Posted by Matt on Fri, 10/08/2004 - 11:38am.
If you really wanna know, Matt the bike geek will answer. Long ago, someone invented a bike with a severely angled top tube (the mostly-horizontal tube in question) and named the design myxte, which in idiomatic French means "dual-purpose," apparently. The top tube is there to counter the lateral flex that happens mainly when turning a corner. Really insane "freeride" guys (especially in Vancouver, Canada's North Shore region) have been known to wrap large, high-density foam pads around their top tubes to prevent serious injury. These guys, it should be noted, also ride "skinnies," which can mean 2x4s 20 feet long or more, up to 15 feet off the ground. Once you get out of the namby-pamby world of K-Mart level bikes, you get things like this. And this and even this, ridden by World 4-Cross Champion Jill Kintner. High-end women's road bikes look almost exactly like men's bikes. Just smaller frames.
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