BikeCAD Pro/ TT length

I use BikeCad Pro and it has features like you mention. In my opinion though, you can't fit with a computer or a spreadsheet. It's an organic process with trial and error, testing and changes.

I just bought it a couple of weeks ago. I'm trying to go into business building frames, and I think it's $350 well spent.

There is a fixed set of fitting calcs in bikecad. You can also change the calculations. The program automates the process, and allows you to apply the fitting rules from the rider's measurements to the frame. For whatever reason, it wants my road bike to have a very, very short head tube when it calculates the drop. It looks like a time trial bike, the top tube slopes towards the front.. I haven't found where they get that relation from, but I haven't checked any of the obvious places either.

It's all just trig

I just use excel to do design work. But I'm not a super visual person, and I have equipment that can easily be set up without a drawing - my excel spreadsheet just generates all the miter angles and lengths (as well as calculating about a billion other things). Don Ferris gave me a basic version of it years ago and I've modified it extensively since then. If you like puttering with trig (and you can deal with the annoying radian-default in Excel) then just write your own software.

Or email me and I'll send it to you.

-Walt

Walt said:

I just use excel to do design work. But I'm not a super visual person, and I have equipment that can easily be set up without a drawing - my excel spreadsheet just generates all the miter angles and lengths (as well as calculating about a billion other things). Don Ferris gave me a basic version of it years ago and I've modified it extensively since then. If you like puttering with trig (and you can deal with the annoying radian-default in Excel) then just write your own software.

Or email me and I'll send it to you.

-Walt

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PM sent

Just throwing it out there...Anyone use rattleCAD?

open Source ?

A-Town212 said:

I guess this is a two part question.... where the first was prompted by the first... but also important on it's own.

Anyone ever use BikeCAD Pro? Is it worth the $ over the free version?

have you ever tried ... http://sourceforge.net/projects/rattlecad/

I would not ever spend so much money for a program.
I did the first trial in a CAD-System. But over the years there will be a license fee.
So I did it myself ... voila ...

try it and give a response on usability ...

regards fred

Click to expand...

I paid for and extensively use BikeCad Pro and I can say that it was worth the money for me. Brett does a great job of updating the software and fixing bugs. The soft ware is great as a design tool and it's as useful as a customer communication tool.

I just DL'd RattleCAD to take a look at it.I'm interested to see how it compares.