Comments on: No Time to Fork Around

By: Padraig

Padraig — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:20:00 +0000

Dan, not sure who “pointed out to you” the 120mm stem, but it is, in fact, 140mm. It could be that the guy who was there with the tape measure and the selection of stems actually knows what he is talking about. Our contact at Specialized would never have mentioned it, had they not been so frustrated by the silliness of the request. They (the Special Ed staffers) measured Bettini’s bike up, down and sideways and delivered a properly sized bike. When he saw a 120mm stem, he immediately said, no, the bike was too big, that he needed the 49cm frame instead of the 52cm frame just so he could run a 140mm stem. They were incredulous. We wrote about it because it shows that the PROs can be more tied to the PRO look than us.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:59:00 +0000

It was pointed out to me, and I verified from photos, that Bettini's stem is 120mm, not 140mm. There's a "140" on the stem, but that's a model number, not the stem length.

For example, click here.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:55:00 +0000

I realize this is an old topic, but I found it when looking for info on Bettini’s geometry. 13cm stem — wow!

With respect to geometry, though: I think the factor is the angle of your back. Look in a mirror and rotate at the hips until your hips stop rotating, and further rotation would come at the expense of a flat back. There’s a decent position. Now rotate arms at the shoulder. You have a choice: long with higher stem, or short with shorter stem. Now Bettini has a long stem, but he’s riding a bike with an extremely short reach. But guys back in ‘89 were often on longer top tubes, with their arms way out in front, but with very similar back positions.

The focus should be on the back position. If your back is strained, it doesn’t matter how fashionable you look, you won’t be able to ride as well.

By: Bobke Strut

Bobke Strut — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:18:00 +0000

Recently I saw some video of the 1989 pro road worlds endgame and was struck by the PRO bike setups: nearly, if not all, bikes had their bars at the same height as the saddle and there wasn’t too much seatpost showing.

The first time I can remember really noticing the extreme saddle to bar drop was in a Colnago ad featuring Michele Bartoli. The frame looked like it had a normal top tube length, but the seat tube wasn’t very tall and his -17 stem had no spacers between it and the headset. The drops of his bars looked about even with his front wheel. What I also remember was the grimy drivetrain, it looked like he just came back from a rainy six hour recon of Paris-Roubaix. Maybe they were trying to show that Bartoli really rode the bike on display in the ad.