Without trying to upset anyone, would it be fair to say the Stumpy’s developed a bit of a fuddy-duddy image in recent years anyway? Seems to be what the Americans might call a “dentist bike”.
Duno, I’ve never thought of it like that.
It’s a 135mm trail bike with a 66.5deg head angle, it’s not quite an Elsworth.
I suspect that (as you confess) people who geek out about reach numbers aren’t going to be swayed anywhere other than towards Bird’s. geometrons etc. It’s the currently fashionable easily quantifiable bike stat du jour.
In the 90’s and early 2000’s it was weight, you couldn’t possibly ride anything over 30lb, and if it was over 25lb it was for poor beginners only.
Around 2005-2010 it was travel, less than 100mm was decried as unrideable, 5″ became a trail bike and 6″ was what you really wanted for an all round bike (unless you actually tried to pedal a ~2005 150mm travel bike up a hill).
Then it was wheel size, which morphed into head angles and fork offsets.
Now it’s reach.
What do all those have in common? They were all spearheaded by some left of center brands, they all went a bit bonkers (drillium cranks, 170mm trail bikes, 29+), they were taken up by a lesser extent by the mainstream and then all got scaled back to something a bit more ‘normal’ when the next big thing came allong.
I would of liked a 450 for a large, however the 445 reach matches the Yeti SB5.5 which is a solid bike. There will be an evo model so it is likely the reach will be pretty aggressive on that.
Be honest, the reason most bikes go up in 15-25mm increments is that’s about as small an increment as actually has any effect.
I don’t put my winter gloves on and suddenly become more stretched out because they add 5mm of padding.