Steelhead's philosophy on road geometry is based on thousands of professional fittings performed at their retail store, Maplewood Bicycle, in St Louis, Missouri. The ultimate goal of the fitting process is to make the rider as efficient as possible just like a hybrid vehicle. The less energy the rider expends to maintain a given speed the better. With that efficiency we must also focus on comfort. What fun is it to ride if after the ride you hit the medicine cabinet for Ibuprofen for the stiff lower back and burning neck and shoulder muscles? The bike fit is critical to eliminating sore or numb hands, numb or chaffed genitalia, sore knees, etc. It is possible to ride pain free, all it takes is a specialist who truly can establish your fit within your range of motion and limiting factors of flexibility and injuries.
With that said, over a decade ago our founder, Stewart Munson, noticed the trend that each client was needing a taller head tube length on their custom bikes than that of the regular production geometries on the market. Most of our Steelhead clients are not elite racers and do not get massage and flexibility training on a daily basis. Most of our client's are stuck in front of the computer at work all day and carry their stress in their shoulders and neck. That specific decrease in flexibility directly correlates into reduced ability to reach out and down to the bars. Therefore we slightly reduced the effective top tube length as well. Now you can keep your hands on the brake and shift lever hoods where they should be. If you want to hammer and chase down your Sunday morning training buddies, go ahead and reach to drops, Hey what do you know, you can use those things comfortably too.
To keep the bike well balanced and stable with the slightly higher center of gravity our production framesets have slightly longer chainstays to keep the weight bias where it needs to be. If we kept the short 41 centimeter stays the weight bias would be shifted more on the rear wheel and cause the bike to speed wobble once the speeds reached 30+mph. We continually see speed wobble scenarios when shops and manufacturers who do not specialize in custom frames design taller headtube models. The solution is simple, either lower the rider back down into the uncomfortable position to get more weight bias on the front wheel or increase the length of the chainstays. Also, longer chainstays are more comfortable. They are part of the passive suspension that when combined with a radius formed seat stay no other design can touch.
Our production frames are made one hundred percent out of U.S. titanium and built in Chattanooga. Steelhead Bicycles has partnered with the Chattanooga manufacturers over the years and our retail store, Maplewood Bicycle, continues to be one of the top dealers of Merlin, Litespeed, and Lynskey Bicycle frames in the world. No other frame material comes close. The paint doesn't chip because there isn't any. The titanium frame doesn't crack if the shovel falls of the hook in the garage and smacks your carbon fiber top tube. And titanium doesn't jar your teeth loose when the roads get rough. We don't glue or bond any carbon tubes into our frames for sex appeal. It is heavier, weaker, and bound to fail. Nothing beats a perfect Argon purged tig-weld for strength.
Of course we still offer custom frame geometry when it is needed and love the full custom process. It is the reason we started the company to begin with.
Come test ride a Steelhead titanium production bike around our Maplewood Bicycle store in St Louis and take a spin down Comfort Avenue (The name is misleading). It is the truth teller about frame compliance. That road alone has sold hundreds of frames after our clients take the taste test between frame materials and manufacturers