by Calnago on Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:47 pm
@Kummpa: When it comes to Time's geo charts, one very well versed in geometry could be led to a totally erroneous conclusion regarding fit and setup. And since it's your saddle position that you're most concerned about, this is where their charts are just wrong. Doesn't matter if you're looking at the chart from Japan or from Time's French website, the numbers are the same. The Alpe d'Huez shares it's geometry with the Skylon. They are identical. Oh, by the way, when you say "setback of 25mm is perfect", I'm going to assume you mean a seatpost offset of 25mm and not a saddle setback of 25mm (very different things, the saddle setback being the horizontal distance from a vertical line through the bottom bracket to the nose of your saddle). Ok, with that assumption made...
Here's the problem, and as you may have noted in @leej88's post previously, he also ran into this exact issue, as did I and others I have come across....
Time's published seat tube angles are simply incorrect, not misprints, simply not accurate. For example, in my size (XL), they publish a seat tube angle of 73 degrees, same as for your size (M). However, the seat tube angle is actually 71.5 degrees, or very close to it. I know that for seat tube angles in my size (e.g., Trek and Colnago both have seat tube angles of 72.8 degrees), that a seatpost with an offset of 20mm will allow clamping of the saddle rails at almost dead center. I like that, both aesthetically and functionally since having to clamp a saddle's rails at one extreme or another puts a lot of added stress on the structure. If I were to look at other frames, with this information I could tell very quickly whether they would work or not from this perspective. And if I were to be looking at Time's geo charts, one of things I would zero in on would be that relationship of seat tube angle and seatpost offset. If I take their published numbers at face value, and see a seat tube angle of 73 degrees, even steeper than I have, then combine it with a zero offset post (the only one available for the skylon for example), that would pretty much have me ruling out the bike straight away, because even if I could get the saddle in the right position, it would have to be clamped pretty much as far forward on the rails as possible, if it would even be possible. I think in @Leej88's case, this in fact was what he was after, and could have been a reason for going with the Time, except that he found out, as did his fitters, that this didn't work out the way it should have because the numbers published aren't correct. And he ended up having to clamp his saddle as far back on the rails as was possible. No fault of him. No fault of his fitters. It's the fault of bad numbers on the geo chart and knoweldgeable fitters assuming they are what they publish.
So, back to my case. Where I would have ruled out the TIME initially, once built up and the saddle set to my correct height and setback, the rails, even with the zero offset post and steeper seattube angle were clamped very close to center, perfectly acceptable. But this should not have been the case if I were to have just trusted the numbers in TIME's geo chart to be that way. This was not my bike, so it didn't matter, but it did allow me to really analyze and fully understand the nuances of recommending a Time frame to someone else and the adjustments I'd have to make to be able to compare apples to apples with other frames.
Now, in your case... let's get the reach thing out of the way first. Reach is only comparable at equivalent stack heights. The stack on your Parlee (assuming regular not "high"), is 545mm, versus the stack height on the TIME (M) of 562mm, so 17mm difference. A good rule of thumb is that for every 10mm of stack height the reach changes by 3mm. So, on the TIME, the comparable reach is around say, 5mm longer than your Parlee. Done. Use that in your analysis as you will.
Top Tube Length... On your Parlee, it just lists a Top Tube Length of 545mm, and since a lot of Parlees are sloping I'm going to assume that's an actual top tube length (because it doesn't say otherwise), which is not directly comparable to the Time's "effective" top tube length of 555mm. However, if you were to translate that presumably actual Parlee tt length of 545mm to an effective top tube length, you could probably add another centimeter or so (depending on slope) to it in order to make it comparable. So I'd normally say it's close, except for that fact that since TIME chooses to publish a much steeper seat tube angle than it actutally is, this also has the effect of rendering their effective top tube length to be shorter than it effectively is if one was trying to compare to other frames. How much shorter... I'd say between 5-8mm shorter depedning on the frame size you're looking at.
So, let's just say that you can get close in that regard, which I which I think you can. Then there is the fact that due to the design of the seatrail clamp, there is relatively little fore and aft adjustment available, compared to seatrail clamps with a more tradiational design. This is just the nature of these types of clamps, so it pays to take a little extra care in ensuring you will be able to get the setup you want.
I can't say for certain, but if you are talking about using a 25mm offset seatpost, and are concerned that the TIME just wouldn't allow you to fit your saddle properly, then you'll probably find that in the end it will be ok, using their zero offset post. I know it's counterintuitive, but it is what it is. You can ask TIME to explain, I'd like to hear it too.
What I've just said above relates to the Alpe d'Huez 01 model, not the 21, which uses a standard 27.2 seatpost. I don't know if the 21 model is exactly the same geometry or not.
Good luck.
. I hate the entire Slow Squared System (my latest nickname for the "Quickset" headset. I now call it Slow Squared, instead of just Slowset, because with the latest incarnation in the Alpe D'huez model, they've now buried it under a top cover which makes access not only sloooow, but the most cumbersome of any modern headset I can think of. And you will need to adjust these things, since the waxy substance on the bearings wears leaving you with a loose knocking headset. Ok, "hate" is a strong word, so no big deal, but I just ask... why? So, off comes the top cap, and the stem, and all spacers and finally that top cover so that you can shove the little crowbar thingies in there at an even weirder angle than before, and loosen it off, or tighten it up. If it served any useful purpose I might give it some slack. Perhaps their steertubes are just too soft to even cope with the interface between the steertube and bearings, I don't know... but that is truly the only reason i can think of why they still continue to bond a threaded alloy sleeve to the steertube in order to make this thing work. It is not better. No other manufacturer needs to do it, and steertube carbon layups have come a long way since Time started this thing. It's unnecessary, but if you want a clunker of a fork, look no further than Time's own 550gram Activ fork. 
