I have been looking for a do it all kind of bike and decided on the Evans Pinnacle Arkose. Partly due to its build kit, potentially strip it in 12 months and buy a frame as in comparison to other bikes its got a lot better kit and secondly there is £100 on accessories and I can get a GoPro without Doris noticing to much!
As I am not used to this type of bike find sizing really awkward. I am 6ft but apparently slightly shorter leg longer bodied. My normal bike is a Spesh Epic Medium as when I tested this I felt stretched on the large and its comfortable.
However the medium Arkose felt cramped and when I stood on the pedals the frame felt about knee high and twitchy, that along with having to get the seat up a bit and therefore leaning more forward. The large didn't feel over stretched and I felt more in unison with the bike when getting on the pedals and more face forward.
Just worried as I am so not used to whats right. I did try a CAADX and that just felt poor in comparison that really suprised me.
Stand over height on the medium is OK and on the large its Snug to say the least but not intrusive.
Epics have a long top tube length compared to many other bikes, which means you may feel fine on a smaller size.
I'm 6ft and large seems to be a good fit from the majority of manufacturers. The effective top tube measurement tends to be the critical one - 600mm or 24" is about right. You can fine tune this to your own proportions later by altering the stem length, which is easy.
You need to watch stand over if your legs are a bit short. This will vary frame by frame.
Short legs + longer body should mean longer frame than recommended for your height so definitely a large (24"TT). Longer if you want to put a short stem on it.
Thanks guys, I felt more "at one" with the bike on the large but was thrown by having a medium in another bike and wasn't sure. Just after a sanity check, on frame size that is!