Are you in the market for a new bike? Of course you are – all cyclists have an eye out for their next bike – but how do you find the right one when you can’t test them all? If only you could tell how a bike is going to ride before you sling a leg over its top tube. Will it be racy and reactive or stable and stately? Will it inspire confidence on technical descents or require wrestling like a rodeo bull?
Perhaps the answers to these questions lie in the numbers on the geometry charts that can be found on the websites of every bike brand. An extra millimetre of tube length here or an extra degree of angle there can affect the way a bike handles, and so it should be possible to divine the character of a bike from the figures on its chart. We just need the right guides to explain what those numbers mean.
What we talk about when we talk about handling
‘How a bike works is more subtly complicated than people expect because it’s a dynamic balancing system,’ says Tom Sturdy, owner of
