Hello keepers of bike wisdom.
I have been looking out for a used full sus for a while, and found an absolute bargain of a Whyte T140 RS that I committed to buy (paid for) on ebay. Somehow I neglected to check the size - I am generally a solid medium. This bike is a large, and checking the geometry, it has a reach of 483mm. My current bike is a Santa Cruz Chameleon from 2018 in medium with a reach of 440mm. I'm not against longer bikes, and did want something a bit longer, but I'm a little worried now that I've made a bit of a balls up.
I'm 5 foot 9, I do have a positive ape index (wingspan a couple of inches bigger than my height) and relatively short legs for my height, so that's in my favour to some extent.
Can I adjust things like bars and stem, or is that fiddling around the margins and unlikely to make a big enough difference?
Plan B is take the bits off, sell the frame, get a medium frame for a different bike - I built up my Chameleon myself so I'm just about able enough to mess about with bikes like that.
Anyone else my height riding a big long bike?
Only way to know is to ride it and have a tinker although given that you wanted something longer I reckon you'll be fine. I spent years convinced large was my size until I realised XL was much better for me.
That's a big reach increase - how does the ett compare?
My mate had an Orange HT that was too big for him (and seemingly everyone else that tried it). It was horrible to ride. If I had to ride the wrong size bike, I think I'd rather it be a bit too small.
That said, it might be fine, dunno
Dont worry too much, you can always move it on again.
Give it a go, get an inline seatpost rather than a layback (if it has one), get a shorter stem, even one of those revolting zero reach ones?
slightly narrower bars buys you a bit of length back too.
as you say, you can even buy a new frame for the rest of the bits (poss even a new front triangle, if you can find one)
Or get Marino to make you a custom front triangle to fit the shock and alu back end!
That's a big reach increase - how does the ett compare?
^ this. With steeper STAs on (mostly) newer bikes, the ETT can be surprisingly short comparative to the increase in reach between two bikes. ETT matters for how stretched out you'll feel when climbing. I jumped up huge amounts of reach but the super-steep STA meant ETT barely changed. However, steeper STA put me in a better position for climbing with increased reach making general riding along and descending much better. It's all linked.
FWIW, Mrs a11y is 5'9 but with normal proportions and swapped from a medium 2016 SC Tallboy LTc to a large Deviate Highlander. Reach changed massively from 388mm to 473mm! But ETT only changed from 586mm to 630mm. She couldn't be happier.
Might be ok - I'm 5'8" and weirdly borderline between medium/large for a lot of bikes these days (its not like the olden days when a large meant something like a 19" frame!).
Yeah I'd ride it and see. I've gone from a medium 26" Rocket to a ML Bird Aether 9. That's a reach increase from 419mm to 485mm, and I couldn't be happier with it. I've always struggled with sizing 'cos I have short legs and long body, but with this I have the reach I want and I can still run a 170mm dropper (I was stuck with a 120mm on the Rocket).
And like some other folk have said, because the seat angle is steeper the ETT has only gone up by about 30mm, so it doesn't feel that stretched out seated. Plus I'm running a shorter stem.
The reach on your hardtail increases when you sit on it as the fork compresses, on a full suspension the reach decreases when you sit on it as the shock also compresses.
I went from a 450 reach hardtail to a 475 full sus and from memory they didn't feel that different. As said though, steeper seat angle reduces the reach when seated and you have the option of shorter stem and bars with more backsweep to tweek the reach.
Its a bit of a jump but once you adjust you might prefer it or you might not, it depends how and where you ride really
I tried/failed to add this pic to my earlier post as a visual example of reach vs ETT increase when the STA's steeper. Mrs a11y's old vs new. Reach is hugely increased but the relative increase in ETT is minimal - the wall bricks provide a good reference point:
Personally, I would say that you wouldn’t be able to fiddle with it enough. I’m a couple of inches taller than you and have tried large and medium frames, and I wouldn’t be able to get that reach to work for me. I’ve also played around with bars / ultra short stem etc on various bikes for my shorter wife and again, there are definite cut offs from our perspectives where the bigger bikes just don’t work.
Not much use, but we’ve had a lot more success with making smaller bikes fit and work well 😆
My only exception is our daughter, who should be on a kids size bike at 145 cm, but she loves adult small sizing that should be way too big, but kids 🙃 😬
Wow thanks for the responses, I'm less pessimistic about it now... the ETT will be 641mm, up from 626mm. Overall wheelbase up from 1,140mm to 1,249.5 which is quite a jump - although I guess full sussers naturally have longer wheelbases.
Hoping that I can tell the difference between "nice and long, just needs a bit of cockpit tweaking" and "just too big".
I'm 5'10 on a 485 reach bike. Spent years happily on a 445mm reach bike but appreciate the extra space now.
Try it and see how you get on, short stem and you should be fine I reckon
Yeah, give it a few rides and see how you get on. Bikes often feel a little different in person to the numbers on paper.
Plus, I think there's fun to be had on different size bikes anyway - I'm 6'2" and I used to have two hardtails at the same time, one with a 510mm reach and the other with a 460mm reach and both were great in their own ways.
I've gone from medium bikes to large with the numbers increasing each time (I had a medium SX Trail and Demo 8 before the Nukeproof but no useful numbers for those on the Geometry Geeks website). I'm 5'11" and all of them felt really good.
At 5'9" you're on the lower end of large and upper end of medium in Whyte's size guide so you should be fine, but you've bought it now so just ride and see how you get on 😉
Might be ok - I'm 5'8" and weirdly borderline between medium/large for a lot of bikes these days
Yep - me too.
I went from a Swarf Contour / Ragley BigWig, both in medium, Reach around 440, to a Bird AM in ML and Pipedream Moxie Long (Reach 475/470). Both bikes fit me much better. So, you might be OK
That said, my son's Whyte 150 in Large (no idea what the Reach or ETT are) feels just a little bit too stretched out ...
Also keep in mind that a hardtails reach gets longer as the fork sags whereas an FS stays more or less the same. That combined with the steeper ST/similar ETT, I’d bet you’ll barely notice.
Single geometry figures don’t really mean much in isolation.
I went from a medium Mondraker dune to a large yt jeffsy (also full 27.5 to full 29er so that was probably a factor in me not liking it) a few years ago, reach was within a few mm and around trail centre stuff the jeffsy was fine. Steep techy off piste stuff was where I couldn't get on with it, tried a shorter stem but ended up feeling like a passenger instead of a pilot and swapped most of the parts from the jeffsy to a medium Hightower frame after a year or so which suits me a lot better. I believe Sam Hill and Richie Rude are both 5'10 and used to race on a medium frame when the sponsors size charts would put them both on a large
I went from L to XXL on my last bike looking at reach values, it was fine, wheelbase was a bit long but it was such a planted and calm bike to ride!
I think OP you wont know till you ride it, then worst case you may need to shift it on.
If you've got a long back and long arms and like running very short stems then it might be a perfect fit!
Not had time to read the whole thread, but I think you’ll be fine. I’m the same height and have short legs too. I was convinced to go for a medium Whyte e-bike rather than a large and regretted it. Newer bikes have steeper seat tubes, so even with longer reach, can feel shorter the geometry would suggest when seated. On the medium, I always felt too cramped when seated pedalling. The only thing that might work against you, is Whytes tend to have a long seat mast, which might limit how long a dropper post you can use.
I wouldn’t be concerned by the reach, but would be by seat tube length and dropper stack/length.
found an absolute bargain
Is it stolen then? Or are they 5’ 9 and just bought the wrong size 😜
It's the correct size bike for you IMO. So long as seat tube is short enough to accommodate the length of dropper post that you want.
Update:
Rode my new bike today, on a familiar local trail (Haldon red & blue loops).
Observations:
It felt extremely stable and capable. So much grip!
Bermed corners were no slower. Flat tight corners were interesting - I feel like I had so much grip I could lean much lower, at one point losing my back wheel off the trail, but had enough grip on the front wheel to shrug it off. The insane amounts of grip (I guess from being a full suss, plus gnarlier tyres) offset some of the loss of agility. It was clearly less agile than my hardtail, but not a complete truck. I was still able to handle the bike OK.
It's noticeably heavier and slower up grindy climbs than my hardtail (probably obvious). Lifting it on to the rack on my car, it feels much heavier. I'd guess it's almost 3KG heavier. I definitely felt that. Very glad I didn't go for a longer travel/burlier bike (I was considering it, but 140mm rear travel feels like shedloads when you're used to none).
I suspect a medium may be a slightly better fit, but it was not obviously awful, and I'm not even sure about that.
A loop that took me 1h 5mins on my hardtail on Monday took me 1h 8mins, and I was more tired, but this kind of riding is pretty suited to a hardtail. I suspect it would be different if it was more techy climbs and descents.
Descending was lots of fun and I had ridiculously more confidence than before on sections that would have me tapping the brakes on my hardtail.
More riding needed before I decide what to do, but I suspect a few small tweaks might be enough... I'd really like to ride the same bike in a medium back to back so I can actually tell the difference! A relief, anyway.
Also the seat post is as low as possible in the tube and it's just about perfect... an inch bigger and I'd need a shorter travel dropper.
Great news that you didn't totally hate it!
Give it a while and getting onto a shorter bike will feel like being on a BMX. I'm 5'10, short legs and have ridden 'large' frames for a few years now. These have had a reach of 455 -> 478 -> 480 and find where I am now about the sweet spot (and my droppers are pretty much slammed in 170/180mm travel guise too). I did try a mates M/L Bird (500 reach) and this felt too long (though it had low rise bars which doesn't help).