Forum menu
56cm road bike for 5ft 11, dwarf legs, long back, good fit. Assumed 56cm cross bike (same brand, Boardman) but seems that 54cm might be better. Med is an inch shorter on the TT and an inch less on Seat Tube. I have to run long (120ish) stems on road bikes due to gibbon arms, so assumed large. Not so sure now.
Neither of my localish halfords have either built up (but helpfully will see me a bike as long as I don't actually want to try it for size first 😉 ) so not much use there.
Any sizing tips? Ta.
I've got a cross bike slightly bigger than my road bike, with wider bars. If you are racing, a small frame is trickier to shoulder, so I would go same size.
I have a Boardman CX Team. I'm 5'11" with a 32" inside leg. The large (56cm) fits me spot on, but there's not a huge amount of standover - if you have short legs the medium (54cm) with maybe longer stem and layback post may be the way to go.
Thanks both. Looks like I'm on the cusp then. Same height as you Gilo but probably half an inch shorter on the leg 😉 Think I'll have to find somewhere that has both in stock to try.
Where are you Alex? If in / near Bristol you're welcome to try mine.
Gilo - that could work very well. Fella who wants to buy my road bike is meeting me there. I'll be in touch when I've sorted the date. Thanks.
Any sizing tips?
In the old days!!! The general rule was to ride a CX bike smaller than your road bike.
To quote Simon Burney, "Ideally you should choose a position 1cm lower and 1cm shorter". He goes on to say that the best way to acieve this is to use a frame smaller by those amounts so that you can use the same stem and seatpost.
HTH SB
5ft 11 Here on a 56 Uncle John,spot on.
I am better informed but no less confused 🙂 I'll give Gilo's a try and see how it goes. My 56 road bike I need to run with quite a long stem as I said so slightly concerned about going down a size. But when I started MTBs (all those years ago), I bought 19/20 inch frames which were the right length but too tall really. That's why I like my ST4, Low and Long.
Anyway clearly I'm going to have significantly more dithering before deciding 😉
I think some manufacturers alter their geometry though. So that the same nominal size will fit you for either discipline.
Read the thread on road bike sizing it is easier to size up with components than it is to size down.
FWIW I have a 54cm cx and a 56cm road bike from Focus and I'm 5'10". Although based on my experiences now I would buy a 54cm road bike, slide the saddle back and put a longer stem on as I think I would get a better fit.
Could you get halfords to advise you on the size and then you might have some comeback if they built it up and it was wrong? Or do they have other bikes in the road range built up. It may give you some idea to sit on the 54 and 56 road bike and then compare the geometry to the CX?
I often go into shops for bikes because you get to try the bikes out but with service like this you can see why people are happy to take a punt with Canyon. If you are buying blind you may as well buy off the net for cheaper!
The Boardmans do confuse things by being about the longest cross bikes for size you can get.
Their Medium says it's a 53cm which in theory sounds perfect for me (5'10 with a 32" inside leg), but at 55.5cm top tube and 110mm stem length it's the longest available.
Then comes the Konas, then everyone else.
The medium Boardman felt long to ride for me too. But as I haven't got any experience at all with road bikes, I just assumed it was normal. Until I looked into it in more detail.
I couldn't try a small.
AlexS - I wasn't aware that Boardmans were significantly longer than other cx bikes (havn't compared geometries).
I like to have a very similar position on my 'cross bike as I do on my road bikes (albeit a tad shorter reach to enable getting off the back a bit easier) and I like them quite stretched out - so my Boardman CX Team feels fine for me.