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Mrs FD would like a bike (an Ebike) for pottering around lanes, occasional trail centre green poss blue use.
My MTB is a 2013 Giant Anthem, starting to fall apart and not really suited to where we live now which is steep valleys so fun downs and not so fun ups.
2 ebikes would be silly money (even 1 ebike is silly money!)
Im 5ft 7, Mrs FD 5ft 3. It would be brilliant to get 1 bike ie a nice full susser and me use it when I want, and she uses it when we go out together and I use my old Giant or CX bike.
Am I being daft thinking that we could get one bike that could fit us both?
Even happy if it means I need to have a seat post/saddle set up for us both, and different stems. Is it just going to be too compromised for us both?
And before people suggest going and trying, you can never find bikes to try in smaller sizes, let alone differing brands.
Ta
Have a look on Tinder, you might be able to sort wives by size.
We did it in 2017 with a medium Specialized Turbo Levo, bought in the sale. The difference in height was greater than yours and all managed with seat post height and a compromise on brake lever position. Worked great for a while until all four of us wanted to use it at the same time.
As an idea what about a bike that can run both 29 and 27.5 to drop the height a bit, I swop wheels in winter, 29 levo [proper mud, tight clearances and mudguards not a good combination], as I already had 27.5 with mud tyres from previous bike and I just tried them (and the levo has a flip chip) and it works fine
I’m 5ft 5 on a m levo. And reckon it would be ok if I was a bit shorter.
Ps a common ebike buying tip is get something not too unlocal as it’ll probably need some warranty attention.
You're the same difference in height as me and Mrs Guru (she's 5'6.5", I'm 5'10.5"). She pootles about happily on both my large Levo and medium Zero AM (both 455mm reach and 450mm-ish seat tubes). Both bikes have 185mm droppers, and because my legs are long she drops them about 100mm for pedalling, leaving a bit more drop if she wants it.
Find the blend between the two, i'm guessing you need the reach, she needs the standover, so have a look at what is around that has the reach you need, but low standover, probably going to be looking at 27.5", i'm your height and on a giant e-reign, lovely bike, but not sure standover would be good, best bet is to get down the shops (when they allow) and try a few, bike i share with the wife has the dropped set for me at normal, and her lowered, it has short reach so more a play hardtail for me, but just means a bit of change to get used too, i don't mind reach, can be upright or more stretched out, what is your preferences?
Been looking at a lot of stand over heights and Orbea look pretty good.
The Orbea Rise looks especially good, but £5k on a bike 😲 who the hell can afford new bikes these days ?
If yer Mrs isn't sending it she doesn't need a perfectly sized bike?
Yeah, 5k is starting to get to be the entry level decent MTB ebike, it's definitely a sellers market just now unfortunately, so can't see prices coming down any time soon.
Might be worth seeing what offers are around, such as Cycle 2 Work, Interest Free, etc, might make it less painful!
If yer Mrs isn’t sending it she doesn’t need a perfectly sized bike?
Come on now, this is a thinly bailed attempt for me to get a bike, on the excuse it’s for the Mrs. However she has genuinely wanted to get an ebike.
I’ve never spent more than £1k on a bike before, for £5.5k it would have to work for both of us. She won’t use my current Anthem as it’s too big for her.
Go see Adam in BikeWorks in town.
I did something similar, my wife is around 5’6”
I got her a medium Focus Jam 2 29”
I think Focus are quite short in the reach so it’s a great fit for her but my lad or my friend can ride it also
Managed to get it from Bike Discount last year for £3700
