Did I buy too big?

While sitting square in the saddle can you comfortably place your hands on the brake hoods and still have a relaxed bend in your elbows? While riding can you still do that or do you find you can only reach the brake hoods by sliding forward or reaching out with stiff straight arms?

If you can comfortably reach the brake hoods, the bar tops and ride with your hands in the drops and don't need to either slide your saddle all the way forward on its rails or use a custom ultrashort stem then the bike isn't too big.

If the reach is slightly long you can probably go to a shorter stem unless you're already running something ultrashort.

But basically if you can sit comfortably on the bike and comfortably reach all the controls with relaxed arms then the bike is at least close if not ideal.

-Dave

kmalloy said:

Hi, I am a 5'4" woman with a relatively long torso.

At 5'4 with a long torso, you are getting a better upper-body fit with the 51 Dolce than the 48. If you can comfortably straddle the top tube and set the handlebar as low as you want it, then the frame height is just fine.

The 48 would have required you to buy a longer stem.

what he said. i went from an 80 mm stem to a 110 mm stem as my knees were hitting the bars on a 56.5 frame. and i put on wider bars, 42 to 46 but the next frame size up, the 58, was too big. i have one of them funny apendages bodies too.

Removed 'cuz the comments were in the wrong thread.