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Originally Posted by beardedmacuser
You could always swap the handlebar stem for something longer, which would give you a longer reach. Typical stems are approx 80 to 100 mm long, and you can commonly find them in lengths of up to 140 mm if you look around.
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I did that with my mountain bike. I got a 17" frame and bought a long stem with a shallow rise in addition to a layback seatpost. It gave me a decent riding position, but completely jacked up the handling of the bike on technical stuff. Steering got lazy and on steep climbs if I wasn't standing, my butt felt like it was falling off the saddle.
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A good bike shop shouldn't really sell you a bike which doesn't fit you. That should include fitting a stem and a seat post of appropriate length. Alternatively (like me), if you know what you're doing you can buy a bike from somewhere crap but which sells them cheap. Then spend your own time and money to get the bike to fit...
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All the bike shops here will put you on a Serotta size-cycle initially, then deal with stems, crank length, etc. The thing is they usually save that for after you've chosen the bike already.