Road Bike Frames

Road Bike Frames – Buyer Guide

By Abu Fakhri

Buying a Road Bike Frame

Executive Summary about Road Bike Frames by Nigel Cooke

 If you are looking at purchasing a frame for your bike, then you need to consider the type of frame you require. Road bike frames are frames that are designed for bikes that are going to be used on the road, and therefore an off-road bike frame will not do.

Road bike frames are a lot lighter and thinner than off-road frames such as mountain bikes. This is to help the bike move a lot quicker on road surfaces.

Road Bike Frames And Size

The size of your bike frame is another very important factor to consider. Once you have this number, you will need to subtract 9" to have the correct measurement for road bike frames. Standard clearance distances are 7 to 13cm for mountain bikes, 5 to 10cm for racing bikes, and 1 to 8 cm for hybrid bikes.

Is Your Bike For Sport Or Fun?

If you are looking for road bike frames for racing bikes, then these frames will be designed for speed, and in many cases, they are lighter and less stable than other road bike frames.

Bike Frame Types

The last thing you need to decide on is the material used for your road bike frame. Steel frames are the heaviest, even though they have been made lighter over the years.

Titanium frames are great if you have the money to spend on them. Carbon fibre bike frames are what most people want. These are very popular and less expensive than titanium frames. These frames are very strong, and they give you a comfortable ride too. These are perfect if you don't have enough to spend on titanium frames, but still want a frame that is built to last.

Is comfort important? If you want to sit more upright on your bike, then you will need a slightly larger frame, but you still need to ensure that you have the correct crossbar clearance.

 

Fitting a Road Bike Frame to Your Needs

Executive Summary about Road Bike Frames by Alastair Hamilton

For most of us, well-intentioned but casual bike riders who secretly believe we might be Lance Armstrong's heir if we only had a few more hours a day to spend on our bicycles, buying a new road bike is tantamount to buying a road bike frames. Truly, a road bike frame is a beautiful thing and part of the reason we love bicycling.

Face it. The length of your seat tube is going to help you and the length of your top tube and even the angle of the three main tubes all put together is going to help (or hinder) you, but color is not.

If you shop at a discount store or even a general purpose sports store, if you get any help at all in choosing a bike that fits you, it will probably consist of a clerk instructing you to stand over the top bar of the frame and see if you can comfortably straddle it with your feet on the floor. If you have long legs, you can straddle almost any bike, but will your body be able to relax comfortable in the stretch between your saddle and the handlebars? The whole geometry of the road bike frame matters a lot to fit. And fit matters excessively to comfort.

Speed is not usually built from comfort, and the road bike frame that promotes speed is built of different materials than one used primarily for recreational riding. Frames can be made of titanium, chrome-moly, aluminum or steel, and each metal has different advantages of weight and strength. Frame geometry varies, too, with touring bikes featuring a longer vertical base and top tube than the skittish racing models.

So when you're looking at road bike frames, think beyond the paint. Get a frame that fits both you and your purpose.

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