Where Have All the Women’s Bikes Gone?
Based on a quick review of bike manufacturers’ websites, women’s bikes don’t seem to have gone anywhere, but a little probing shows the industry might to be in retrograde mode. Having made so much progress in the last 25 years, it would be a shame to lose sight of the goal: bountiful offerings for all riders. Although there are more choices than ever for female cyclists, the true distinctions between those bikes and unisex bikes are disappearing quickly.
Last month, Bicycling magazine’s annual Buyer’s Guide hit the news stands and for the first time in years, there was no mention of women’s bikes. Poof! Gone with the wind! I haven’t been able to find the reason for this -- so far, all Bicycling will say is women’s bikes will be covered in their Editor’s Choice and in individual bike reviews. Gone, but not forgotten. Now, add to this the fact that, with the notable exception of Specialized, in the past most smaller women’s bikes have offered 650c wheel sizes to fit the rider properly. (At Terry, we go a step further with not only 650c and 700c, but 24” wheels as well.) But recently, 650c has been disappearing from the lineup faster than real sugar in soft drinks.
No more 650c for Cannondale, Trek, Orbea or Fuji to name just a few. So what’s going on??? I spoke to some manufacturers -- those who continue to carry 650c and those who have dropped them. They all told me the same thing. 650c wheels are a must-have for a properly built small bicycle. But there is mounting pressure to build small bikes with 700c wheels. Some told me the consumer herself is driving this change. Apparently there are quite a few women who would prefer to ride an ill-fitting bike with 700c wheels than a properly-fitting 650c bicycle. This may be driven by hesitancy about the availability of 650c or the need to conform.
Others think the “push back” is from those dealers who don’t really understand how a 650c wheel makes a difference in bike fit and choose to stay in the 700c comfort zone rather than educate the consumer. Once a manufacturer has decided to embrace 700c wheels exclusively, just how will women’s bikes be differentiated from “unisex” bikes? Expect to see a lot more of this: “...a shorter crank and stem length, along with narrower handlebars, give it a women-specific fit”. Gee, that’s just what we did in the good old days of unisex! I can guarantee you that women on the tail of the bell curve, i.e. those very petite women are in for a rough time of it. As 700c returns, stand over heights are rising. Are manufacturers really reading the market correctly? Is there indeed a trade-off between the desire for a properly fitting bicycle and wheel size? What say you, dear reader?
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24 Comments
Peggy Holbrook
So,
I am a women in mourning. My Terry ISIS has a 2 cracks in the stem and my mechanic will not let me do the Tahoe ride on my bike this September. “It could be tragic” . What, a few grates at 45 MPH on the backside of Spooner?
NPR recently reported that cyclists have an intimate relationship with their bikes. Guilty as charged. She sits in storage. I have a very nice Giant road bike in her place. But she/he/it is not MINE. There is no relationship. She rides well. But….
My ISIS and I have been together since 2008. Thousands of miles. If anyone has a 54cm frame to sell out there please let me know. My Giant is a very nice bike. BUT…I miss my bestie.
RoughAcres
Riding a Trek 43 road bike w/650 wheels – it’s for kids – at 5’’1" — not the best fit, though a light bike and it was affordable (less than $400). I’ve had to change out the handlebars for a more upright position, still playing with the saddle/seatpost to get the reach that’s most comfortable. Wish I could afford a Terry bike that’s light and fits… I’ve tried all kinds of brands, but most had 700 wheels and the standover was too high.
Sojourner
I tried for almost 10 years to make do with a Trek almost-fit bike. It was the shortest forward reach they made – a 420, and it was actually their NEXT to the smallest frame size in that bike – the smallest one actually had a LONGER forward reach!
With the help of Sheldon “Always Something Useful To Say” Brown, I was able to retrofit that bike with a shorter stem, narrower handlebars with an inset to bring the brakes in, “small hands” levers, a longer seat post so I could get the seat high enough for my long spider legs. Sight unseen, he walked me through everything I needed to do (including finding the first and, at that time, ONLY women’s specific saddle with the cutout that came from Japan) to get that bike as close to fitting as was humanly possible, all via telephone calls and e-mail.
He is also the first person who ever told me about Terry bikes. However, having just bought a brand new bike, I felt obligated to continue to ride it. Ooooooh, if only I could do that all over again!
Finally I’d had it. Neck pain, soreness, and somehow never really being able to take that thing out for more than about 10 miles at a time finally catapulted me over into the decision to dump the bike and get a Terry. All the “advice” from male riders about how I needed to replace the “ridiculous” short stem (when forward reach was already too long for me), to move my seat back, move it forward, raise the handlebars, lower the handlebars, get a BIGGER bike (because bikes obviously should be fit by standover and nothing else, and my 5’2" frame has spider arms and legs – same length arms and legs as a female friend of mine who was 5’8 or 5’9", LOL!) Finally I’d just had it!
Bought a Terry Madeleine. The difference between a bike that FITS and a bike that only ALMOST fits was night and day! Suddenly I could make a turn without fearing I was about to fall over. Suddenly there was no soreness – the water-gel shorts and all the fancy stuff I’d tried to alleviate saddle soreness were no longer needed. Virtually no more neck pain – I did have to retrain myself to ACTUALLY SIT ON THE SADDLE now that that was possible, because it turned out that I had developed the VERY bad habit of kind of balancing over the nose of my saddle and leaning forward to reach the handlebars and the brake levers, putting a lot of weight on my arms and the handlebars. This not only caused me all sorts of pain, it destabilized me on the bike. It took me awhile to train myself out of that.
And the first time I went to stop the bike, I almost went over the handlebars! Why? Because even with small hands brake levers, and even with the notch in the handlebars, those levers on the old almost-fits bike were still too far away for me and too large for me to get any real torque on them.
With everything within reach so I could sit on the bike with proper conformation, and safe, secure stopping, I felt so much more stable on the bike that I found I was not only riding further, experiencing no pain, no soreness, but I was also riding FASTER. The potential for greater speed had always been there (not that I’m a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination), but I had felt so unstable on the old doesn’t-really-fit bike that I unconsciously was compelled to keep the speed down.
I wish I’d had a Terry all those years ago. I’m glad I had the opportunity to ride one for as long as I was able. But as far as I’m concerned, the ONLY off-the-shelf bike for women is a Terry. Even in their “women specific” conformations, the vast majority of so-called WSD bikes have not actually been tailored to women in any significant way, ESPECIALLY at the lower end of the height scale. A 650c bike is still too big for most shorter riders. TO this day, the ONLY off the shelf bike that has an option for someone as short waisted as I am has always been, and still is, a Terry.
And if I were going to go to a custom bike – again, it would be a Terry. I rode for one summer with a woman who had had a bike custom made for her and she had an awful time with that thing. She’d spent a fortune on it, and it was too big for her. It was also heavy and clunky (I think the guy who built it was just not very good). He had her utterly convinced it was perfect for her and it clearly was NOT. So here is an example of a woman who was willing to drop the big bucks on getting a bike to fit, paid for a custom bike, and STILL got a man’s design painted pink.
It just seems that bike mechanics, by and large, will never learn. Size DOES matter – at least in bikes, wheels, and frame geometries.
Ken Hinman
I got a chuckle out of this line: “At Terry, we go a step further with not only 650c and 700c, but 24” wheels as well”, when in fact there were no 650c bikes in the Terry catalog until the first 20inchers appeared near the end of your first decade! But whether it was 650s or 24s that were the “step further”, I have always appreciated and respected your sticking to a design philosophy of proportional wheel sizes and consistent geometry.
I’ve had some interesting discussions with both male and female staff at my favorite bike store. The owner’s 5’4" wife responded with the “I won’t be able to keep up on 650’s” old wives tale, though her husband agreed that that was a gearing issue and unrelated to the wheels. The sales staff parrot the company line about how they’ve “learned how to make great handling bikes for shorter riders without having to resort to smaller wheels”. I’d love to be there with a 16" Terry when a 5’ customer comes looking for a fast road bike!
My perception is that almost all the big companies are committed to women’s bikes and they still offer some nicely-thought-out models across the price spectrum. But they do seem to have given up on the smallest riders. I see the disappearance of their 650c offerings not as a sudden event, though, but as the end of a long trend, whatever the market pressures that caused it. A decade ago, for instance, Trek and Cannondale offered awesome high-end 650-wheeled bikes in 3 sizes (the largest of which were roughly comparable to Terry’s smallest 650 frame, the 19"). By 2005 the 19’s were gone, and after another couple more years only the smallest (which by Terry standards should have been 24"/600c) remained, and virtually anyone else who offered a 650c woman’s bike had only this size as well.
For my part, I own a small fleet of woman-specific bikes, with 24", 650c, and 700c wheels, 40cm to 54cm, by Terry, Trek, Shogun, Cannondale, Aegis, Fuji, and Specialized. I use them to encourage more women (and shorter riders in general) to ride and to help them understand their options in finding a good fit on the bike. I think education is and has always been the key; I’ll keep doing my bit, and thanks to Terry for the bikes and online resources that are part of my toolbox.
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Sheila
Hi Peggy,
Are you still looking for a Terry bike ?
I do have an older Terry Classic that I have not ridden in a long time as I moved away from my riding friends and familiar surroundings.
If you have any interest in replacing your previous Terry bike we may be able to work something out.
I look forward to hearing back from you … no matter what your decision is. Thank you