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Old 08-24-15 | 02:13 AM
  #6  
mtnbke
Senior Member
 
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 1,511
Likes: 7
From: Boulder County, CO

Bikes: '92 22" Cannondale M2000, '92 Cannondale R1000 Tandem, another modern Canndondale tandem, Two Holy Grail '86 Cannondale ST800s 27" (68.5cm) Touring bike w/Superbe Pro components and Phil Wood hubs. A bunch of other 27" ST frames & bikes.

I hate to say it but Italian top tube lengths almost NEVER mesh well with the female anatomy. Invariably they create a top tube that will be too long with all but the shortest of stems. If you are planning to put road drop bars on this bike I'd bet that she would NEVER be able to ride in the drops for any proportion of her mileage. My experience is that with horizontal top tube Italian frames the top tubes are just too long for essentially ever woman I've ever tried to fit to one, and the problem only gets exacerbated the farther you move from a 49cm frame size. While it is true that as men get taller they proportionately have longer legs, women as a rule have shorter torsos and shorter arms and longer legs. As women get taller their legs get "more" longer than men's do, and men already get longer in the legs more so than proportionately. Essentially what I'm saying is that even without knowing your wifes PBH, her height, and just from eyeballing that frame, I think that bike ain't gonna fit.

The only work around is something like a Nitto Albatross bar to get them upright, but then that creates some funky handling issues because you have these have aggressive super quick race frames/fork with aggressive rake & trail on the fork and that makes for an unstable bike with upright bars, almost dangerously so. I always tell people, the bike you'll want to get her almost invariably is not a properly fitting bike for HER. Her neck, wrists, hands etc. will all hurt from riding a bike where she is too stretched out to be comfortable, her weight won't be properly balanced.

Something to think about.

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