytime a swoop gets out of hand, but add a bit of effort during the swoop. Drw, The MTBubbe is less swoopy than the Baby Bike. The MTBubbe feels quicker in terms of handling and acceleration, but it may not be. As a townie, I'd take the Baby Bike for sure. Touring or mountain biking would really be splitting hairs between the two and would depend on the specific ride. That's assuming the tubing was up to the task. The 45 Clem L is way too small for me, but I can tell that it'd swoop for someone. My wife loves it, in a way she's never loved any bike, but I've never asked her if she thinks it swoops. She rides it like it swoops though. Paul -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/3ed97973-c1d2-4d0d-98ea-e6a776713359%40googlegroups.com.
