Calm or agile

Wheelbase and trail make the bike calm; a short lever and weight on the front make it agile.

The starting point is a typical race bike in size 58. Calculated for a person 178 cm tall with an 84 cm inseam. With your bike and your measurements: enter them in the calculator.

Your bike sits next to the Giant Defy Advanced 2026 and the Giant TCR Advanced 2026.

From above, at 10° steering angle: a circle with a 6.0 m radius (start 6.0 m).

Why your bike sits there

One track per reason: calm on the left, agile on the right.

Trail 59 mm: How strongly the front wheel straightens itself. More: calmer.
Wheelbase 1010 mm: Axle to axle. Long runs calmly straight ahead, short turns tighter.
Steering lever 273 mm: How far from the steering axis the hands grip, from stem and bar width. Longer: calmer.
Weight on the front 41%: The share on the front wheel, with you on the bike. More: more direct.

What you adjust yourself

Stem length 100 mm

Longer: the hands grip further ahead of the steering axis, the bike steers more calmly.

Handlebar width 400 mm

Wider: a longer lever, the bike steers more calmly.

Tyre width 30 mm

Wider: a larger radius brings more trail, the bike runs more calmly.

Saddle forward or back Centre

Forward: more weight on the front wheel, the bike steers more directly.

What the frame does

Head angle 73.0°

Slacker: more trail and a longer wheelbase, the bike runs more calmly.

Fork offset 45 mm

More: less trail, the bike turns in more willingly.

Chainstay 409 mm

Longer: a longer wheelbase, the bike runs more calmly.

Reach 402 mm

Longer: a longer wheelbase and the hands further forward.

Where your weight sits → Geometry lab → Race, endurance, gravel explained → Reset the sliders

Where the numbers come from

The scale is a rule of thumb, not a ride test. Each of the four numbers is placed on a span and counts equally: trail and wheelbase from the calmest to the most agile real bike, weight on the front from 36 to 46 %, the steering lever from an 80 mm stem with a 38 cm bar to 130 mm with 44 cm.

The real bikes appear with numbers from the manufacturers' tables and with you on them, with the cockpit the type of bike sets. Bikes whose table gives neither fork rake nor trail are missing.

Trail = (tyre radius · cos head angle − fork rake) / sin head angle. A tyre is roughly as tall as it is wide: one millimetre more width is one millimetre more radius.