What is a Compact Frameset?

If you are new into road cycling, or even triathlon, you’d probably not notice this. But if you are a newbie, and a student of the history of road bicycles, then you’d probably notice it. So what a I talking about? The compact frame, of course!

For a lack of a better definition, a compact frame is frames that has a sloping, top tube compared to the traditional frame which has a horizontal top tube.

A lot of frame builders would claim to the first to use the compact design but the company who made it widely popular was GIANT. Yes, its the same frameset ridden in the ongoing Giro d’Italia by defending champion Tom Dumoulin of SUNWEB.

Mike Burrows, a British engineer, first gained attention when he designed the Olympic winning frame of Chris Boardman in 1992 Olympics. He was into aerodynamics and he was associated recumbent bicycles. Burrows idea about frames were weird at that time and it wasn’t until Boardman won the 4000 meters pursuit that he was noticed. GIANT, a Taiwan based company and the biggest producer of bicycles in the world, hired Burrows.

Pre-1997, GIANT was just one of the bicycle companies in the US and in Europe trying to be relevant in the professional peloton against the Colnago’s, De Rosa’s, Pinarello’s, Bianchi’s and all the traditional frame makers blessed by God to make framesets for mankind. But in 1997, the stars aligned for GIANT, Burrows and the compact framesets, when they sponsored the Spanish super-team- ONCE. At that time, ONCE had the number one rider in the world in Laurent Jalabert.

As you all know, anything new in the cycling market is often met with raised eyebrows but the tipping point started when ONCE started winning with the frameset called, GIANT TCR (Total Compact Road),

I hate compact framesets, and even though I’ve had used one before, I still think it look unesthetic. But why compact? The main reason for the compact lovers is that it makes the frame stiffer and ergo, better power transfer from rider to bicycle. (I know I could write ten more columns and still not clarify why compact is better than traditional frames) But I believe that the main reason was economics.

Traditional frames are sold according to size and each model comes in 1cm increment. In other words, a company has to build 16 sizes for one model which can be quite expensive. But GIANT built only three compact sizes- S, M and L. (There are now XS and XL  models) and they claimed that the three sizes could fit all riders out there by just tweaking saddle position, stem length, etc.

Again, the arguments are endless about the available frameset sizes and exact fit but when a product hits the market and is a winner, people gravitate towards it.  Even the venerable Colnago’s, succumbed to the compact design, but it took them more than a decade to do so.

Finally the, irony to this story is that GIANT, who started this all, has started producing high-end frames with the traditional design in the past 2-3 years. So whether its compact or traditional you prefer, I think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.