Womens Mountain bike?

[Scott Parsley]

When riding a road bike worry about top tube length not seat tube.

This thread is great!

When sizing a road bike you should concern yourself with the length and size of every part. The top tube and seat tube lengths are equally important. As is the stem length and rise, seat height, bar width, lever position, crank length ...ect. But whatever, I digress

The idea of a woman who is 5'8" purchasing a large mountain bike is ludicrous.

 

[tag3]

This thread is great!

When sizing a road bike you should concern yourself with the length and size of every part. The top tube and seat tube lengths are equally important. As is the stem length and rise, seat height, bar width, lever position, crank length ...ect. But whatever, I digress

The idea of a woman who is 5'8" purchasing a large mountain bike is ludicrous.

Agreed, the top tube and the seat tube usually get longer and taller and shorter and lower with frame size increases and decreases. So back to the mountain bike question. Large, medium, or small?

 

[Trollhole]

There is a Cannondale F400 Locally for 200. Only problem is it's a small. Would this fit her? Maybe at the extreme? Thinking that once she ditches my little girls could use it.

Any thoughts?

Cannondale Mountain Bike-womans

This is the search I'm using don't really want to drive 100 miles but would if I could get a decent deal.

http://www.searchtempest.com/result...oweb=1&keytype=adv&minAsk=&maxAsk=&subcat=bik

 

[Mr. Toad]

The seller is 5'7" and her seat isn't jacked up very high out of the frame. But bike fit is pretty important. Can she go to the local bike shop and try a few mediums ans smalls to see what she prefers?

 

[Scott Parsley]

I'm afraid it would be a bit too small. Maybe not worth the drive. Also, while that Canondale F400 is a good bike and that is a good price, this one is old enough to have the proprietary Canondale "Headshock". That system is a hassle and may not work well. As far as I know it can not be replaced with a standard rigid fork or a cheap suspension fork. The frame design dictates it having the Headshock system. Again, I think she would need a medium sized bike anyway.

 

[Scott Parsley]

can you check this one out? It's in your search. (can't figure out how to link it)

2008 trek 3700 $250 16" Furman area

If you could get it for $200 it would fit the bill pretty well.

 

[LDowney]

She's about 5'8". So what size bike should I be looking for?

Marshall,
Our experiance is with road bikes rather than mountain, so take this with a grain of salt ...

My wife is 5'9" and we could not find a WSD bike for her. The main problem was her height. There were plenty of WSD bikes available for women 5'5" and under, because the manufacturers were not seeing enough taller women to merit building the larger frame size bikes in quantity. The recommendation from the bike shops was to wait for the beginning of the next model year and pre-order a WSD bike for her. This was not acceptable because she did not want to wait months for a new bike and we wanted to get a better deal.

Solution arrived on was she found a mens spec bike that she liked and the bike shop swapped out a few things in fitting it to her (seat, handle bars and handle bar stem were the main ones). It was nearing the end of the model year (riding season) so we got a fairly good price on the bike too (~50% off list). She has been very happy with it (but she does seem to change her handle bar tape to get a new color every year).

Good luck on finding the right bike and have fun riding with your bride.

 

[tcb]

Haros suck. Hang it up and ride the trek

You shut your whore mouth. Haro is good stuff.

 

[Heirloom]

5'8", inseem must be about 34 inches...

I am 6'2". My inseam is 34.5".