Hi,

I currently ride a Parlee Z4 in medium, the fit is ok, but I have to use a 90mm stem and could possibly go to a 80mm. Vertically the bikes fits perfectly, with 72.5cm from the centre of the BB to the top of the saddle and the head tube length is perfect.   seem to have a short torso and average legs for my height. The small Z4 has too shorter head tube for me. 

So I was thinking maybe a Z5 in small with the tall head tube would fit better. As the head tube would be in the ball park of hint medium, but with a shorter top tube. 

I road a friends Cervelo RS in a small and that seemed like a nice fit.

Any thoughts would be appreciated?

Cheers

Getting a good bike-fitting, then get Tom at Parlee to prepare a CAD on a Z5
That way its black and white - no guess work
Best of luck

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What is the question? The only difference will be the amount of spacers. The long head tube doesn't mean anything to the way the bike will ride.

Ahhh spacer are not as ridged as headube...

While its not pretty a tall headube beats a spacer stack performance wise ( stiffness, flex etc ) every single time.

Don't guess or ask a bunch of Internet nerds ( eg us ) get a proper fit and get the bike, Stem, headube combo that fits properly, what's $300-400 when your about to drop $3700 on a frameset?

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http://fairwheelbikes.com/cycling-blog/ ... ee-z5.html

What he is saying is that the small-tall has a 148mm head tube/525mm top tube while the medium has a 140mm head tube/545mm top tube, so instead of running a 90mm stem he may be able to run a 110mm. The seat tube angles are .5 deg different so that will effectively lengthen the small-tall top tube by about 5mm.
Remember, the contact points are the important dimensions, the rest is all about proper balance.