I was playing around on bikotic and I tried comparing two bikes with quite different geometries: the new Canyon Grizl and the 2023 Topstone Carbon. Now, the Grizl seems to have a shorter stem (following the trend) but longer hoods, while the Cannondale the opposite. In the end from what I can see the hands rest on the hoods more or less at the same horiztal position. Now my question is: is this true or just an impression I get from the tool? And if that's true does it really make sense to have a shorter stem if all in all the hands are at the same distance from the steering axis?
by m00ram
4 Comments
Longer hoods can be more comfortable in the aero position. Probably wont have an effect on steering if the distance from hands to steerer tube is the same.
This is kind of the same thing as longer reach on the bars.
Longer reach on the bars or longer hoods increases the difference between your hood position and your bar top position.
If you keep shrinking the stem and keep making the bar reach longer and/or the hoods longer eventually you end up with your bar top position feeling weird on some bikes. But if they do the rest of the front end to match what they pick it ought to be fine in all the positions.
There has been some pretty big changes in this over the years. Go back 20-25 years and the reach from the tops to the hoods was quite a bit longer. 2-3cm difference. A lot of the hoods back then were shorter, to the point they weren’t comfortable if you had big hands. But they weren’t so much shorter as to make up for 2, 3, or even 4cm more reach in the bars. They did that horrible thing where they angled the top of the bar down to the hoods and then had a severe hook with the way they setup the hoods. Yuck. I remember getting my first bike in 2000 and the stock setup was like that and it immediately gave me some really sharp wrist pains because my hand didn’t fit in the hook and the shop set it up more like a modern bike.
Google Aero Breakaway Bar from Speeco. This concept extended to the maximum before UCI banned it.
I don’t think the new hoods are really much longer in practice. They look only a couple mm longer than my force mechanical hoods