how are bikes measured?

Ablang said:

When people say a bike is 16" or 27", what are they talking about?

Dear Ab,

Presumably they are talking about very small, very rare children's
highwheelers.

The front wheel of a 52' highwheeler stands fifty-two inches high,
including tire.

The size is often stamped on the left side of the fork and neck
assembly:

http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hr1ruecken200gif.gif

:-)

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Ablang said:

When people say a bike is 16" or 27", what are they talking about?

Bikes such as those available at Target, K-mart, Walmart and the like
are often described by wheel size. In the above examples, you would
have bikes with (approximate) wheel diameters of 16 and 27 inches.

A more useful measure, used for better bikes and actual bike shops, is
the seat tube length which is measured from the center of the bottom
bracket to the center of the junction of the top tube and the seat tube.
In the case of a so-called compact frame with a sloping tube, the upper
point is the virtual junction of the seat tube, or seat post, with the
point where the top tube *would* join it if it were level.

--
Ted Bennett

Ted Bennett said:

Quoted message said:

A more useful measure, used for better bikes and actual bike shops, is
the seat tube length which is measured from the center of the bottom
bracket to the center of the junction of the top tube and the seat tube.
In the case of a so-called compact frame with a sloping tube, the upper
point is the virtual junction of the seat tube, or seat post, with the
point where the top tube *would* join it if it were level.

Nowadays it is common to state the above measurement in centimeters.
It's not hard to figure all this out. In my case, I went to a bike shop
looking for a new or used bike and figured out that there was a pretty
narrow range of sizes that really fit me.

In article <[email hidden]>,

catzz66 said:

Ted Bennett said:

Quoted message said:

A more useful measure, used for better bikes and actual bike shops, is
the seat tube length which is measured from the center of the bottom
bracket to the center of the junction of the top tube and the seat tube.
In the case of a so-called compact frame with a sloping tube, the upper
point is the virtual junction of the seat tube, or seat post, with the
point where the top tube *would* join it if it were level.

Nowadays it is common to state the above measurement in centimeters.
It's not hard to figure all this out. In my case, I went to a bike shop
looking for a new or used bike and figured out that there was a pretty
narrow range of sizes that really fit me.

Road bikes are generally sized in centimetres, but mountain bikes are
generally sized in inches. Owing to the oddities of compact geometry and
(on the MTB side) suspension frames so complex they sometimes have no
seat tube to speak of, road, MTB, and other frames can be listed as pure
letter-sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, etc.)

BMX has its own sizing nomenclature, but it is too silly to explain.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

Ablang said:

When people say a bike is 16" or 27", what are they talking about?

Yeah, we wonder that too.

Either wheel size (children's bikes start around 16 inches, older format
road bikes were often 27 inches)) or frame size (16 is roughly a 41, 27
is above most production model sizes, something like 69-ish)
--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 12:29:37 -0700 (PDT), Ablang <[email hidden]> may

have said:

When people say a bike is 16" or 27", what are they talking about?

It depends on who is talking, and what they are describing.

Much of the time, an "inch" designation will refer to the tire size
group; this gives you a braod but nonspecific indicator of the overall
size of the bike. 26" and 27" are usually (but not exclusively)
considered "adult" bikes. 24" is usually a kids' bike; 20" may be a
bike for children or a small all-terrain bike of the "bmx" type. 16"
is almost always a bike for very small children...but 16" and 20"
wheels are also employed on compact and folding bikes made for adults.

Sometimes an inch designation will refer to some specific facet of the
frame size; if you see an ad for an 18" Trek 830, for instance, the
18" is referring to the distance from the center of the pedal shaft to
the top of the seat tube on the frame. The dimension that is
specified in such cases may or may not be labelled as to what it
applies to.

Metric designations in centimeters generally refer to a frame
dimension of some sort, of which the two most common are seat tube
length and top tube length.

Yes, it can be confusing, particularly when those providing the
numbers have obtained the wrong ones.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.