On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

More stack-reach comparisons, retaining the tall (Cervelo R5) and long (Trek Madone H1) winners from last time: First, there's a new obvious "tall" winner, and that's the Parlee Z5 tall model. Of course this isn't a fair comparison, as it would make more sense to compare the Parlee tall geometry to the endurance geometries of other bikes, but I put this here for comparison since I recently test-rode a Parlee ESX. The regular Parlee Z5 geometry corresponds to around 2.5 cm less spacer height, and has more traditional road racing geometry (clearly not designed to a stack-reach spec, however, since the curve zig-zags). Specialized is interesting, as the smallest 3 models are essentially constant reach, changing only in stack. This is because top tube length is directly canceled by seat tube angle. This keeps the reach the same as the top tube is lengthened. The bikes still fit bigger riders, however: adding spacers to the smaller frames would bring them to a...

Set-up As I rode my Ritchey Breakaway, with its mix of SRAM Rival, Force, and Red components, to Bespoke Cycles in San Francisco I felt a bit of a fraud. It was Parlee demo week at the shop, part of Parlee's program to publicize its new aero bike, the ESX ( web page ). More info is in this RoadCycling review . Designed by Parlee, the frame is built in Taiwan, sold with frame, fork, seatpost, and direct-mount brakes for $5400. That's a lot, making this particular slot in the demo schedule, the weekly Bespoke shop ride, a potentially valuable one for both Parlee and Bespoke Cycles. But it didn't seem probable I was going to buy it. True, nobody had ever asked me if I was planning to buy the bike, but there's surely some moral obligation to have some minimum intent to do so. As I pedaled my Ritchey through the nearly empty San Francisco streets for the 8 am meeting at the shop, however, I wondered what fraction of high-end bike purchases went to those who had be...