I'm 6'0"-6'1" and am riding an 18" Element Team Only. It's always kind of small for me but I moved from an 18" Barracuda and didn't know any better when I bought it. I'm wondering if Rockies are generally small fitting or not. I have it set up big with a set back seatpost but I'm thinking of selling it now to get something roomier. What do you think?

I'm 6'0"-6'1" and am riding an 18" Element Team Only. It's always kind of small for me but I moved from an 18" Barracuda and didn't know any better when I bought it. I'm wondering if Rockies are generally small fitting or not. I have it set up big with a set back seatpost but I'm thinking of selling it now to get something roomier. What do you think?


I'm 5'11" and ride on a 19" ETSX and a 19.5" Kona. I don't know how these frames compare to your frame's size, but maybe you should, or should have, looked into the next larger frame?

Hmmm. ****. Now I have to try and sell my bike or at least the frame and get one that fits.

Rocky mountains tend to have shortish top tubes it can be difficult to get the right stand over hieght and top tube. I like the feel of of a smaller frame with the laid back seat post.

Rocky mountains tend to have shortish top tubes it can be difficult to get the right stand over hieght and top tube. I like the feel of of a smaller frame with the laid back seat post.




Rockies lineage is more free riding... therefore, shorter top tubes. I also use a layback post which solves the problem.


JHB your right it can be hard to find the right standover with the right TT length.


Jag

I'm 6'0"-6'1" and am riding an 18" Element Team Only. It's always kind of small for me but I moved from an 18" Barracuda and didn't know any better when I bought it. I'm wondering if Rockies are generally small fitting or not. I have it set up big with a set back seatpost but I'm thinking of selling it now to get something roomier. What do you think?

I am a tad over 6'1" and ride a 19" Element and I feel it is perfect. The shorter (than average) top tubes is actually one of the reasons I chose the Element....I climb way better on shorter top tubed bikes, regardless of what physics suggests, period.

I simply run a 120mm stem instead of a 110mm on my other 19" bike and am truly diggin it.

Cheers

I too am 6-1 and I ride an 18 inch Slayer. Layback seat post and a 120 stem makes it work for me. I have been told by people seeing me on my bike that they think I should be on a 19. They may be right, but it feels good, and I got a decent deal on it. Oddly, I liked the feel of the 19 inch ETSX as a close second to the Slayer, but the 18 ETSX felt a bit small. :rolleyes:

For about a year I've been worrying wether I really should have bought a 19". I'm 6'1" and run a post without setback, and a 120 mm stem.

I've figured it out though: with my stem run with negative rise I've got the horizontal length I want. Two of my friends have 20,5" frames and run considerably shorter stems. (FYI: they're 6'2.5" resp. 6'4").

In the end I guess it depends a bit on the steering behaviour you want: a short TT with a long stem gives you a very stable ride on steep, technical uphills. That's my kind of terrain, so I'm going to quit worrying about it. :D

I'm riding a 19" ETSX with a XY Race Face seat post and 70 mm or 90 mm 15 degree stem.

I'm 5' 11" with 32 1/2 " in-seam. But all that aside I chose the 19" for it's wheel base.
The 20.5" was too big a bike and the 18" had too short a wheel base. The 19" is the
the perfect compromise, albeit the stand-over is a little high. All else being equal
the longer wheel base makes for a more stable bike. As a comparison my 18" GT LTS
has an effective top tube of 23" compared to the 19" ETSX of 23+". But the LTS
has a much shorter wheel base.

michael

I'm 6'1 and ride a 19" ElementSC. Using a 120/10 stem and monkey riser, and a RF XO setback post. I'm quite happy with the fit.
a friend is 5'11 and rides a 18' element and I find his bike is way too short cockpit. too upright and over the nose of the bike for me.

hope that helps
jeff

I'm 6'1 and ride a 19" ElementSC. Using a 120/10 stem and monkey riser, and a RF XO setback post. I'm quite happy with the fit.
a friend is 5'11 and rides a 18' element and I find his bike is way too short cockpit. too upright and over the nose of the bike for me.

hope that helps
jeff
glad to hear others in my boat feel the 19" is right. I just built up the bike and while it felt great, I was curious what others were doing.

cheers

I'm also 6'-1" and I ride a 19.5" Vertex with a Race Face XY0 seatpost and 120mm stem which is a good climbing setup and good for sprinting.

I ran the same seatpost and stem setup on my 19" Instinct, and it felt a bit tighter but that seemed to work OK on a full squishy bike.

Oddly enough when I first built up my 19" ETSX70 I tried the same seatpost and stem setup as the Instinct and it felt much smaller and waaaaay over the bars so I'm running a Race Face XY seatpost and 100mm stem and that feels really manouevrable in tight quarters.

In looking at Specialized and a couple of other manufacturer websites, there's quite a range, the 19" Stumpjumper frame lists a TTT length of 615mm compared to the 19" Rocky's 595mm, but you never know exactly where they're measuring. Norco has an 18.5" frame listed with a 588mmTT and 614mm TTT length. Some manufacturers like KHS seem to have shorter TT's than the Rocky.

I am 5' 10-1/2" tall with a 32" inseam and I ride an 18" ETSX (19" was way too big). I wouldn't want a bigger size due to the top tube height, which is partailly due to their high BB (which I love).

I don't find RM bikes to fit too small, they just need a seatpost with more offset than some other bike manufactures. RM uses a very upright seat tube to make a smaller feeling bike with better power transfer (which seems to really work). If you do a side by side comparison with another manufacturers equally sized bike, you will see that the wheelbases are similar (overall size of the bike) but the seat tube on RM bikes is more upright. 1/2 deg seat tube angle difference on a 18" frame size with an avergae amount of seat post sticking out makes quite a bit of difference in cockpit room.

Two notes regarding the whole thing:

Firstly, Rocky Mountain delivers the majority of it's bikes (if not all) with setback posts. Back in the day when I bought my Instinct, it was either Easton CT2 or RaceFace XY on the higher-end models. I would probably be better of with one, too, but could never part with a Thomson. And since Thomson don't make setback posts in 26.8 mm... :D

Secondly, I think a large part of the sizing issue is the question of what you're used to. Many riders seem to prefer a longer wheelbase w/ a shorter stem, often with a riser. I started biking in the mid 90's, when 135 mm stems were a lot more common than today. I think my 120 mm stem w/ short TT and wheelbase give me exactly the ride I want, while many would prefer something that steers noticeably more twitchy.

If noone minds could you guys recommend some quality dual suspension bikes that have, proportionally, longer top tubes? Thanks.

I think you may have just bought a bike which is too small for you. Rocky Mountains also have about 3" of seat tube sticking above the top tube. That is why the same size RM is also shorter than other manufacturers. If you compare this to lets say a 17" Jamis, you will see that the 17" Jamis has the same length top tube than an 18" RM. The extra seat tube makes for a much stiffer seat tube/seat post juncture. The higher standover height is due to their high BB for good ground clearance. The ratio of seat tube length to top tube legth is quite arbitrary.