Anyone ride a 16" Boardman Hybrid Comp ?

bilabonic

Hi All

Going to start commuting (15 miles total). i have been riding a Felt F55 (51cm) road bike for years, plus i have a Spesh epic carbon comp in medium(18").

I plan on getting the boardman as my felt would be way to twitchy on my works roads and i know the Spesh would be too slow for me.

Looking at their charts i need a 16" , has anyone got experience of these bikes as my nearest halfrauds is miles away and i doubt they would stock both small/medium.

I would LOVE to get a cyclocross but out of my price range and i have to pass a lot off rail tracks/rubb;le/spillage etc so still would be weary or should i ?

I am 5'.8", 32" leg.

Cheers

supersonic

Have you compared the rest of the geometry ie top tube lengths?

small_bloke

I have a Hybrid Comp "small" but I'm quite short 5'ft-3".

If your 5ft-8", pretty sure you will need a Medium. Halfords mainly stock medium size frames. I had to fight hard for them to order small frame and try for size. Lots of pleading with store managers and numerous repeat visits.

I normally ride a 47cm road bike so found the Boardman Hybrid quite a weird experience due to the geometry - couldn't get any power into the pedals and found it slow. But I think thats the way Hybrids are generally designed.

So I did a few things to make it faster and slightly more racier riding position.

Removed as many stem spacers as possible (lowered the stem)
Longer stem (from 80 to 120mm)
New zero-offset inline seatpost instead of 35mm layback.
Lighter tyres (removed 700 x 28c Vitoria Zafiro 400g, fitted new Continental GP4-season 700 x 25c 218g)

I can now get my saddle much further forward and A LOT more power into the cranks.