We need the flat perspective that comes from distance - basically we want every part of the bike frame to be at the same distance away from the camera, so the scale is the same everywhere.

The only way to do this is to step back a minimum of 15 feet. If you have a nice camera you can step back 20-30 feet away for a slightly more precise result.

Unfortunately, bike geometry charts don't have enough information about the frame triangle to make a bag.

Geometry charts are designed for rider-specific dimensions (like stack and reach), and they don't give any info about the inside of the frame.

Congrats on getting a custom frame! Whether a drawing works or not depends on the drawing - feel free to email it to info@roguepanda.com and we'll take a look.

One thing to note is that for some frame builders the CAD drawing is a guideline for geometry, but things like bolt locations or the exact placement of the top tube might change - check with your frame builder to see if that's the case.

Great question! Basically we use the ruler in your photo to scale the whole bike to life size in our magic lightning box (AKA computer).

Then we draw a frame bag template on top of that and print it out so it can be made into a real-life frame bag!

Back in the olden days we used to print each photo and do actual math to scale the triangle (boo!) - scroll down for an old-school example. Our current methods are much more civilized.

Sure thing! We're well versed in both systems of measurement.

Often with a metric tape measure, the markings are hard to see. But there's often red rectangles every 10 cm, so if those are visible we can use that for our scale.