Pake Bikes: The Rum Runner fixed gear frame is being redesigned to fit slightly larger tires. Mainly to make it easier to give tracklocross a shot. But the geometry will still be for the streets, because tracklocross is supposed to be hard. Coming late summer.
Soma Fabrications 2021:
A few models will be retired in their current form and updated with more modern standards. Some will be offered to fit old and new standards as we like to do.
The Fog Cutter, our endurance road disc frame, will be updated to thru-axles and flat mount brakes in the rear and on the carbon fork. The steel fork option might still be available in QR format.
The Soma Saga will probably not be refreshed in 2021. We are working on a drop bar bike packing design that will fit inbetween our Wolverine and hardtails.
This follows on the heels of Time getting cut loose from the holding company that owned it, and Colnago striking up a deal with a private equity group. I’d be curious about a postmortem on Mavic, they seemed to have more reach and more sensitivity to (and even capacity to drive) industry trends.
I wonder how long until Campagnolo goes the same way?
That said you’re gonna have a lot of internet experts telling your your stem is too short and bars are too high, but I don’t think so based on your seat height, bar width, and bar reach. Lift weights, do core exercises, and stretch for a year, and then see how your fit changes, if you want the best advice out there.
I may actually do a bike fit blog as I have gone down quite a rabbit hole on it. When I started all this I was like “oh I’ll just get the same size frame as I always have but put wide bars on it” but things got very confusing, to the point that I actually own two 1980s Schwinn Voyageurs, a 21" and a 23". I have a bunch of measurements done out and some side-by-side photos, but I need to update them now that I have the Crust stem.
