Originally Posted by
Davux
I'm 5'9"-5'10"... Sometimes it feels a bit small for me. But yeah, it may very well be too big. Regardless of
my bike, the 7.5 is still a great bike, and probably worth a shot.
I believe
there is a WSD version as well, though I don't know what's different.
WSD is somewhat misguided, IMO. What it has led to, in my experience, is a belief that all women need WSD bikes. Not even close.
WSD assumes several things.
1. Long legs
2. Short torso
3. Small Hands
4. A predilection for "flowery" colours.
To be honest, most female cyclists that we get in the store are more in the equal torso/leg and medium-large hands category. And the "girly" colours are almost universally hated.
Since we do a full, comprehensive fit to all bike buyers (free if they buy a bike, $$$ if they don't), we'll let the customer know if she needs a WSD bike or not. If she doesn't need WSD and doesn't buy a bike from us, at least she knows that she has a much larger group of bikes to choose from.
Last year we carried the Fuji WSD bikes. We had a very hard time selling them. One was lavender, one was aqua/teal. Both had frilly flower graphics on them. The aqua one had white, low-line Tektro brake calipers. I was ashamed to even suggest them to customers. When we'd walk toward the WSD bike display, 9 out of 10 would say "I don't want any girly colours!". As such, we didn't sell many of the cheaper WSD bikes. What we sold instead was the Fuji Silhouette; $2200 worth of carbon fiber and purple WSD road candy. (
http://www.bikepedia.com/QuickBike/B...ette&Type=bike )
We try not to pigeon-hole people. We don't even recommend a bike until a preliminary fit has been done. Then we use the measurements from that to determine if you need a bike with a longer or shorter top tube, a longer or shorter headtube, relaxed geometry, or whatever. THEN we recommend some bikes for you to look at and test ride. This is assuming of course that you didn't come in saying that you wanted a Cervelo RS, or whatever. If that's what you want, that's what you'll get - unless we determine there's just no way to fit you on one.
I know it can be difficult finding a shop to work with. I've been there too. When I first got into cycling 13 years ago, I went to a LOT of different shops to find the service, knowledge, and non-elitism that I wanted. It's no coincidence I ended up working for them later. lol.