Thoughts on the Salsa’s new Warroad (no bird)?

Koyote wrote:

It also allows them to list just one tire clearance number. And it cheapens production cost. Sure. But the larger frames will also have different seat tube angles (and HTAs) to help with the handling.

But seriously, 401mm chainstays? You’d have to run 650b with smallish tires. And 452mm chainstays would make the bike handle like the Queen Mary.

I said that would be the numbers to get the font rear bias the same. Then I said: ‘it would be a good start if they made the small sizes 415 and the largest sizes 440mm’

The other thing  is that you can adjust this ratio in other ways, the Diverge for example, gets slightly longer stays as you go up in size, while steepening the headanlge and reducing fork offset. This shortens front center while retain the same amount of fork trail for similar handling. With a shorter front center, you don’t have to grow the rear center as much to preserve weight distribution, so overal wheelbase growth is reduced from both ends.
I actually did the same thing myself for my own mtb(I am 6’5”).

Yep, longer chainstays would make the bigger bikes carve a wider radius turn. This is perfectly acceptable in gravel riding or endurance road riding, (unless it’s a singlespeed event where there might be a cone slalom)and in fact, the longer wheelbase would reduce the effects of front or rear wheel slides, helping to control the bike, so could even be considered a  benefit.

You have to look at the use. In road and gravel riding, there are no tight turns, so the maximum wheelbase length is enormous(proven by pickup trucks driving there). The problem is not trying to get big frame sizes shorter, but trying to make small sizes longer. If we accept that fit is dictated by rider size, then the only way to adjust front center for any given rider is the combo of head angle and fork offset and there are limits there in how far you can go either way with that.
so once you have the longest possible front center on a small bike, you are limited by that as to how long you can make the rear center, and thus total wheelbase. That doesn’t mean a shorter wheelbase is better, it just means that there is a maximum length that will give decent handling, and with big wheels, it’s close to the minimum possible for smalle and medium frames/riders.

Mountainbiking  and maybe CX, is a different case. There are situations while mountainbiking where common bike wheelbases are longer than practical(wheelies, tight switchbacks, skinnies with corners).

The other thing is, this applies only to the largest sizes. No matter what, a very tall and very short rider will always have a differerent feel on their bikes.

chas wrote:

 

Canyon changes the wheel size in the smaller frames to keep the feel the same if your looking for a small frame.  Not everyone is a slave.  

But they still use the same chainstay length across the sizes - 415 for the smaller wheels and 425 for all the 700c sizes

drwelby wrote:

But they still use the same chainstay length across the sizes - 415 for the smaller wheels and 425 for all the 700c size

Yep, this is what I was referring to earlier, and it's pretty standard practice for most mfrs. Then they also adjust the STAs and HTAs and fork rakes as the sizes get larger, to (at least somewhat) keep the handling as desired. 

'Course, it's easy for me to accept this, since I typically ride a 58cm effective TT (or thereabouts), which is neither very small nor very large. And so the "standard practice" works okay for me. 

Koyote wrote:

 Then they also adjust the STAs and HTAs and fork rakes as the sizes get larger, to (at least somewhat) keep the handling as desired. 

It's more about fit and toe overlap and tradition and making the geometry chart look good - there's no way to keep the handling "as desired" since it's totally subjective and untestable - you can't put a short person in a tall person's body to make sure the handling is this same.

drwelby wrote:

It's more about fit and toe overlap and tradition and making the geometry chart look good - there's no way to keep the handling "as desired" since it's totally subjective and untestable - you can't put a short person in a tall person's body to make sure the handling is this same.

Sure, of course. I'm glossing over a lot, including a lot that I don't fully understand about geometry. Most mfrs do seem to try to keep the trail number pretty constant across sizes -- or some avoid that problem by not publishing the numbers.