ML at 5.7' (174cm)? Bad buy?

Bepster

Hi all,

I got a little bit of a dilemma here...

I went to local bike shop here in Switzerland (french speaking, very bad English) and they ordered a Giant Propel for me as I want to get into riding around the beautiful Swiss Alps.

I am not a very experienced rider at all, mostly commuting before so I pretty much blindly trusted the guys at the shop who ordered me an ML, I am 5.7' (174cm).
They are an official Giant dealer and very sure about their choice.

A friend of mine, who has clocked a lot more miles on the road, suggested that my frame looks a bit big for me the other day. I start to fear I might have made a big mistake (no pun intended).
I have been riding it around for a while now and have actually enjoyed it, but I wonder if that is just because I don't have anything else to compare with.

Is the gap between M and ML that huge at my size that I am losing significant ride quality or can I compensate by seat hight/stem length so I get a similar fit out of my bike?
I understand that without doing a proper fitting, this is very hard to say but I am looking for general feedback.

keef66

Are you 5'7" or 174cm? The latter is taller; I make 174cm to be 5' 8.5". And do you have long legs / short torso, the reverse, or are you beautifully proportioned?

If you are 5'7" my instinct is that it's likely too big. I'm 5'6" and generally have a small / 52cm road frame. But went for a 54cm Scott CR1 because it has a relatively short top tube so the reach is still OK.

Hard to give meaningful bike fit advice from here; side-on pictures of you on the bike would help

noodleman

My mate is about 5'9 and he bought a ML. The shop advised him against it and he still bought it as its what he had before. It looks huge, and he should have gone medium.

alihisgreat

I'm 6ft and I ride an M/L giant - confirmed to be the right size with a retul bike fit a few weeks ago. At 5'7' an M/L is likely to be far too big.

Bepster

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19649878#p19649878]keef66[/url] wrote:

Are you 5'7" or 174cm? The latter is taller; I make 174cm to be 5' 8.5". And do you have long legs / short torso, the reverse, or are you beautifully proportioned?

If you are 5'7" my instinct is that it's likely too big. I'm 5'6" and generally have a small / 52cm road frame. But went for a 54cm Scott CR1 because it has a relatively short top tube so the reach is still OK.

Hard to give meaningful bike fit advice from here; side-on pictures of you on the bike would help

Thanks for the feedback. I am having trouble with the conversion, I am European.
I am 174, so I guess yes, that would make me 5' 8.5".
My torso is proportionally rather long compared to my legs.

I went back to the shop and the mechanic insists he made the right decision.
So he'll look into making adjustments so that I get a better riding position.
His main argument is that the seattube would be sticking out too much on a medium but my main concern is that the toptube feels too long and I feel like I don't have great control, especially going downhill as I have trouble reaching the brakes.

dj58

It could be, depending on your reach and inseam, does it feel stretched out to you? Did they try you on the medium as well as the M/L in the shop, if they are an authorised Giant dealer they should have got both bikes in for you to try. How did they arrive at their decision that the M/L was the correct size for you?

DeVlaeminck

The Giant size chart has the M/L fitting a range between 180cm and 188cm. At 174cm you'd be top end of small or towards the bottom end of medium, I know fit depends on more than height but I'd say a M/L is certainly a size too big as you are nowhere near the recommended range.

DeVlaeminck

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/_upload_au/rider_height_frame_size.pdf

Show them the chart and ask for a swop would be my advice

keef66

"My torso is proportionally rather long compared to my legs"

"His main argument is that the seattube would be sticking out too much on a medium but my main concern is that the toptube feels too long"

If the top-tube feels too long despite your longer than average torso, you need a smaller frame.

His argument about seatpost is negated by your shorter (relatively) legs.

Did he actually sit you on M framed bike??

When I was fitted for my first bike I was tried first on a 54, but ended up with a 52 because of reach issues...

dj58

[/quote]
His main argument is that the seattube would be sticking out too much on a medium but my main concern is that the toptube feels too long and I feel like I don't have great control, especially going downhill as I have trouble reaching the brakes.[/quote]

So is he saying that the seatpost is not long enough on the medium when set up correctly for you, and how does he know that unless he has sat you on the medium bike. Sounds to me as though you have encountered a "mechanic" who has a personal preference for not having a lot of seatpost visible.

stevie63

Wow a 57cm top tube for someone who is 5 foot 8 seems far too big. I am 5 foot 7 (though slightly short in the torso) and no way would I buy a bike with a top tube longer than around 53 to 54cm.

Bepster

Yeah, I feel a little duped here...

My inexperience showed and obviously I should have realized this earlier.
I completely trusted this guy as he was very sure that this would be my size. He didn't have any Propels in the shop at the time when he ordered mine so I could test it.
Which, in hindsight, I should have. He did order it for me from Giant, so it wasn't like he just wanted to sell me something he had in stock.

As it's been over a month since I bought the bike, I am quite worried that he will just say "it's too late" as it is clearly used. He can't sell this frame as new.

Of course the best option would be for them to switch out the frame to an M but I am not sure that this is possible?
So I guess there is a good chance that I will have to make do with what I got, i.e. short-short stem and the seat all the way to the front...
Less than ideal considering what I paid.

If the shop refused to switch the frame, does anybody think that it might make sense to involve Giant directly? Given the fact that this is a shop listed on the Giant website as an official partner?
I was obviously sold the wrong size.

keef66

If they won't swap out the frame for you, there's nothing to lose by contacting Giant directly. They might take an interest if one of their dealers is giving seriously wrong sizing advice...

Do Giant have a Facebook page?

dj58

Go back to shop and tell them that you are not prepared for them to try and make a bike that is to big fit you by swopping components, the bike is not fit for purpose and that you want an exchange. I don't know what recourse you have with Swiss consumer law, I would also contact Giant and recount your experience with their dealer.

Grill

Way too big. I'm 180cm and ride Giant's in a medium.

Captain Fagor

I agree with Grill. I'm 179cm or 180cm tall with an 85.5cm inseam and have been riding various Giant TCRs since 2005, all M sized with a 55.5cm virtual/effective tope tube.

bristolpete

Without a doubt, you should be on a medium as a starting point, perhaps at 5'7 a small with a longer cockpit.

The caveat I have noticed with GIant race bikes is that they have GEO unlike any other new world brand with fairly slack seat tube and head tubes compared to other dyed in the wool 73.5 seat/head tube angles. Under normal circs, a rider with 'short legs, long body' can compensate with a 'bigger' frame and an inline seat post and short cranks with additional stack and reach attained, but with the propel, it is a tear drop shape which is specific to the propel frame.

I also think it is worth noting that a lot of press and web conjecture cite the Propel geo as being the same as the TCR which really is not the case. There are a lot of similarities, but a key difference is the much taller stand over of the propel frame which again has a huge effect on the shorter legged rider and thus affects how flickable a bike feels when standing up on the cranks.

I would ask for a frame exchange in the least. You have been badly advised. In the meantime, the seat post clamp on the propel can be reversed to something like set back 20 to negative 5 to give you 2cm of additional reach which may be worth doing until resolved.

Bepster

Thanks all for your replies! It definitely gave me the confidence to challenge the bike shop owner.

Just came from the shop now.
I brought a colleague who is a native french speaker so he handled the talking and negotiating.

While the owner kept insisting and arguing that he made the right decision to order me an ML, he did budge in the end and will order me a new M sized one.
While I am no expert, to me it is common sense that when the stem is way short and the seat is pushed all the way to the front, that doesn't seem like a good, balanced setup...

He eventually said that he doesn't want a customer walk out of his shop with a bike that they are not happy with.
While this was like pulling teeth and took a good hour of arguing, he offered to give me another bike to ride on until I get the new Propel, which I thought was pretty cool from him.

So thanks guys! It was a bit of a drag of an experience but I am happy that I learned quite some stuff about bikes in the process and will end up with a much more appropriate machine.

Grill

Should have ordered an S...

dwanes

ML would have been too big
I am 5ft11 and have a ML, if I was any shorter I would go with a M, infact I could still easily fit to a M size myself.

Bepster

He kept referring to this chart and arguing that the differences between M and ML would be so tiny.
Basically suggesting that a M wouldn't be much of a difference and I was just being difficult because of something I read on the internet...
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-us/bikes/model/propel.advanced.1/18723/76093/#geometry

Again, total beginner here, but to me it seems that those "tiny" differences add up and make a huge difference in position, power conversion and reach...

g00se

Looking at that chart, I'd say that you should consider the small. :-)

noodleman

The guy clearly knows naff all about bike fitting. Your'e certainly at least one, if not two frame sizes to big.

pianoman

As someone who's sat on both the M and M/L at 1.79m I can concur you not only need to think about your height and inseam but also how you plan to ride it. For me, it would me M with 110mm stem for a low slung race fit, M/L with 100mm stem (like my size 56 Tarmac) for a more comfortable fit.

In your case it sounds like endurance is your priority so the M should be fine. Shame in one sense he let you keep the M/L as I'd have happily made you an offer and made my Tarmac into a winter bike..........

Bepster

Hi guys,

again many thanks to the great responses here.

Just wanted to leave a quick update.
As stated, the plan was to get me the new 2016 Propel size M when it launches. (I got a Trek Domane 4.3 in the meantime, which I didn't like at all).

I had however a chance recently to test both the M and the S Propel and really felt that the S was much more my thing.
Most notably, the head tube length difference which resulted in a better reach with the S and eventually translates into more control on the road and downhill.

So when the Advanced 0 2015 edition with Di2 came on sale in size S, I jumped on it and am now happily receiving repeated beat-downs by the punishing Swiss alps, without having to spend that much more than I did on the Adv 1.
I have now covered about 300km and am truly in love with this one. Goes to show that you can't just blindly trust your LBS sometimes...

Thanks again everyone.

top_bhoy

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19651938#p19651938]Grill[/url] wrote:

Should have ordered an S...

I'd tend to agree.

I'm 5'6" and similar in stature to the OP.

Buying a bike with a frame which doesn't conform exactly to the physical attributes of the rider is always a compromise. Since the stand-over height is important to making me more comfortable in traffic my solution is to generally go for the smaller sized frame and adjust the reach via the stem and generally the seat can be adjusted fairly well. It usually all works in well after a little bit of muddling about and using the measurements from an existing set-up.

At face value on the information presented thus far, the LBS owner appears to be so far of the mark in his attitude and assessment that I doubt he sells many frames which are medium or smaller.

ollie51

I work in a shop that sells butt tonnes of Propels. At your height you'd either be a Small or Medium, with the former more likely - it would also depend on preference regarding preference/amount of drop. I can't really tell which you'd be without seeing you on the bike, but no way in hell would a ML offer a good fit.