It's interesting that you bring up tandems. Tandems do have their own requirements – they should not react much to weight shifts, since the captain cannot anticipate when the stoker reaches for a water bottle or scratches their nose – but the best tandems are as nimble at speed as a good single bike. (At very low speeds, you do notice the long wheel base, because the turning radius is larger.) Here, too, front-end geometry is more a determinant of handling than wheelbase. It would be interesting to ride a René Herse Chanteloup tandem with a curved rear seat tube and ultra-short wheelbase back to back with a standard tandem from the same maker with the same front-end geometry, but significantly longer wheelbase... I have ridden both, and both are excellent, but never back-to-back to make direct comparisons.
Jan Heine Editor Bicycle Quarterly http://www.bikequarterly.com Follow our blog at http://janheine.wordpress.com/ On Saturday, November 2, 2013 9:24:04 AM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote: > > On Nov 2, 2013, at 9:48 AM, Jan Heine <hei...@earthlink.net <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > > You are right! The LHT does have LONG chainstays... Most touring bikes I > have measured were classic machines that had shorter chainstays than that. > My old Mercian tourer had a wheelbase of 1028 mm. Of course, the main > determinant of wheelbase is top tube length - a large frame will have a > longer wheelbase. I should have said that I was referring to bikes that fit > a 6' tall rider like me - otherwise, the wheelbase measurement becomes > meaningless. > > Mainly the longer chainstays are intended to allow the use of larger/lower > panniers with less chance of your heels hitting them. I think that a lot > of people equate that with a slower handling bike, perhaps not recognizing > that the steering geometry of a loaded tourer tends to be different than a > road bike, 'cross bike or mountain bike. > > If you want the comparison in extremis regarding wheelbase consider a > tandem or a triplet (although there the front end geometry tends to be > different). -- 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/groups/opt_out.
