Racy frame design - long chain stays - WHY?

[Lionel]

This whole trend of super short CS is really too bad in particular for large frames. I can't believe for instance that Time has such short stays for XL and XXL frames. You end up with a weight distribution that is not good. Why would front center grow and rear center stay the same as you go from XS to XXL, makes no sense to me. Well it starts to make sense if you factor in the fact that it is cheaper to create only one mold for the rear end.

Anyway, all my bikes today have 42cm or more RC, I am 6'5". My Sachs has a RC of 42,8 and this is with the screw all in with the horizontal dropout. It handles fantastic.

[Curt Goodrich]

The game of who can make the shortest chain stays is an old one and the inverse of the tradition of male penis size exaggeration. It's one of those dimensions that many bike makers love to put on charts because it's simple for people to wrap their heads around shorter=stiffer. Bike companies often try to out do their competition by making their chain stays shorter and shorter. It's that simple minded approach that yields some pretty crummy designs and that's a good thing for builders that have the confidence to not follow that herd.

[Mark Walberg]

The game of who can make the shortest chain stays is an old one .....

Here is an old example:

fowler_truss_frame.jpg