Months looking and ordered wrong size bike

waveblaster said:

I am new to biking and have been anguishing over the right bike to buy for three months. I ordered a giant ocr2 composit two days ago. My measurement for a frame is 56 cm. Giant says they have five compact road frame sizes to fit all riders. The size for my 56cm falls into a medium giant frame. This medium frame covers rider sizes 55 to 59cm. I got this information from Giants web site the day after I ordered my bike. When I placed my order at the bike shop they refered me to the Giant 2005 catalog (last page) which listed the actual frame size under frame geometry. Here for the OCR composite they listed 43cm for extra small frame up to 58.5cm for XL bike frame. The medium frame was listed at 50cm and the large frame was listed at 55.5cm. The salesmen said I would fit the large frame because of my inseam measurement equaled 56cm, so I ordered the large size bike. I called the dealer today and because he ordered the bike and got it in he wants me to try it for a while. I am concerned this bike will be too large for me and I won't want to ride it because it is too uncomfortable. What should I do? Will adjustment on the bars, neck and seat of the large frame make the bike fit me like the medium frame Giant suggests? Is it fair for me to push the dealer to order in a medium frame too?
This would stick the dealer with a bike he might not want.
😕

I'd rather have a somewhat smaller frame than a large one for your size. You can easily adjust a small frame via the stem length, saddle fore/aft, etc. to fit your size. But for a larger frame for your size, there's very little room for adjustment. Good luck.

I don't know about much cycling. But I'd imagine that if YOU'RE buying it, that it shouldn't be a problem with him getting you the bike you want. Customer satisfaction, right? Also, do they have a return policy? If they do, that'd benefit you greatly.

waveblaster said:

I am new to biking and have been anguishing over the right bike to buy for three months. I ordered a giant ocr2 composit two days ago. My measurement for a frame is 56 cm. Giant says they have five compact road frame sizes to fit all riders. The size for my 56cm falls into a medium giant frame. This medium frame covers rider sizes 55 to 59cm. I got this information from Giants web site the day after I ordered my bike. When I placed my order at the bike shop they refered me to the Giant 2005 catalog (last page) which listed the actual frame size under frame geometry. Here for the OCR composite they listed 43cm for extra small frame up to 58.5cm for XL bike frame. The medium frame was listed at 50cm and the large frame was listed at 55.5cm. The salesmen said I would fit the large frame because of my inseam measurement equaled 56cm, so I ordered the large size bike. I called the dealer today and because he ordered the bike and got it in he wants me to try it for a while. I am concerned this bike will be too large for me and I won't want to ride it because it is too uncomfortable. What should I do? Will adjustment on the bars, neck and seat of the large frame make the bike fit me like the medium frame Giant suggests? Is it fair for me to push the dealer to order in a medium frame too?
This would stick the dealer with a bike he might not want.
😕

I had a Med TCR and it always felt a bit cramped, I am just at 6" tall 32' inseam 44' Jacket 220 pounds (lots of info you don't need but for the sake of comparison) after a year on it I switched to a Specialized and ended up with a 57cm frame, only had to shorten the stem to a 110. In the end the Med was "ok" but it was not ideal for my position and spinning. Try out both and see which one "feels" better for you everyone else can only guess what works for your build and preference.
happy riding 🙂[font=&quot][/font]

It sounds to me like the shop advised you to order the wrong size. I think they misunderstood the geometry data in the catalog. As you're probably familiar with, Giant uses compact geometry on their road frames. This means a sloping top tube and shorter than usual seat tube. This also means that the actual measure of the seat tube length on a compact frame is for the most part useless, since they expect you to add a bunch of seatpost to this to get the proper saddle height. From what I gathered from your story, your LBS took the bottom-bracket to top-of-seat tube measurement out of the Giant catalog and incorrectly matched that to your figure of 56cm for a standard geometry road frame. If you were measured at 56cm for a standard geometry road frame, you should be on the medium OCR. In my opinion, the most important figure of measure for a frame is the effective top tube length, rather than seat tube length. Get that right and the rest can usually be adjusted to fit you.

Just as a frame of reference, I ride a XL Giant TCR. I am 6'-5" with a 36" cycling inseam (34" inseam for pants, etc.)

friedmikey said:

It sounds to me like the shop advised you to order the wrong size. I think they misunderstood the geometry data in the catalog. As you're probably familiar with, Giant uses compact geometry on their road frames. This means a sloping top tube and shorter than usual seat tube. This also means that the actual measure of the seat tube length on a compact frame is for the most part useless, since they expect you to add a bunch of seatpost to this to get the proper saddle height. From what I gathered from your story, your LBS took the bottom-bracket to top-of-seat tube measurement out of the Giant catalog and incorrectly matched that to your figure of 56cm for a standard geometry road frame. If you were measured at 56cm for a standard geometry road frame, you should be on the medium OCR. In my opinion, the most important figure of measure for a frame is the effective top tube length, rather than seat tube length. Get that right and the rest can usually be adjusted to fit you.

Just as a frame of reference, I ride a XL Giant TCR. I am 6'-5" with a 36" cycling inseam (34" inseam for pants, etc.)

You got it right. I must say that I rode both the med and large frame OCR's around the LBS parking lot. Because I thought the large frame was my size the large frame felt ok for the short time I was on it so I ordered it and put about $300 deposit on it. I think they will work with me (I hope). Knowing the med frame is my size I shouldn't accept the larger frame. Knowing the size and weight of people who fit the large frames makes me think that Giant might make these frames to hold more weight and flex under the designed weight. If my 5'-9", 165 lb. body gets on a frame designed to carry a 200 + lb body the larger frame might not flex and deliver a stiffer ride to a lighter rider then the med framewhich has been designed foer a smaller rider. I like the OCR ride and don't want to loose it by buying the wrong size. Thanks http://www.cyclingforums.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Smile