Thursday, December 1, 2011

The follow up....

....and so the mindless Internet searching, review reading, blog reading, forum ranting finally gave me some information, haha. Well truth be told I learn something new everyday from MTBR.com and other blogs and forums I read. It's good I like to learn and the deeper I dive into the cycling industry the more this helps.
So this is what I found. First I learned something new. I found the geometry numbers for the Commencal Meta SX that I reviewed a week or so ago. The had the BB height listed as 3.0 and was like what the F could 3.0 mean? Everything else was in the metric system so I thought long and hard back to 7th grade science class but nothing. I couldn't be 3 meters because that would be like 3000mm and that is like 118inches, nope not right couldn't be 3mm because that is on the ground and so is 3 cm that's 1.2inches. So after some more research I found out it is drop. Drop is the distance the BB drops for the rear axle and this is the most accurate way to measure BB height as it can very depending on the tire used. If it is a positive number then it is above the BB and if it is negative it is below the BB. So this BB on the Meta SX is just above the rear axle height. So using the Maxxis Ardent 2.4 as an example. It's radius at 343mm, so with that tire, the unsagged BB would be 346mm or 13.6", which is pretty low and exactly what I'm looking for as I explained in the post about what I'm looking for in a bike.
Some of the other measurements for this bike are Seat Tube Angle= 73% that is good, that will allow for nice seated climbing as it wont hang you to far back over the rear tire! Head Tube Angle is 66% also great as you can still climb with this but will feel super secure and confident when pointed down hill! It has a 16.9inch chain stay length which is a pretty good compromise on length. It does have pros and cons. It will corner and climb better but be less flickable in tight technical stuff and not as easy to manual. Stand over height is pretty normal about 28inches. Wheel base is good at 45.1inches, that will make it really stable at high speed, going through corners and off jumps but again slightly less flickable. The top tube is a bit long for medium frame at 22.84inches but it is designed to be used with a 50mm stem. So that actually is equal or slightly shorter reach all together then on my bike with a 70mm stem.
Here is a picture to help visualise the measurements I'm talking about:
( For a better picture click here)
and here is a pic of the bike compared to a comparable ride the Turner RFX Prototype
Over all this bike is exactly what I'm looking for. I have read some draw backs such as you can't use a coil sprung rear shock or a piggy backed rear shock, so you are pretty limited to shocks like a Rock Shox Monarch and Fox RP2 or RP23.
I will continue to do research on it. I probably wont get it next year as my current ride has a couple more rides under it's belt but by 2013 they should have all the kinks worked out and it should be even better!

Keep it real!

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