Girls on boys bikes

[haritone]

Thanks for the responses pinkbike & Everard.

What seems to be a shame is the lack of women's bikes in the off-road market, and moreso the fact most offerings are much lower spec than the male counterpart. I think a lot of pro women ride male/unisex bikes for that reason?

That's a great rap on the Anthem pinkbike. I'd say it would make the shortlist.

Thanks for the info Everard. I'll be working at QV1 so Kalamunda seems a bit far away - I was thinking somewhere near Scarborough so hope there's some riding around there. I get the same impressions from bike shops - just ride a men's bike and swap parts out to make it fit. On the surface it makes sense - no matter how good your bike is, if it doesn't fit well, you won't ride well. My only doubt is that everyone who has said this has been male, and the best opinion is going to come from a woman. It's like a man selling bras.. you might know how it should work, but how do you know til you've tried?

btw. It's a fair ask hauling up near 30% bodyweight so Stacey must be doing well!

Cheers

[Everard]

Thanks for the responses pinkbike & Everard.

What seems to be a shame is the lack of women's bikes in the off-road market, and moreso the fact most offerings are much lower spec than the male counterpart. I think a lot of pro women ride male/unisex bikes for that reason?

That's a great rap on the Anthem pinkbike. I'd say it would make the shortlist.

Thanks for the info Everard. I'll be working at QV1 so Kalamunda seems a bit far away - I was thinking somewhere near Scarborough so hope there's some riding around there. I get the same impressions from bike shops - just ride a men's bike and swap parts out to make it fit. On the surface it makes sense - no matter how good your bike is, if it doesn't fit well, you won't ride well. My only doubt is that everyone who has said this has been male, and the best opinion is going to come from a woman. It's like a man selling bras.. you might know how it should work, but how do you know til you've tried?

btw. It's a fair ask hauling up near 30% bodyweight so Stacey must be doing well!

Cheers

Good point about Stacey lifting 30%! She is a really toughy then! haha.
Well I know Jo and Tim Bennett over here and she is an Australian Champion. And she told me the same news. So that is what got me looking at mens bikes for Stacey. But do continue your research.

Scarborough is a great area. I live in the nearby Suburb of North beach. And there is another rider also. But our nearest trail is 30-40 minutes away.
So unfortunately it is a bit of a drive. But never fear we all ride 3-4 times a week and night ride 1-2 times a week.

Good luck

[pinkbike]

One thing I found interesting is that the listed geometry for the female anthem frame is very very similar to the old Trek 4500 (mens) frame I used to ride. So women's specific fits are not always necessary to get a particular geometry.
The main difference with female geometry is normally a shorter effective top tube for frame size, because women generally have longer legs and shorter torsos than men so their reach effective from seat to handlebar is shorter. So to make male bikes fit a lot of women shorten the stems and put seats forward however this can effect steering and handling of the bike... it can also change weight distribution and make it hard to keep weight well distributed over wheels.
But there's no rule to say that men's bikes will definitely be too long - and not all men's bikes are the same geometry. So you might not need to change anything...

[pink]

I ride a small santa cruz Blur xc and it fits great. I'm 160cm tall, I just swapped out the stem for a shorter version and i love it. No problem with geometry, at just over 12kg it's a sweet ride! I almost went a Juliana at the time, but felt too squashed on it, best thing to do it take a test ride if possible.

[burnside97]

There are definately fantastic womens specific duallys around but they wont be ideal for every lady. The things that make it a womens specific bike are going to be, slightly narrower bars, a shorter toptube, womens specific seats, sometimes womens specific grips and sometimes a fork and or shock that will be valved sligtly differently for smaller ladies.... BUT these bikes are not always going to be the right bike for every lady.
Try the 'UNISEX' bikes out also and ask to be properly fit up and set up for a test ride. As stated earlier things like stem lenghts, hights, seat positions can and should be adjusted by the guys at the shops to make you feel comfortable. And if you decide to buy a unisex bike you could lop the ends of the bars to accomodate narrower shoulders and a good ladies seat could make all the difference. Anyway, explore all possibilities and im sure there will be the perfect bike out there.

Also now is the end of the 09 stock which means you could probably pick up a bargin and spend some of the money you save from the full price on kitting your bike out bit a good ladies seat and some other parts that might be more sutiable for your body frame/size

[osmund]

Just to weigh into this discussion at a late point...

In 2007 I bought a men's hardtail as the women specific bikes seemed such a bad deal (crappier components for more $$). It is an aggressive ride which causes me shoulder pain so not quite the right fit.

A year later after having a baby, I test rode a dualie and fell in love so decided to get a new bike. I ended up getting a pink bike too (Giant Anthem XW Elite 09) - pity about the colour. However, like other's have complained, I wasn't able to give it a proper test ride and this bike too gives me shoulder pain (not as much as the hardtail). I did test ride a couple of other bikes properly (BMC Shiver 01 and Specialized Sapphire) but neither of these bikes were not racey enough for me (ie couldn't corner fast on them).

Interestingly now that I have become more confident on the bike again (post time off after having baby), I have started riding my hardtail again and am loving it. I hadn't ridden my pink bike for a couple of months, it was feeling very neglected.

Anyway, I think the Giant Pink bike is good value for money and a great ride. I have changed a few things in the set up so far (and still wanting to tweak it some more): cut the ends off the bars (quite substantially) and moved spacers down so the position is less upright. Someone on here mentioned replacing the riser bar with a flat bar - how did that go? Did you move the spacers too?

[pinkbike]

Hi Osmund,

Yup I replaced the bar with a flat bar from Wiggle (http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Ea...ar/4000000102/) which is about 10cm shorter than the standard bar. The standard low rise bars are a whopping 68cm wide which is not female specific at all - in fact most guys would chop that down on an XC race style bike. The flat bar moves your hands forward and down slightly so it does change your body position, this means I naturally have more weight over the front wheel when cornering and climbing. I haven't moved any spacers yet as the bar changes the position quite a bit anyway. I don't have the shoulder pain problem though so can't say if a flat bar would help.

[Everard]

btw. It's a fair ask hauling up near 30% bodyweight so Stacey must be doing well!

Well I forgot that I put thorn proof tubes in Stacey's Cypher. Not realising they weigh so much.. Since then I have upgraded her bike to XT wheel set, tubeless Crossmax and Larsens and upgraded her cassette to a nice SRAM pink one. There is a massive weight difference in the cassettes even. And I have also changed her disc rotors over to some high end ones that I had spare from building my Firebird up. So all it all it feels so much lighter. It is still in the shop going through the modifications. But with that I would like to see what the weight reduction is from its original 14 kilos.
All up it cost me around 650 bucks! So she had better love me after this!