Hi everyone,
I'm thinking about buying a new bike, I bike in Colorado's front range and sometimes in summit county, and my only experience is a older 29er hardtail. (This one specifically.) Size Large. I've biked on it for years now so I'm quite comfortable on it.
I have been looking into Trek's Fuel and Top Fuel as a second bike, and the Fuel rides very strange to me. I have only ridden it in a parking lot, but when trying to make turns or move around on the bike I feel like I have to move myself quite far forward when trying things like flat turns (outside pedal down) to feel balanced on the bike. Is this normal? It felt a bit exposed to me like if I hit a bump I'd get thrown forwards.
For comparison, I tried the Top Fuel and felt relatively comfortable on it immediately (though there's a slightly strange feeling to it I can't describe.)
by Teh_Original
1 Comment
ya longer modern bikes often have balance that skews to more bike in front of you. both reach and head tube angle cause this. some brands balance the bike out better with long chainstays. some brands dont. Trek is kinda average with CS lengths last I checked.
This imbalance gets exaggerated in sizes L and XL and such.
small and medium are usually much more balanced. only a few brands scale chainstays for each size. most brands will just pick a size like 435mm and run it on every size. meaning a size small with like 425 reach will be super centered… a size XL with 500mm reach will feel like a BMX bike (exaggeration)
most people will adjust to any bike. I wouldn’t fret about minor details. if you were to not be able to adjust to a bog standard Trek… I’d be worried lol. Those bikes are often the most normal in the industry. It gets way weirder