Quote:

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Insightdriver wrote:
Do you think there was a practical engineering reason the top tube of bikes were horizontal?

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Maybe not engineered, per se, but certainly evolutionary.

Here's a WAG:
Let's start with the roads at the turn of the 20th century. They were crappy.
The steels at that time were not as developed and thus not nearly as strong as today. They bent and broke more easily. Don't even think about aluminum.

So, if you had a sloping top tube, you'd have to have a longer seat post for a given rider. That seat post would be less supported and with the weaker steels compounded with bad roads, I'd think they would bend and break more often.

By raising the rear end of the TT and the front end of the seat stays, you allow the seat post to have greater support and strength.

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Skuke
95 Carbonframes Tetra Pro
92 Bridgestone MB-1
90 Moser 51.151

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