Geometry of the Renovo Road and Gravel Frames

by Christo

The geometry of the Pursuit (Road) is a bit of a work in progress. It has a long history, but I'm making some updates because tire size is a bit bigger now for road bikes too (28 to 32mm, versus 25 minus of a decade ago). I'm often comparing to things like Open, Seven.... During the build, I goal seek on a set of numbers, and there is a bit of give and take to get the individual bike in the appropriate configuration. It's not CNC cut, or machined to an exact recipe. Being hand made, there is a lot that I do on the fly, to suit the build and the rider.

The main difference in geometry between the Pursuit (Road) and the Whiskey Jack (Gravel), is wheelbase, and seat stay width, due to the smaller tires on the Pursuit. This allows for a shorter chainstay, and a shorter, narrower road fork. The Pursuit that was built from 2010-2018 was built around a straight head tube, mechanical shifters and rim brakes. But now in the roaring 20s, I am using the same tapered head tube in the Pursuit that the Whiskey Jack has. This configuration is inspired by Renovo's 2017-2018 John Day gravel bike. The tapered head tube means a wider downtube can be built. This allows for some improvements in "lateral stiffness, and vertical compliance". Translation is that it is stiffer, and softer in all the right spots. So old pictures of the old Pursuit won't look like they do now. The Whiskey Jack pictures are going to show the Pursuit style too. 

And if you want some angles and numbers, we roughly follow Dave Moulton's influential and forward thinking views on geometry with a 73 degree head and seat tube (+/- depending on frame size). If you would like to geek out on this bike engineers opinions that date back to the Penny Farthing, see http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/blog/category/bicycle-design