I'm about to buy a Salsa Warbird frame, and my head is swirling with trying to get the most appropriate fit. I am a very weird fit--I'm 5'10", 32" inseam, but my saddle is about 31.5" above my crank axle (on my custom road bike, which feels pretty good). Most bike shops say my saddle height suggest someone who is 6'2" to 6'4". And my reach is somewhat short (because of both a short torso and previous cervical and lumbar back fractures, and severe thoracic spine arthritis)--meaning my upper half is both short and doesn't bend very well. In general, I am good with the bars lower than my saddle (but not a lot), but my saddle ends up being so damn high because of my fit, and larger frames don't work because of the increased reach. Smaller frames have the issue of an okay reach, but the bars are too low (even with all the spacers, and a 17 degree stem).
So Salsa offers two very similar Warbirds, as follows:
What I need to be able to do is minimize the bar drop below the saddle height. Not sure I can sort that out from the stack/reach spec, but I'd love thoughts.
Love those Warbirds - good choice. Carbon or aluminum?
First of all, I'm no expert on fit but have picked up a bit of useful information and experience over the years. As most would say, I would recommend you try to test ride them both if possible. But, I'll assume that's not possible. You may however find something close in a road frame that you can try. When I ordered my X-Trail it was so new than nobody had them - but Performance had a couple of Fenix models that were almost identical so that helped me a lot.
So, a couple of thoughts. Generally, I recommend to match the size as close to your current road bike as possible. Often, I use the effective (horizontal) top tube length as frame sizes are measured in so many different ways it's hard to compare. But, you seem to be well versed in stack & reach which is even better. I, my friends, and other adventure riders like to go with short(ish) stem and with a positive rise - much like most current mountain bikes. So that should help you with the reach. Next, if you are trying to keep the seat to bar distance small, then larger frames works better for that - it keeps the seat low (to the top tube) and the bars higher as generally the head tube is longer as frames get bigger. Comparing the 2 sizes, the stack is 23 mm higher and the reach is only 8mm longer. So I would think the larger size would be better for your leg length and the slightly longer reach can be offset by more spacers on the steerer, a short(er) stem and one w/a large positive rise angle. Finally, a call to Salsa may help and a visit to a professional fitter may be a good thing too.
BTW, my road bikes are generally 52x53 so I usually look for a bike with a top tube of around 53 - say 52.5 to 53.5. I'm ok with a little shorter but don't like longer. I have a riding buddy, w/a Diverge, built much like you. He generally sizes his bikes big and his seat is still very high. But I don't think he has an flexibility issues either.
Plug the numbers of the two Warbirds and your road bike into bikegeo.net and mess with different stems and spacer amounts to see what you have to do to get the position you would like relative to the roadie.
drwelby--What an awesome site!!! Thanks. I was able to enter the measurements of my current road bike (it is a custom, and my build card doesn't have everything I needed, but I was able to get reasonable estimates by measuring it myself). It clearly shows I need the 56 cm frame, about 40mm a spacers, and a 17 degree stem. Then it matches up very closely.
64Chevy wrote:I'm about to buy a Salsa Warbird frame, and my head is swirling with trying to get the most appropriate fit. I am a very weird fit--I'm 5'10", 32" inseam, but my saddle is about 31.5" above my crank axle (on my custom road bike, which feels pretty good). Most bike shops say my saddle height suggest someone who is 6'2" to 6'4". And my reach is somewhat short (because of both a short torso and previous cervical and lumbar back fractures, and severe thoracic spine arthritis)--meaning my upper half is both short and doesn't bend very well. In general, I am good with the bars lower than my saddle (but not a lot), but my saddle ends up being so damn high because of my fit, and larger frames don't work because of the increased reach. Smaller frames have the issue of an okay reach, but the bars are too low (even with all the spacers, and a 17 degree stem).
So Salsa offers two very similar Warbirds, as follows:
What I need to be able to do is minimize the bar drop below the saddle height. Not sure I can sort that out from the stack/reach spec, but I'd love thoughts.
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\nKind of the same situation here with a Fargo. I bought a stem that had an adjustable angle and it solved the problem.
