I’m still not falling for “women specific” parts. You can get cranks in several different sizes. Off the top of my head, I’ve seen 165mm to 180mm. I have Avid brake levers that are short enough that only two fingers can fit on them and the pull is adjustable so that I can have the lever far away or close to the grip.
I will say that some saddles may fit women better than they would fit a man, but I’m sure there’s several men with wider seat bones. I’m also sure there’s many women with narrow seat bones. I still wouldn’t assign a gender to any part on the bike, unless it’s a pink CK headset.
Not true. Women on average are not only 10 cm shorter than the average Man, but also the length of the arms to total body length, width and shape of hips differs. I have ridden a bike designed for a large - about 20 cm longer than me - man, and the problem isn’t adjusting the saddle height, it’s leaning forward to grasp the handle bars, which puts most of my weight onto my arms, which means pressure on that nerve that runs from my elbow down my lower arm and ends in the palm of my hand; putting pressure there means that the arm will slowly go numb, which is not good. And it means I sit with a hunched back instead of a straight back (this is a problem with far too many bikes of both genders).
I’ve seen new models that are marketed as “Bikes for seniors” - they have a very low, wide tube that bends down in the middle, and no higher cross tubes at all. The reasoning behind this is that for seniors of both genders it’s difficult to lift the leg over the high crossbar of a normal bike, so instead the just step over the low tube and onto the saddle.
This is exactly what my fiancee does. The entire process of fitting a bike is the same whether you’re male or female (aside from the saddle which is affected by where your sit bones hit the seat). Most bike shops will make adjustments like swapping out stems and seat posts at no charge. Sometimes it still doesn’t quite work out.
I do have one friend we cycle with who did have a women-specific bike for awhile because she is really high waisted and a bike that was big enough to fit her lower body left her too stretched out and uncomfortably extended up top (even with the shortest stem). For awhile she had a smaller Bianchi that fit her upper body just right, but she had to have a super-long seat post which resulted in a more aggressive riding posture than she liked and ultimately put too much weight on her hands.
It’s my understanding that the women’s bike she had used a different height vs. length ratio.
IIRC, she is presently riding a sweet Cervelo men’s bike that is a touch too big for her and she has her saddle scooched forward farther than the manufacturer’s recommendations (Eg/ beyond the “don’t go past this line” mark). I don’t know what happened to the women’s bike she had (maybe she still has it and I just haven’t seen it in awhile.)
ETA: Oh, I just remembered - her women’s specific bike was a a Fuji.
First, I don’t know if it’s done in the US, but in Germany, there’s regularly a measuring of a “typical” set of people to get average sizes, among others, for the manufacturers and their size tables, but also for the DIN Standards, where the law prescribes minimum width of doors, height of chairs and so on to accomodate people. I don’t remember offhand how many people are measured - I think they said some 5 000, but I’m not sure - but they keep doing it every year.
Secondly, all fields of manufacturers, but most especially, sports equipment manufacturers, have started with special women’s equipment in the last decades, because more women go not only into the extreme areas of sports in greater numbers, there are also several women around who decide to start manufacturing themselves to fill the niche they experience while sporting.
Different shapes of boots has already been mentioned, besides ski boots, hiking and mountaineering boots are even more so. Then the backpack manufacturers have come out with the results of testing and redesinging the frame - not only different rate of width/length of the back, but also different shape of the hips, different weight distribution etc.
As for lighter materials - women are not only smaller on average, but also lighter on average than men. This means that even for a mountain bike or similar stress, that you can use less material to support 50 - 60 kg of biker than to support 70-80 kg of biker. So that might be an explanation.
While there are a few bikes built with weight targets in mind (and I mean literally about three, this is incredibly uncommon now that we are using carbon over ridiculously thin aluminum) , they are ultra-high end road racing bikes, typically meant for skinny dudes who like to go uphill as fast as possible.
Everything else has to not crack when you plow into a root or train tracks or something. ‘Lighter materials’ is the ultimate marketing phrase in the cycling world - take it from me, a cyclist with a 14lb bike.
The bike I own has a “male” frame but the city I live in recently introduced a free rental scheme and the bikes they provide have “female” frames. I don’t notice any difference except when getting on and off the bike - and it is much easier with the female frame, particularly when I’m wearing a skirt but also if I’m in jeans.
Huh, I just went and looked up the Fuji women specific bike and compared it to another Fuji men’s bike to see what the specs were like. Specifically, I compared a 50cm Women’s bike (center-to-top) to a 50cm men’s (also center-to-top).
Differences in this women’s bike:
effective top tube length was about an inch shorter, but the stem length was the same
chain stay was a teensy weensy bit shorter
wheelbase was correspondingly shorter
head tube was a wee bit shorter
head tube angle was a few degrees different
handle bars were 1 inch shorter
crank length a bit shorter
weight was practically identical
So overall, it looks like the women’s bike is more compressed than the men’s bike. So not a smaller bike, they are both 50cm, but a shorter bike, so they are using a slightly different height/length ratio.
An interestingly, the Men’s Extra Small goes down to 42cm, whereas the Women’s Extra Small is 44cm.
ETA: And in this case the bike does NOT have the top tube angled for a skrit, it look like the men’s bike with the more horizontal top tube.
I’m slightly shorter than average, and some other men are much shorter than average. There are smaller sizes of bike. I have a long body and short legs. Other men are the opposite. You just change a few components and the bike will fit. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to point out that the variation in male size and dimensions covers the same ground as is required to accomodate women, so that there is no logic in suggesting that women being smaller etc on average makes any difference.
You rode a bike way, way too big for you and you didn’t fit. It wouldnt’ have fit me either and I’m male. Your point is?
Well, that Fuji is. Go to some other manufacturer and all the dimensions and angles will be slightly different again. A woman would have as much or very probably much more chance of finding something that fit her by just trying out different general frames as by going to “women specific” frames.
Interesting - here in Paris I’d say you see as many, if not more, female cyclists in skirts. If you’re using a bike for your commute to work it’s good not to have to limit yourself to wearing trousers.
I also find it interesting that the city rent a bike schemes I’ve used - Lyon, Paris and Montréal - all favour the “female” style of bike. I’m perfectly capable of swinging my leg over (I have a man’s mountain bike) but these brutes are unwieldy to say the least and once you put anything in the basket there’s no way to get on the darn thing without “stepping into” it then perching yourself up onto the seat.
No, not just that Fuji, for most manufacturers that make “men’s” and “women’s” bikes, the woman’s style is more compressed.
As someone who fits neither standard men’s or women’s sizes (fitters usually give up - salespeople flat out lie to me) and really needs to have a custom made someday, there’s a difference between the way a badly fit women’s bike and a badly fit men’s bike feel.
The same thing as it meant for the Fuji. Go look up the geometries. The prevailing wisdom (true or not) is that the average woman has longer arms, a shorter torso, and longer legs than the average man of the same height. WSD bikes tend to be based on those beliefs.
For me, with a badly fit men’s, I’m too stretched out. With a badly fit women’s, I’m banging my knees into the handlebars. Have you tried any of the women specific designed bicycles or do they not sell them in Australia?
Yes, you can. Any reputable bike shop will happily make reasonable swap outs on stuff like stems and seat posts if shorter/longer versions are desired. They will also swap out saddles, or put on narrower/wider handlebars. Of course, if you’re buying your bike at, say Wal-Mart instead of a good bike store, well then you’re not the brightest bulb in the store.
It turns out–get this–that the manufacturers of component groups include stems, cranks, and seat posts of different lengths (among other details). Wow! Who knew? Also, they make handle bars of different widths!
A cursory examination of the details of frame geometry reveals that the dimensions of so-called “women’s frames” can duplicated exactly by doing a little research into the geometry of “men’s frames.”
The whole women’s bike thing is basically marketing gimmickry.
Personal anecdote: I fitted out my wife on a used “men’s bike” perfectly easily by swapping out — get this — a shorter stem for a slightly longer one. Yep, she is about the same height (5’5") as the man I bought the bike from, but she has longer arms.
Aye, but here’s the rub: the size variations that men have in their bodies have hugely overlap those of women. It turns out there’s more overlap than difference, actually.
For Og’s sake, people: don’t you realize how many different sizes and proportions are available to both sexes?
Here are the main points of fitting a bike:
Stem length & height
Crank arm length
Seat post height
Position of saddle on seat post
Handlebar width
(Overall frame size)
With all those variables, the only really important reason for women-specific frames is coloring.
Also: don’t buy a new bike from anyone who won’t let you swap parts to get the right fit.
The silliness of this is that there are plenty of men who fit that 50-60kg range and plenty of women who fit the 70-80kg range. No need for sex-specific “lighter materials.”
What **Knorf **said. Really, your understanding makes no sense whatever. Plus why the heck does your lack of fit to a badly fit bike tell us anything? I think we can all agree that our fit to bikes that don’t fit us is lousy.
And you’ve obviously never spent any time researching women specific design or looking at the geometry for women’s bikes. So I’ll try again.
For most manufacturers, if they make CoolBike-54 and LadyCoolBike-54, both size 54 bikes will have the same length seat tube, but LadyCoolBike will have a shorter top tube than CoolBike. This isn’t just true for the Fiji that Swallowed My Cellphone found, it’s pretty much true across manufacturers. It’s a difference in geometry. Not marketing, not paint. For most manufacturers, there is a difference in geometry between WSD bikes and (for lack of a better word) standard bikes.
Because of that difference, a woman with a long torso probably shouldn’t look twice at a WSD bike, she may get a better fit with a standard bike. A woman with longer legs, though, might find WSD bikes a better fit. A man with a long inseam might want to look into them as well, their ratios might fit him easier than a standard bike.
As to Knorf’s wife, it wasn’t just that she was the same height as the man she bought the bike from, she probably also had similar proportions. I’m most familiar with trying to fit me - and starting sizing me by height always ends up putting me on a poorly sized bike because I have non-standard proportions.
Why did you ask about it in post 52? I simply answered your question.
A longer top tube is simply a result of a different seat tube angle. More relaxed equals longer, and vice versa. More relaxed angles give a more comfortable ride but less manouverability and vice versa. Generally a greater angle tends to be used for racing bikes and a larger (more relaxed) angle for cruisers. Different frames have different seat tube angles and hence different top tube lengths. The variation in angle in non gender specific bikes covers the range that includes what you are being sold as “women’s frames”. Further, the range in seat tube lengths for a given size of frame is much smaller than the range of adjustment in stem length and and seat adjustment anyway.
You’ve been sold a bill of goods by clever marketing people.
