It's a bike we designed for Jim Porter of Merry Sales, owner and distributor of bike parts, and all things SOMA (means "South Of Market (street) Area" in Frisco-ese. In Greek, soma means body. The model name is San Marco. It means "Saint Marco."
The San Marco is a sporty road bike, a frisky bike suitable for anyroad riding on the planet----fitness rides, club rides, centuries, brevets, riding over to Lucy-Jo's house, anything you can do on a bike on a road, you can do on this bike.
I/Grant had total freedom with the geometry, and nothing got compromised along the way. It's a bike any dealer will have access to (through Merry Sales, not through us), and we'll sell it, too.
The 59cm and 63cm have 2TT (two top tubes, or a top tube and an undertube, if you prefer.) The seemingly extra tube re-establishes the triangulation that gets lost on bigger frames with taller head tubes, adding strength, stiffness, and reducing fatigue. Yes, it's a visual surprise, but when you understand the function, you'll see the beauty of it. The frame is absolutely better for it. The 54cm and smaller frames don't have 2TT, and don't need 'em.
It rides great. Nobody in the world could dislike how this bike feels. It's neutral in the best sense of the word. It responds when you huff-it-up, and it corners like all of our bikes corner, which is: Good.
It's comfortable because the bars are high. You can put them lower if you like, but the expanded frame with the 6-degree upsloping top tube makes higher easier. The quill stem helps even more. Let's say you have a modern road bike you got sized up for at the local racer shop. Your bars are maxed out, vertically. On the Saint Marco, sized by us, you'll be able to put them maybe 4-inches higher.
It's versatile because it fits tires up to 38mm, or 33mm with a fender. You can ride it on rough roads, even dirt roads with bigger tires, lower pressure, good judgment, and more skill. The bike is capable of more than most of us are capable of.
Despite the rack mounts on the seat stays, it isn't a touring bike. The tubing is too light for that. The rack mounts are for a rack, yes, but it's still not a bike for loaded touring, so keep the load light. It's a sprite-of-a-bike, for largely unloaded and lightly loaded road riding. Saddlebags, handlebar bags, both, easy.
It has the normal braze-ons for two bottles, pump, and the normal cable stops. Nothing's been snuck out of it.
Key thing: As you'd expect, has a one-inch threaded steer tube, which means it takes a standard quill stem (22.2mm quill diameter, the kind we sell, and basically the only kind you see these days). This gives you access to any of dozens of nice Nitto stems, and why would you trust your teeth to anything else?
The top tube slopes up about 6-degrees, and that is key, also. It raises the head tube, and provides a higher launching point for the stem and handlebars. In doing so, it virtually eliminates any possibility of not being able to get the handlebar high enough. Still, we recommend a long-quill stem, such as the Nitto Technomic, or Technomic Deluxe.
The frame will come in five sizes:
47 - 51 (both for 650B wheels)
54 - 59 - 63cm (700c)
The 47 and 51 are designed for long-reach brakes, with a reach of about 60mm. Youi'll use the BigMouth 73s or Silver sidepulls, or a centerpull with that much reach. These brakes rather than the med-reach sidepull, because of how the seat stay angle affects clearance. It's a quirky detail of frames, largely unknown, quite real, and the best way to deal with it is the way we've done it---with a longer reach. This explanation is short on purpose, because it could be 800 words by itself and still not convey the physics of it.
The actual geometry........well, I don't have time to put it up, and I'm not super-inclined to, anyway. There's nothing magic or dumb about it. It reflects all of my 'pinions about frame design, with no cave-ins to anybody, and it designed just the way I'd've done it for us. I like long chainstays, high head tubes, lowish bottom brackets, good clearance, shallow seat tube angles, moderate head tubes and trail. We've built and ridden the bikes here, and they ride as well as any bike I've designed.
Price: $900 frame and fork.
Whole bike: From $2500 to $2800, typically. It's one of those "a la carte" deals, where you can go cheap or glitzy. I'd recommend the same kind of stuff we put on our other bikes---Sugino XD crank, Nitto wherever possible, nothing smaller than a 32mm tire (you can put a 22 on it if you want, but why would you want to?).....that kind of thing. A whole bike could easily be had, without anything crummy, for around $2K.
Layaways are available. You put down 30 percent, then make 8 monthly payments on a pre-arranged credit card. We'll charge your card a fixed, agreed-upon amount in the last few days of every month. Details on request, but basically...we ship your bike when it's paid off, and we give you 8 months to do that. There are slight penalties if you bail out midway---but we're suckers for sob stories, and aren't out to make any enemies, so...don't dive into the layaway plan without some thought, but if it'll make buying the bike less painful, we're here to help. You don't pay any more than you would otherwise.
Color: Light blue.
Availability: 54 - 59 - 63cm (700c), 47 - 51 (both for 650B wheels) - We order them as needed, no stock is on hand.
Getting the right size is easy:
It always starts with your PBH (pubic bone height). As a backup or a cross-reference, you can use an existing saddle height (SH) (center of crank to top of saddle)---but only if you know it to be correct. Now, here we go.
If your PBH is Then your SH should be and your San Marcos size is
73 to 77 62 to 67 47
78 to 81 68 to 71 51
82 to 86.5 71 to 75 54
86.49999 to 92 76 to 81 59
92 to 96 81 to 85 63
These are conservative ranges. If you PBH is on the lower end of the frame-size range, you'll still have plenty of crotch-clearance, but the seat post won't stick up as much (you'll show a fistfull of post). If the numbers are foreign, don't sweat it, we'll work it out. But it's really good to know your PBH, and you can learn how to measure it here.
To order: 800 345-3918.
We'll ask for frame payment now, and then, if you want a whole bike, we'll figure out the best parts for you. You don't need to know any tech stuff about bike parts. If you do, and you know some or all of what you want on the bike, that's great. But if not, just tell us what kind of riding you want it for---presumably all-around road riding and not a lot of trail riding, and no tire bigger than 35mm wide---and we'll ask you some questions only you can answer, and that you WILL be able to answer.
Based on that, we'll come up with a starter full kit for you, send you a pdf of it for your leisure-time perusal, and after zero to four more back-and-forths (with questions and answers), we'll have a final spec. Once you say "Go!", we put it into the build queueueueeueueu, and depending on the length of the line and where you live, you'll have your bike in anywhere from 10 days to a month.
Of course, you can call and talk about the bike without anybody pushing you into it.