bealer wrote: On a side note to making mods to shrink a frame. I had to do this before when I was younger.
- An inline seat post, ie the sort that goes straight up, no curved support at the back. This will save you a couple of centimetres.
- Moving the saddle forward. Another couple of centimetres.
But add them all up, and it can work. It's not ideal, but then again not everyone fits the common sizes that are around.
I would counsel caution before moving the saddle forwards. Strong pedallers can have the saddle well forwards, but a very common gripe from those who are not blessed with legs like tree trunks is that there is too much weight on the hands, and this can cause terrible pains in the neck and shoulders. Moving the saddle forwards invariably throws more weight on the hands, and is usually not an acceptable substitute for shortening the reach by using a bike with a genuinely shorter top tube (look out for the seat angle cludge...), shorter stem etc. Sheldon Brown has written a short piece on this on his website, which I only found after putting my own thoughts on paper; his thoughts on this are very similar to my own.
You might get the bike to fit with 700C wheels, but 650B or other 26" size just makes it an awful lot easier for anyone 5'-4" or less.
Racers tend to get on a bit better at that height, simply because they are after a longer 'flat back' position plus they are probably pedalling harder than a recreational rider and can better live with the forward postion. This can make 1" or 2" difference to the acceptable top tube length, quite easily, but someone who isn't racing won't thank you for setting them up like that.
cheers
