Originally Posted by
Grim
Georgena Terry has a interesting history of how her Company came to be. She was sick of screwed up gemotery on bikes small enough to fit her so she started building the 27/24 combo to fix the toe over lap issues and get a good ridgid diamond frame small enough for a woman around 5ft and still geared for decent speed since the gear of most rode bikes of the time was for 27 or 700c ...
So her marketing says, but in actuallity she copied Bill Boston's designs from the 1970s, but apparently without really understanding them.
Mr. Boston, building these bikes in the 1970s, had to work with 5-speed freewheels with 14T small cogs, so he stayed with the larger real wheel. By the time GT copied his work, freehubs with 11T small cogs were available, and the bikes could have been built 24/24 with adequate high gearing, allowing the rider to carry only one spare tube/tire size.
tcs