Did the LBS guy check the for/aft position of the saddle? It could easily be in the wron position. We're the bars at the right height? Did the bars feel too far forward? That bike comes with a 45mm stem, so it's already pretty short? Get the LBS dude to sort out the saddle position first, then mess with the bar height. If that doesn't sort it, a different bar may. It sounds like you feel the bar is too far away and I don't think going up in size can help that.

 

The saddle fore aft position was not checked.

Is the bar height even adjustable? I wasn't aware that was even a thing on bikes. It's hard to say if the bars felt like if they were too far forward or not high enough, but I would lean towards not high enough.

And yes, the stem is already short.

I don't mind messing with components to make it fit right, just want to make sure the frame size is correct. Sounds like you agree size small is a better start.

 

Conventional wisdom says that you should adjust your saddle only to put it in the correct position with respect to the pedals. In other words, don't change saddle position to fix a bar problem. Of course, the saddle might be in the wrong place w.r.t. the pedals and fixing that problem also alleviates the bar problem. But I doubt that they let you test the bike with a saddle that wasn't at least roughly correctly set up.

Be a little wary as a great bike that doesn't fit you makes for a poor experience and buyer's regret.

 

I was just noticing the difference in the stack and reach between my current bike and the fuse. The reach is longer by 5mm on the fuse, and the stack is shorter by 12mm. If I understand correctly, both of those would tell me that the fuse put me more down and forward, which is what I felt. But this doesn't consider the handlebars, so I'm not sure how good of an observation this is.

When I was trying out the Fuse, I noticed I set the saddle to be the same height as the top of the handlebars (for comfortable peddling). I've noticed in many bike pictures that this seems common. But on my current bike, the saddle is lower by a couple inches, but this is what I feel comfortable riding. So where might be the difference?

 

It simply may be that this model just doesn't work for you.

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