Steve Sr. said:
Is this stand over height likely to be an issue? At what point would
you consider stand over height to be insufficient?
Maybe standover height is not all that important, but this is a custom
frame! It should be *perfect* for you... or at least there shouldn't
have been obvious compromises. I think the person who did the fitting
or the building goofed.
If your arms and torso are "short", then your legs must be "long"
(relatively). It would have been easy to give you enough standover
clearance. If your seat post is too high and can't be lowered, then it
seems obvious that seat tube is longer than it needs to be. Since they
were going "compact" anyway, they could have easily made the seat tube
shorter to give you more clearance.
Concerning the "need" for a longer head tube... this is the least
efficient (weight wise) way to raise the bars. If you couldn't get the
right height using the commonly available 17 degree angle stem (turned
so it points up at 34 degrees instead of horizontal), then maybe it is
justified... if you are also using a carbon steerer so you can't use
more than an inch or so of spacers.
-Ron