[Closed] Buying a bike for the Girlfriend - Worth it or not?

I am in a not-dissimilar position. MrsDummy is not a great enthusiast for sport generally, and while she likes the idea of riding a bike she finds the effort and concentration a bit much. Buying anything new and nice is likely to be a waste, and buying anything rubbish is always a waste.

In all seriousness, get a modestly priced tandem. It takes the pressure of steering, braking, road sense away, allows her to put in as much or as little real effort as she likes, and means you can bring her back from 30 miles out if her legs stop working.

🙂

Can you afford a halfway decent bike? Have you got several bikes? Buy a small frame and build it up with bits off your spare bikes?

A decent bike with a decent saddle ( her choice not yours) will make a big difference to how much she will use it

I'm thinking the same..

If I buy a cheap bike then it won't be a pleasent experience, but then If I buy something expensive and it doesn't get used...

I'm thinking I may just get her this: http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/?fn=product&productId=1718&categoryId=129 and see how she gets on with it..

Why not try a couple of demo bikes out and see if biking is for her, You could use a couple of bike shops and see what happens from there?

Maybe the Singletrack world collective should organise a couple of "partner" bikes ?

Basically we all chip in and buy say one 15" and one 19" bike. We then swap them between us and when are partners think they might get into cycling and then proceed to get bored of it. 🙂

Alternatively I dont know where you live but could you not hire one ?

Swinnertons at chase trails hire them £20 for 3 hours and you dont have to ride follow the dog you go just do the family bike routes. Im sure other trail/forest centres must do similar ie sherwood pines/look out braknell/bedgebury.

You'd be able to go 4-5 time before it came close to the price of even a cheap bike.

Not sure what a tandem would look like with a 6'7" bloke on the front and a 5'5" woman on the back! I think custom would be the only way to do it and boy would it be ugly and expensive!

Money isn't an issue with the purchase (within reason) but i don't want to simply waste money on something that won't be used. The decathlon bikes are not too bad for the money. But then £360 for the spesh is hardly the end of the world is it.

In an ideal world i'd like to be able to go over to the park for a couple of little tester rides on her existing bike but it's just toooo horrible.

Just buy her a rabbit instead, then you both will be free to ride as far as you like for as long as you like. Without her getting a sore knee/bum/hand/neck/foot and you getting a sore ear!

I've just been through this with Mrs V8_shin_print, I have upgraded her Raleigh Lizard to a GT Avalanche 1.0 (15.5") which i got from a mate of a mate for £250. It took me an hour of fiddling to get the brakes and gears right, but as far as she is concerned it is a 'new' bike with disc brakes and suspension. To me it is heavy but compared to the raleigh it's a feather! It's all relative, if she takes to it then we will look at upgrading parts or maybe the whole bike, but it is easily good enough for her to work out if she will get in to biking and will do for a year as she builds skills.
Keep watching the classifieds and something will come up, even if it takes a week or two. You will know yourself if she is the type of girl who is going to want to follow you down drops or if she only wants to pottle around the park...

Damned if you do damned if you dont

Buy the best you can afford.

The rewards could be great or end in 😥

Make time and be sympathetic. Encourage some of her mates :Dto join in.

Dont be daft and try taking her on silly trails/routes. Getting out for a 1/2hr easy ride to start with(as per a jogging prog)and ease up the miles/time as and when. Just don`t force the issue. Until she is confident, built up the sore/sit points and competent on the easy stuff then venture onto more exciting terrain.

That Commencal seems to be sold out. Why not get Merlins own bike brand? Or try Edinburgh bike shop for their own brand, they get good reviews

my mum got a carrera soemthing or other, £300 and something quid, everything works as well as it needs to and weighs in sub 30lb. Handling is spot on as well.

I got my gf a 14" Schwinn Mesa GS off ebay for about £180. It's got Deore gears and a slightly crap Rockshox J1 fork - I've now put a BB7 on the front. She is very happy with it - rides it to work on slicks and comes on easy mtb trails like the North Face in Grizedale with me sometimes.

You can get off the peg tandems to fit your sizes - trouble is ones that are really offroad worth are not cheap. Try hiring a tandem first? tho I dunno if the hire ones will fit- you need a large / small frame and a long seatpost

Took my GF to halfords and got a Carrera for £200. all reasonable kit with cable disc and (heavy) sus fork. She loves it. Primarily for commuting but does do the odd bit of off road with me. Anyway, good bike at good price and half way house for you between the spesh and decathlon.

Oh yeah, a mate has just bought his gf a Carrera from Halfords for similar money, she is really pleased with it. It seemed pretty good quality to me for the price.

How many blokes on here have tried to get a bird biking? In theory it all sounds good. But reality is that if someone is not that way inclined, they wont be bothered if they have an 09 carbon Trek to ride!

I hate playing squash and find it a pointless and boring thing to do. If my GF bought me the best squash racquet money could buy then it would not make me want to hit a ball against a wall for an hour. Even if she totally loved playing it. So in theory a racquet at a tenner would be just as good!

If you must then I would but that bike from Merlin, as it looks ok for the money. It will be less money to lose when it ends up in the local papers classifieds!

Don't be Cynical Seth! Have you never heard that true love overcomes all?

i'd recommend the tryout from shops. We did that (ok its not mtb, but road as i can no longer mtb due to knees) and she got a good idea of what it was like. Then i bought her a good trek and she loves it, even looking to spec things and change components!

dont do the typical buying a cheapo - she wont like it and wont do it. The number of guys i see with a 6k road bike and their gf with a 2 dollar 'skip find' suprises me..

I hired the sort of tandem I was thinking of a couple of years ago. It was a Trek, built around an 18inch front and 14inch rear end I think. It was specced with the sort of stuff you'd get on a £300-£400 bike and was of course very heavy, but perfectly solid feeling. For local parks and country lanes sort of thing it was absolutely spot-on. 🙂

Buy something you could happily take over and use if it gets left gathering dust.

😀

I'm swaying towards the Spesh but i'm off to Halfords at lunchtime so will look at their offerings as well as popping into Two Wheels to see what they have on the way back.

I'm midlands based so could go to the Chase and hire a bike but are there any female specific bikes available? Plus as she hasn't ridden for years and it was an effort turning around on the driveway yesterday so i wouldn't take her anywhere remotely offroad until she finds her cycling legs again.

Deja vu! mrs kpt is pushing for a new full susser now.I got her a mongoose rockadile just to try her hand and shes got the bug now.It didnt help her having a spin on a relatives giant vt1 as nant yr arian on sunday,she came back claiming she could be twice as quick with a bike like that so she hasnt stopped scouring the classifieds since for a vt1

Rich, she's 5'5", i'm 6'7". Not sure my knees could cope with a 15" frame 😉

at 5ft 5 womens specific trek or specialized would make sense - it really does seem to make a big difference to comfort and actually using it before mrs antigee got a womens specific trek all i got was moans about back ache - now rides most weekends and commutes some days

Stick a WTD ad in the classifieds, see if anyone else's wife/GF has got bored of it already.

Rich, she's 5'5", i'm 6'7". Not sure my knees could cope with a 15" frame [;-)]

Haha, OK maybe not!

I just lend my wife my 456 when she occasionally wants to come for a ride, which is handy with her only being a few inches shorter than me.

How many blokes on here have tried to get a bird biking?

I did it. It worked. Mrs PP now has the most expensive and best specced bike in the garage.
(Which was a present from me)
😀

MrTall - Member

Rich, she's 5'5", i'm 6'7". Not sure my knees could cope with a 15" frame [;-)]

Na - you'll be fine - small bikes are more manoeuvrable remember
[img] [/img]

Well I once bought a £200 Giant for a GF, she liked/loved it, I got her £2k (rrp) titanium hardtail as a suprise she never bonded with it and it got sold for a painfully small sum, the lesson - let them choose it but "help" them make the right choice! my recomendation is a niceish cannondale hardtail with soft cushioned grips & a comfy saddle for their extra tender you know whats

I built up a jump bike with a merlin frame, its a play bike for me and when my wife wants to come out she has a decent(ish) spec'd bike to use, win/win surely :o)

[IMG] [/IMG]

Brought her a women's specific saddle to swap over as she found the DMR jumpy saddle to hard...

Original question "Buying a bike for the girlfriend - worth it or not?".

Based on your description - No, its not worth it.

Too right about her current Apollo bike. She's likely to get out of her depth on even a modest downhill (and its SO easy to get carried away with biking 🙂 )

Hire a bike and see if she likes it. She won't feel committed and neither will you. Buying something does funny stuff to our expectations. You want to prove you spent wisely, right? That can easily get in the way of enjoying the ride, for her and for you.
Think of it as hiring a pedalo for the day. It's having fun together outdoors (stop s****ing at the back). Forget the male I'm-only-having-fun-if-I-go-fast mentality and relax...

The Chase has fireroads right? Forget that FtD is there and have a pootle. You can always do more, but once you've scared her off that's it.

Good luck and enjoy 🙂

Oh and one more question - Do you actually want her to come biking regularly with you? For many of us MTB time is self-indulgent c*cking about time with our male mates. I'd recommend being honest with yourself, and her as it'll save a lot of trouble if she does *gasp* actually like biking...

TM

p.s. all IMHO - you may think quite differently and that's fine :).
p.p.s If I come across at all patronising I don't mean to - honest advice intended only 🙂

If she wants a nicer bike, she can buy it. Problem solved 🙂

To start my (then) girlfriend (now wife) off with biking I bought her a 299 merlin special - it was light and had a ladies saddle. It took her a couple of rides but she quickly got into it. That bike was then nicked - replaced with a rock lobster 853 and then a fs Azonic. By this time she was well hooked and lusted after a SantaCruz SL - which I bought for her when a decent 2nd hand one came up. So it is possible! I know though that she is quite tough and doesn't mind the odd bruise / crash - other friends have tried to get their better half's into riding and found quite the opposite (1st scratch and the bike goes on ebay)

IMO don't try the "it's my jump bike and your xc bike" game - it'll be too heavy and will handle like a pig on the flat stuff

As a female rider, yes please, do buy or rent her a bike BUT:

Do NOT take her out on a route that YOU think is easy just because you don't suffer on it.

Take her somewhere pan flat and only for an hour, then gradually build up from there. The chances are good that she's going to need support, encouragement and patience.

I read on another forum how a guy took his g/f to Coed-y-Brenin for her first ride out, then was annoyed that she couldn't climb the hills.

If you're not prepared to take it slowly, easily and carefully for the first few months OR not prepared to help her find a bunch like minded women to ride with, then don't bother. You'll ruin cycling for her forever.

Mrs momo has a cheapo supermarket special bike from before we met, a few eeks ago she decided that she wanted to try riding together, so we went out for a shortish local ride, fairly flat (we do live in lincoln after all) and mainly based around cycle paths and quiet roads. She didn't get on very well because she found the saddle to be VERY uncomfortable, so during the week we went out and bought a new saddle, tried again at the weekend and she really enjoyed it this time. Going to take her over to sherwood pines shortly and see how she gets on there.

If she still enjoys it when there are a few hills to contend with then I'll be buying her something like the specialised for her birthday in July.

Knowing my girlfriend as i do, i reckon she'll only ever do local park and country road lanes at best (maybe the occasional towpath) and would have no interest in what we would generally call 'proper' mountainbiking so i realise rides with her will just be a bit of time spent together in the sunshine at a more than relaxed pace and no doubt stopping for tea every 500 yards. I have no intention of pushing her too far at all.
If i'm brutally honest i quite like the time alone (or with riding buddies) away from her so i don't know how i'd feel if she actually got really into it (although it would be pretty cool i guess).
I've just got back from Decathlon and Halfords and there was nothing inspiring in either. LBS had a nice GT but at £460 the budget is starting to creep up from the Spesh at £360 (which seems the best value out there at the moment).

If i buy the spesh then i reckon i could get back a good chunk of the original cost if i sold it again in the classifieds/ebay within the first year?

IMO don't try the "it's my jump bike and your xc bike" game - it'll be too heavy and will handle like a pig on the flat stuff

Not wanting an argument or anything, but out of interest why?

I've ridden a few xc miles on the Merlin dual and found it fine, although a little small for an all dayer as I'm 6ft and its a 15" frame. Lighter than my PA and Lava Dome I used to have. This maybe as its built more as a small xc bike than a dj bike though?

I don't wish to sound patronising but is it surprising that girls don't want to ride bikes when they're presented with something that weighs a ton? Girls generally do weigh less than men, some don't have the strength that men do. Would you want to ride around on some downhill beast on towpaths cos that's how it could feel to a girl?

At 5'5" (same as me) you don't have to keep to women-specific. Have a look on the Classifieds for a used frame. I have found that a 15" Rock Lobster and a 14" Inbred fit me perfectly. As suggested, post a 'Wanted' ad. When I sold my Lobster last year, there was an awful lot of interest on here.

Also don't forget that forks and wheelset can make a huge difference, again go the second-hand route.

If it doesn't work (almost sounds as though you don't want it to :wink:) you will be able to sell on again. May be she would feel more comfortable riding with other girls?

bought one for the wife, one trip 2 miles up the canal and back, its been in the attic since

My other half buys her own bikes, usually with some discussion beforehand over frame/ forks/ components.
On the whole she ends up buying what she wants to buy and is usually pretty happy with it, there were tears when she noticed that she only had a Centaur and not a Record front derraileur on her no.1 road bike.

I recently replaced Mrs Tyred's insanely heavy women-specific Spesh Hardrock with a Kona Caldera built over a period of time from spares and bits bought off the classifieds. Came about because she took my BFe out for a spin and demanded to know why it weighed about half as much as her bike.

Fun project for me - trying to save weight on a micro-budget - and she's delighted with her nice lightweight bike and wants to ride it all the time. Reckon I spent no more than 250 quid. Totally worth it.

I cannot understand why bikes designed for women weigh so much.

SilentSparky; mainly as Jump bikes tend toward the heavy side with burly components, often have limited gearing and the geometry isn't great for nippy xc handling. I know that my 9 gear play bike weighs 32lbs ish where as my wife's 1st xc bike (rigid, steel, v-brakes, 27 speed) was about 26lbs, the play bike has a stupidly laid back seattube angle which makes climbing a complete b1tch and has heavy DH tyres that drag like beasts. It's just not that much fun for anything other than what it's designed for - playing in the woods on jumps and steep stuff

I de-risked the issue of Mrs F not riding the bike so I built one that if she didn't like it I would have some fun on, unfortunatley she did like it and I had to buy myself one as I didn't get a look in.

It is a good spec though Dialled Bike Prince Albert, RS Revs, XT gears, Hope Hubs, etc......

Her first foray in to biking was on a much cheaper heavier bike and she didn't enjoy it, but by building something better Mrs F got much more out of riding. A heavy poor quality bike will do nothing to get her interested in riding.

If you are going to do it, go second hand.

You get a lighter (important), better functioning and possibly better fitting bike (really important). The difference mrs_oab noticed moving from her old Saracen to the Orange Clockwork was weight. MOving up to the Cannondale, the fit is fantastic, and the light weight amazing for her at 7st.

I bought mrs_oab a Cannondale with XT/Minis etc for £250
I bought mrs_oab's sister a minted Scott Contessa with full LX, half decent forks etc for £175.
I helped brother in law buy a Carrera road bike for £140
I bought my father in law and old cro-mo Scott with full (old skool) XTR on it for £110, new semi slicks and saddle for another £40.
Helped my brother buy a wonderful cro-mo KHS for £60, then a newer Univega for £120 that did him 8 years commuting....

teh missus loves the merlin malt 1 she has.

its much much lighter than all my bikes and she is going out on it a fair bit. we did a few trails locally together which i let her plan and took extra food to force down her so she didnt collapse. first ride she refused to eat much and suffered so i explained why and second ride she was much better.

got her to get a proper womans saddle, shorts and pestered her to tell me if things felt wrong or tried different things (stems and set position) to help her set it up so she liked it.

just need a babysitter so we can go out together now.

Just be careful that it doesn't come across as "I know what's good for you".

Men are often quite sure that equipment is the answer to everything and, while it helps a lot, it tends not to be the sentiment that our more fragrants others are looking for.

That said, by far any away the most important two pieces of kit to buy - even for jaunts round the park - are a decent saddle and padded shorts.

I picked up a girlie Spesh frame at a reasonable price and then built it with a girlie saddle and loads of bits I had knocking around. So it worked out reasonably cheap and I know I can re-sell the bits and get 90% of the money back.

Mrs S thought it was very sweet and didn't even mind the fact it took me the best part of 6 months to build it. Doesn't even mind that her wheels are going to Scotland with me this weekend as 'group spares'! 😳

Got my missus a 2nd hand Kona Hahana from Ebay (I'm not keen on Ebay either, but with careful selection, it can be OK). It's not flash, but the fit's good, decent saddle, she loves it. Rides it everyday, and we do the occasional 10-15 mile gentle offroad/road loop when the kids are out and about and the weather's nice.

This has got me thinking now. I could buy the most basic Spesh Myka and upgrade it with the nice spare disc wheels i have sat in the garage if i just get hold of some 2nd hand disc brakes from the classifieds?
Building up from scratch might be fun too but getting the frame could eb a problem. Not much around in 15" size although a quick look on Merlin shows me that i could get a Malt 1 in a 15" frame with seatpost clamp and Headset for £100, leaving me well over £200 to finish it off without needing to buy cranks or wheel/tyres which i already have.
Hmmmm, i feel a good fettle coming on - god help her, it'll end up being put together worse than her Apollo.......

I got my Missus 1st bike from here ('97 Kona Explosif frame for £80 or £90) and built it up with spares and 2nd hand bits, cost me around £300 may'be £350 max.

Its nice and light and rides really well (still in use as commuter and occasional offroader but she won't let me SS it) and ultimately got her into cycling after not riding a bike since she was a kid. Now 6 years later, she has a FS and is happy that pretty much every holiday is a biking holiday (including insisting on going to Canada for a 3 week riding holiday last year)

Seems like a worthwhile investment to me.

sofatester - Member
Just buy her a rabbit instead, then you both will be free to ride as far as you like for as long as you like. Without her getting a sore knee/bum/hand/neck/foot and you getting a sore ear!

Are you [i]sure[/i] she still won't get a sore bum....? 8)

We have daughters, now old enough to fit adult frames. Decent bikes with decent forks, about 28lbs, that fit them and they feel comfortable on. Their riding has come on so quickly, even though they still claim they aren't keen (come on! they are teenagers and it's something their parents enjoy). Rode red route at GT at easter with 2 of them and it was brilliant to see them go for it, even the drop offs at the top. The investment (along with a few years of needing the patience of a saint, tears and tumbles etc) has been well worth it.
In the future, younger blokes may not have this dilemma of how/whether to get their g/f into mtb.

Just tried a testing ride across the road on the terrible Apollo to see about sizing and it's so wrong it's not true.
She's had this since she was a child and it's an 18" frame with 10 speed gearing with a 40 & 48 tooth rings at the front! No wonder it makes her knees hurt.

I priced up a basic build and it came out way more expensive than a new bike despite not needing a fair few bits which i already have.

I'm thinking basic level Specialized which i can upgrade bit by bit later.

Don't forget the comfy seat! she might well want a huge mattress seat at first. go with it. Mrs TJ insisted on one for the tandem but after a year went for a slightly less ridiculous one

I don't wish to sound patronising but is it surprising that girls don't want to ride bikes when they're presented with something that weighs a ton? Girls generally do weigh less than men, some don't have the strength that men do. Would you want to ride around on some downhill beast on towpaths cos that's how it could feel to a girl?

When I was just starting out yes, I did ride round on really heavy pretty rubbish bikes.

It was only when I knew I was committed and putting the time and effort in that I thought about getting a better bike.

Reading back through the original post, you say you think she will only ride it a couple of times, and also no further than the park or towpaths, going by that I would give the bike she has a quick service, ie, fix the brake and check its safe, then see how she gets on.

Might as well before wasting cash IMO.

Mr Tall, I'm about the same height and proportions as your GF, and ride a medium Spesh FSR XC (forerunner of Myka FSR).

I don't think frame size is the most important factor in getting the 'right bike'. Unfortunately, so-called ladies bikes are generally fitted with standard men's components.

I've now got shorter cranks (155cm instead of 170cm), a smaller chain ring (20 instead of 22) and a larger cassette (14-39, replaced the unused 11 with the 39). It's totally transformed my bike!

I bought one of these for my missus [url= http://www.flcuk.com/Womens-Specific-Design/Bikes/Mountain/P376S197/Giant-Yukon-Ladies-(2008).htm ]Giant Yukon Ladies[/url]
Has cable operated Hayes discs. A nicely finished bike, but nothing special. £300 is enough IMO.

Be prepared to listen to endless complaints about hills, uneven surfaces, mud and uncomfortable saddles.

Get her some well padded shorts and make sure you involve a couple of pub stops

My good lady wanted to come along with me, so I got her a Giant to start off with.. now she owns a TREK Road bike and a Juliana (as I have a Superlight)

She's only stopped cycling now as she is Pregnant, but is already keen to get back out in the saddle.

A bit of a cautionary tale. A previous Ms BWD was heavily into equestrian stuff and was admamant that I'd love it, if only I had a horse of my own - she came from a very wealthy family. I was equally convinced that it wasn't for me and while I humoured her, I had no intention of learning to ride something with four legs, in any sense of the word.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I came home one day to find that she'd actually bought me some sort of thoroughbred horse which was galloping up and down the paddock. As you can imagine this precipitated a massive row which ended up with me basically walking away from the relationship.

It wasn't so much about the actual horse riding, but rather her patronising idea that simply buying me a horse would somehow mean I would start riding it. I have no idea what happened to the horse and I don't really care, but it taught me a salutary lesson.

Since then I've taken the view that if my partner wants to ride mountain bikes then that's great, but I'm never going to shove them down her throat. As it happens, current lass does, which is why I'm off to collect her from an orthopaedic ward afer breakfast.

I'd forget it. If she wants a decent bike, let her buy it for herself.

LOL at the trophy riding partners - 'mine loves bikes', vom... - I have a dog that does tricks as well. Hmmm...

My girlfriend already liked biking but had a decentish speced bike but waaaay to big for her. I looked for a smaller frame first but a girl was just graduating and going back to states so was selling her older Cannondale F400 bike in small, completely stock, but not too bad, deore, lx and xt. I paid around £120 for it, than replaced the crappy P-Bone Fatty with a bargainous Fatty Ultra air that I got from eBay for £40, than a XT front disc brake off STW and rear xt V brake from CRC (cost almost the same as decent V brake pads). She loves her bike now, has a nice ladies saddle on it, likes the fact that is not that stretched as on the old one and that the Fatty can be set up for her weight and works really well (I like the fact that it weights only 1.29kg :-)).

Just few tips. If You want to buy her a bike, show her the bike You want to buy, as I had to miss some nice bikes as she did not like some colours (especially mismatched ones :-)). The bike build up almost as light as my Maxlight (26lbs with no special components). So lightish weight and nice colours she likes - that's the recipe. That's the first thing. Second would be the ride. I took mine to the Pentlands for the first ride, and although she liked the easier bits, when I took her on my favorite descent she came off twice (nothing serious though) but now I knew two things 🙂 Girls are competitive and next time I'll think twice about choosing the route. Same thing with doing uphill bits in Glentress. She liked the descents but killed both my ears when going up 🙂 I took her later on the family circle and she loved it, back in Edinburgh we just did some towpath, parks, flat quiet roads and with nice views as well.

About the bike. My mate mentioned recently he got a small sized Felt bike. He'll be selling it as it was meant to be for his sister but she wanted a city bike (the one You can put a basket on the handlebars and have +3 to looking cool at Uni :-)) and now it's surplus and taking space. Contact me (email addy in my profile) and I'll get in touch with him. It's around 16" Felt frame with various bits, but probably will need a headset. It's RED so would have to check with Your GF (my gf hates red :-)).

Decision time, yes or no?

What will he do?

I think it looks like the Specialized Myka Sport Disc for £360 ish.

BUT, i've been tight and told her that if she wants the better bike then she has to pay for half of it now herself and i will refund the money to her at a later date if she actually uses the bike. If it gets ridden once and then sits in the shed gathering dust then at least we've both wasted money on it, not just me. I think that's fair enough and she begrudgingly agreed.

I wanted to get the even more basic non disc Myka and then put on the spare wheels i have and get some half decent hydraulic discs off the classifieds but she doesn't like the colour of the basic model. 🙁

We'll pop along to a few shops at the weekend and size her up on one.

BTW, any ladies (or men) out there know if lady specific bikes have a shorter reach to the brake levers as she was struggling to grab the levers on the existing Apollo last night? I know some have adjustable reach but do the lady ones start off closer to begin with? Cheers.

Lol. @ BadlyWiredDog.
Seriously though I hope J. mends soon.

Mr Tall. I've always found on the wsp bikes that the brakes levers are harder to reach for and squeeze, this is a problem for us small boned girlies who have small hands.

Can she be pushed into trying out a few of these bikes?
Where do you live? she is welcome to try out one of mine.

I would suggest getting her some proper Avid levers with the Speed Dial reach adjust. Also maybe swapping the grips for some skinnier ones.

Bunnyhop, thanks for the info and the offer, i'm in the midlands if you are anywhere local.

Mr A, think i have one speed dial lever on my hybrid but as for grips i think the female specific bars/grips are already a bit slimmer than standard ones. The spesh comes with Avid BB5 discs but i don't know what levers they run?

Most levers cable or hydro have a reach adjust - I always adjust them in for Mrs TJ

Northwest here Mr.Tall. Maybe too far for you to travel.

If You need ultra skinny grips than there is nothing better than those foam grips or You can use some roadie handlebar tape and it comes in different colours as well just don't go for white as it doesn't stay white for long.

I think that some Shimano lever have reach adjust, isn't that the screw on the inside of the lever (Deore have that as well)? [img] [/img]

Get the size and colours right and You're on to a winner 😉

Mmm.

Couple years back I got a Merlin Malt 1 for my wife, but in a size which fitted me - she is a good 3 inches taller without heels (even more with heels - but that is another story) but about 5 inches longer inside leg. And yes, I am taller than Cruise...bike too small.

However, just built up a Fisher GED frame for her after getting it powder-coated white. Middle and small chain rings only, 120mm travel Maz, carbon post, womens saddle, thin grips, Deore hydro brakes and decent wheels and tyres. And some nice anodized bits - in pink - skewers, grip clamps and a rather cheeky stem-cap and bolt from Purely Custom.com - check them out 😉 Bike is a bit on the heavy side, but fits perfectly - she seems to like it because it fits and looks good.

In reality, given a 2 year old daughter, whilst we may be able to get out on our own now and again (plan for short and not too technical), the heavier bike will serve as a handicap for missus when I'm carting junior around on the back of my old SS Clockwork..

If she ultimately decides she does not like, then I can use it myself or simply store in the garage for anyone who wants a go - it certainly won't break.