Originally Posted by
dwolsten
Exactly what is your alternative? Make a custom-designed airplane or bicycle for everyone? If you're going to manufacture something to fit humans in mass quantities, you have to pick some sizes and go with them. Most bicycle buyers are not going to pay the money it would cost for a custom-made frame, and with carbon fibre in particular that would be exorbitantly expensive since molds are used. The best you're going to get is taking "average" people in a range of sizes and making the thing to fit them, and it's absolutely true that average men have different proportions than average women so that justifies the manufacturing cost of women's-specific bikes at the higher price points.
Wow, what an amazingly stupid and uninformed post!
Airplane cockpits are customized by making everything adjustable. If you drive, you'll know that the same solution has been used in the driver's seat, with the seat, the steering wheel, the pedals and the mirrors all allowing a "customized fit" for the driver. Obviously, this approach doesn't work as well for bicycle frames, although some other bicycle components can be adjustable to some degree. The solution has been to present a wide range of bike frame geometries. All I am saying is that designating part of that range as "women's" bikes is really just a guess based on averages, and it's absolutely ridiculous to assume that there aren't a significant number of men who would find that part of the range fits them better. So, basically, if men categorically won't try "women's" bikes, some of them may find themselves looking at bikes that don't really fit well.
Where you got the idea that I was advocating customized frames for everyone is a complete mystery. Nothing I wrote remotely suggested that.