size

Question
Hello

How important is the stand over clearance?   My old KHS full suspensions, has about 4" which is great, while a new one,tried Ibis HDE 650B  27.5"  I tried,  had hardly 1" and it was much less comfortable.     Both are Med. 17"

Looks like some nice bikes that I'd like to purchase have hardly 1" clearance...  What is your input please?

Thanks you,  Gabe

Answer
Hello Gabe,

How are you doing?
Nice question, in the old days the vintage mountainbikes from Ritchey, Ibis and Cunningham and Fisher (Klein, Trek) had actually no clearance. Later on in the 90's you saw that clearance on the toptube became important. But nowadays again an issue when you ride an so called 29". You can have a frame with almost the same measurements, but an 26" inch will give you some clearance where an 29" doesn't.
And also an preference from rider to the other fellow... I like an minimum of clearance (for the escaperoute when necessary and you don't have to worrie if you fell of your bike) or ride an such smaller frame where you can do tricks and BMX stuff and have enough clearance. On the 29-ers you have to see as long as the lenght of the toptube is right.

Hope this is clear enough, if not please ask me again.

Best regards,