Road Bikes for Tall & Short People, and Everyone In Between
Cyclists who are big, tall, or short have always had a problem finding comfortable, lightweight bikes that deliver the smooth, quality ride they want that accommodate their unique proportions. To meet the needs of this niche community, Lennard Zinn and Nick Wigston wanted to start a company with a mission to make high-quality, affordable road bikes for tall people. In 2017, Clydesdale Bicycles was born — a company that specializes in building customizable bikes that provides more options than ever before for riders whose height, weight, and proportions demand customizable fits and options.
Where We Got Our Start
Since 2006, Lennard and Nick have worked together at Zinn Cycles. Here, they focused on developing bikes for anyone that had trouble finding the perfect fit. From the very short to the really tall, Zinn Cycles crafted fully custom bikes for people of any size.
Inspired by their work at Zinn Cycles, Lennard and Nick decided to take their ideas a step further at Clydesdale Cycles. They plan to add more styles and types of bikes to the inventory each year until there are nearly as many road bikes for tall people as there are regular sizes!
We have some great bikes in store for the future!
Our Design Philosophy
Lennard Zinn has been designing and building road bikes for tall people since 1982, in addition to crafting designs custom to shorter riders. With over 30 years of experience in the industry, he’s one of the few craftsmen in the world that has dedicated his entire career to delivering more durability and performance with his unique bike designs.
You might be thinking that creating road bikes for tall people is easy — just make them bigger! Unfortunately, there are many more factors than just scaling up the bicycle to creating designs for the big and tall. Some of the problems that Lennard had to overcome included:
- A decrease in stiffness from scaled-up tubes for the frame
- High-speed frame shimmy from less sturdy frames
- A heavier bike because of a larger frame
- Discomfort for cyclists reaching for too-low handlebars
- Average length cranks make the rider feel like they’re pedaling a kid’s bike
Our design philosophy, developed by Lennard, addresses all of these struggles and resolves these issues. How do you keep large bikes light? Why with a titanium frame, of course! How do you prevent shimmying at high speeds? With larger diameter tubing for greater stiffness and strength!
Any bike designed at Clydesdale Bicycles is comprehensively proportional to the rider and delivers comfort, performance, and durability that’s superior to anything they’ve ever ridden before. We guarantee it.
Why a Titanium Frame?
Titanium has always been the obvious solution to Lennard. It’s half the weight of steel and can flex three times further than aluminum and twice as far as steel without permanent damage. With this material, we can deliver a larger frame without the added weight. We’ve also compensated for scaling up the design of a smaller bike with larger diameter tubing that ensures more stiffness for greater power transfer without compromising compliance and comfort. With the fatigue resistance of titanium, feeling road buzz and small bumps is a thing of the past. Our bikes won’t beat up your body over a long trek.
With the performance, weight, and comfort of our scaled-up designs resolved, Lennard turned his focus to the other benefits of titanium. Unlike other metals, titanium never corrodes. That means it can be left bare for a natural titanium finish and you can also paint or powder coat it your favorite color.
We prefer titanium road bikes for tall people, and once you discover our bikes, you will too! Explore our selection to find a bike that can literally last you for the rest of your life.
Contact Us
Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you have about Clydesdale Bicycles. If you don’t see the type of bike you are looking for, email us and let us know what types of bikes you would like to see in the Clydesdale line up. We will be adding new models every year until we are covering every corner of the big and tall bicycle market.