A coworker has an old road bike he's going to sell us for like $150... 7 speed freewheel. Assuming everything checks out with that bike, it will be getting the Sora STI from my current Trek, and I'll be selling the Trek in favor of riding my new Nashbar Touring everywhere.

WIN.

: insert maniacal laughter here :

bike..jpg

Lugged tiny frame FTW!

So, the SOH on this bike is exactly 28... and I don't remember if we measured her inseam in shoes or barefoot... if it was barefoot then we don't have a problem, and if it wasn't then I'm hoping "feet flat on the ground" doesn't require actual clearance...

But I can unload this bike on Craigslist pretty quickly if it doesn't fit... hopefully it will.

Neon yellow clip-on tri-bars = gone. Can't decide whether to sell 'em on Craigslist cause I need the money, or keep em around and put 'em on my touring bike to add another hand position... but with tape on them cause DAMN that yellow is FUGLY.

Ugly filthy white bar tape and brake hoods = gone. Everything will be black in the remake.

The back tire was fine, front tire was worn out to the point of failure. F***. $70 for a new set of tires... although they're red on black, so she'll like the look!

It currently resides at the LBS waiting to get the BB rebuilt and all the cables and housing replaced.

As far as the shifting goes, this thing has exage brakes like my Trek did, so if I do the STI thing she's going to have to deflate the tire to get it out of the brakes unless I add new brakes to the upgrade. So I'm gonna hit eBay looking for some 7 speed bar-cons if I can't get her to just make do with downtube for the time being.

And that headtube makes me nervous... not a lot we can do about it in this small of a frame, but dang that thing is short!

Anyway, it's a road bike. It will hopefully fit her. It works just fine. And it didn't break the bank... now we can start the group rides. I'm going to mark this one down as "Win."

She's in NC on business for the next week, but I'll let y'all know when she gets back if it works out or not.

It looks alright. Does it have 650c wheels on it or are they 700c?

The first thing I noticed is that the seat clamp is swung around and the seat pushed forward for a TT/TRI position which is OK for TT/TRI but you MUST move the saddle back for road use. The clamp needs to be behind the post and push the saddle all the way back as a starting position. As is there will be a LOT of weight placed on her hands/shoulders while riding which will become excruciatingly uncomfortable. Pushing the saddle back as far as you can get it will minimize the weight on her hands/shoulders.

EDIT: Oh and the head tube is fine. I have many bikes with head tubes that short and nothing has ever broken or even looked like breaking.

Anthony

They're 700c. And thanks for the heads up on the seat! I hadn't noticed it was flipped yet.

I'm going to replace the seat too, as this one's really puffy gel and is almost certain to cause chafing. I'm thinking a Terry saddle off of eBay.

Platform pedals, too. Then SPD if/when she's bitten by the bug.

Your thoughts?

Pedal wise I was going to suggest toe clips and then I looked at the picture again and noticed that they are already there. I think that when your trying to ride with any kind of power at all that having you feet slip off the pedals in one of the most dangerous things of all. Toe clips WITHOUT cleated shoes is a nice middle ground because they stop you feet sliding off under power but you can pull your feet backwards quickly when required.

Back in the day we used toe clips with slotted cleats which were slower to get into and out of than SPD's so I think SPD/SPD-SL cleats are easy to deal with

Anthony

You are going to be hard pressed to find a conventionally framed bike that small with standard wheels and will most likely need to find a bike with 650C or 26 inch wheels to bring the stand over height down even more.

With compact geometry the options get better and Fuji does make some very nice smaller bikes.

My little sister is just a spot over 5 feet with rather short legs and rides a Centurion LeMans which is 46 cm and runs on 650C wheels... my 12 year old daughter can ride this bike quite comfortably and actually has longer legs.

I work with a frame builder who specializes in building bikes for people who don't fit any standard sizes... I currently have a touring frame in a 66 cm size and a touring frame that is at the other end of the scale at 48 cm with conventional geometry.

The 66 cm frame...



The 48 cm frame... it rolls on standard 26 inch wheels with custom hubs.

Ok, here she is, folks... back from the bike shop, and all ready for the gf to get home from her business trip on Friday!

(red SPD pedals coming as soon as I can convince her to use them, downtube is staying if she likes it, otherwise either bar ends or Sora if I can get a set, and the skirt on this saddle sticks down and prevents it from going any farther back... I'll probably be changing the saddle out for her in the near future anyway)

And so, without further ado...

IT... LIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA! *thunder and lightning*

diamondback..jpg

Also, some of the decals are starting to peel... I'm thinking maybe stripping them all and giving her a solid red bike would be cool.

I'm trying to convert an old miele mountain bike into a cyclecross which is 45 cm for my girlfriend. Not being as easy as anticipated. Stupid BB shell.

Sorry I'm getting here late.

I'm glad you found something for your GF, but if she rejects it, my wife is only 5'1" and she comfortably fits this:

https://www.diamondback.com/bikes/per...ids/insight-1/



It's a HYBRID, but it does have 700c wheels. My wife has a size Small (15" frame).

My wife isn't a serious cyclist, but does find this bike very comfortable. If she ever starts putting in real mileage, we can always swap out the fatter rubber for skinnier road slicks, but for the time being, it's perfect. And best of all, she loves it.

We went on our first ride Sunday afternoon... and IT VERKS! It fits her well enough, and she likes it!

We did have to put the seat tube ALL THE WAY DOWN to get the saddle-to-BB length right, but whatever... she's got a 700c wheeled bike!

Now it's just a matter of getting out and riding together as often as possible.

Notes from the ride:

1: We did 5.5 miles. Not that bad for a first run!
2: She *hates* downtube shifters. Wouldn't touch 'em while she was pedaling or going fast. I'll probably have to get some Sora.
3: She hasn't figured out sliding off the front of the saddle when you're going to stop, so she coasts to a halt and then falls over onto one foot while still seated firmly on the saddle. I blame her other bike, which will permit you putting one or both feet almost flat on the ground while still in the saddle.
4: After the ride, the dude at the bike shop tilted her handlebars up to what I call the "tarantula" position... tops tipped up a bit over level. I've tried to ride like that before and hated it, but I told her to ride for a bit and let me know if she wanted 'em changed back.
5: Other than that, we had a great ride!

If I tried to fall to one foot while still seated, I might knock my head on the car next to me to lean that far out

I'd recommend finding a large parking lot, or business park on a weekend that doesn't have rent-a-cops patrolling to kick you out, and practicing the concept of coming off the saddle and down to one foot on a stop. If she ever has to ride on a road with traffic, or on a MUP and has to come to a stop, stopping like she does could hurt either herself or someone else. We just had a new guy on a club ride this weekend who decleats both of his feet, and hops off the saddle and on to the ground as he comes to a stop. I did some coaching to get him used to the idea of only decleating one shoe and coming out of the saddle to a stop, as it was only a matter of time before he beaned his crotch on the top tube if his legs got tired and he dropped too far.

I bet that would be the last time he would make that mistake.

Yup that's the plan! We'll have her riding like a pro before the STP this summer!

The fact that your GF doesn't like down tube shifters is understandable. She has FAR too much weight on her hands/shoulders to use them. People who can use them have MUCH more saddle setback than she has. This is also likely to be a factor in her not wanting to stop by moving forward off the saddle. There's nowhere for her to go.

Drop a plum bob from the very nose of the saddle down past the bottom bracket and measure the distance from the string to the centre of the spindle.

Does it measure ANYTHING at all or is it even a NEGATIVE distance. IE is the saddle nose infront of the BB. If it is this is REALLY BAD. I suggest that you want this distance to be around 5cm (saddle nose behind BB). If its negative or only 1 or 2 cm then you NEED to move the saddle back.

Start by measuring the distance.

Anthony

Yeah Anthony, I really don't know what to do about the saddle...

The seat post there is 27.0mm. Our LBSs have NOTHING in that size.

And the saddle is, as pictured, as far back as it will go. You're absolutely right that we need to get it back farther, but I have zero idea how I'm going to accomplish that. I found a racing saddle at a local flea market with rails that stick way out (eliminating the skirt problem), but it's VERY thin, which with a woman's wider apart sit bones is going to be more trouble than it's worth.

If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em.

EDIT: I checked eBay... they have this:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Extreme-Heavy-Du...item19bbb70dae

That look like something that would work?

I don't think it will because we have to have the seat tube ALL THE WAY DOWN on this frame to get the seat-to-pedal distance right. (Knees slightly bent at maximum extension)

If we move the seat back any more, that will also effectively lengthen the seat-to-pedal distance, plus we'll be adding height here because we can't sink the post all the way into the seat tube anymore.

EDIT 2: Here's the bike after having both me and a dude at the bike shop try to fit it to her as best we could. He said he thought the frame was still too big for her, but since it's a 44, we're kind of boned... I think the frame fits just fine, but the seat thing is a problem.

IMG_0360..jpg

IMG_0359..jpg

TonyS,

To start with you still have the seatpost clamp IN FRONT of the seatpost. That bolt NEEDS to be behind the seatpost. You will have to completely disassemble the clamp and reassemble it to fix this but you really need to do this. Then you MAY be able to get the seat back somewhat. A 27.0mm seatpost diameter isn't that uncommon. Keep an eye on eBay and a better one will turn up.

Also how long are the cranks on that bike. Another way to shorten the saddle to pedal distance is to shorten the cranks.

Anthony

Cranks are 160's I think... I'll figure out soon as I see the bike again.

BUT!

We went on our first beginner group ride tonight, and she loved it! She plowed over 17 miles of Missouri hills, and I figured she was going to walk up a few of them, but she kept riding the whole time! And the lady who runs the ride does bike fittings for a local bike shop and said the fit looked fine... I'm gonna try putting the clamp behind the seat post as you said, and then call it good enough.

I'm rather disparaging of the state of knowledge of so called "fit experts" because the truth is that NO ONE makes a bike to fit small riders properly and if there are so many fit experts out there why am I the ONLY one railing against the poor design of small bikes.

OK, OK, I'll go have a lie down

Anyway here's my custom designed and built small bike,



Short cranks, small wheels (650c) and relaxed seat tube angle. I used to think I WAS strange until I came across vintage small bikes which were VERY much the same and then I realized I wasn't strange at all. Just how small this bike is is probably deceptive in a photo because its remained quite proportional where as most 650c wheeled bikes look "weird".

So move the saddle back as far as you can. There are FAR too many people riding with saddles too far forward these days to the point that its become normal and fit "experts" don't notice it any more. In a way you have to forgive these fit "experts" because if they were all as strident as me then they wouldn't have a job.

Anthony

How small of cranks am I looking for?

I've got 125mm cranks on that bike and 135mm cranks on another. They are customized by an engineer though. Based on your GF's inseam I think 150mm (or thereabouts) would be good and this size is reasonably common for juvenile bikes. These wont be high quality cranks but they work and they will be cheap.

Anthony

SOmething's not right here. My Wife is 5'3", and she rides a standard geometry 48cm frame very comfortably.

@foresthill: Your wife probably has normal or longer-than-normal legs. My gf has much shorter than normal legs, just like me. So, tiny inseam = tiny standover = either smaller bike or sloping top tube.

@AnthonyG: Ok, bolt reversed, with a saddle that sits farther back on its rails... cranks I'll think about if I ever find a pair of 150's... and I'm going to try to find some extremely shallow-drop bars to put on it. The nose of the saddle is now even with the back of the bottom bracket shell.

Here's what she looks like on it after the bolt was moved (the angle on the saddle was nose-up when the last shot was taken, but I've since moved it to level):

IMG_0363..jpg

IMG_0362..jpg

IMG_0364..jpg

You can get some perfectly decent 130/74 BCD cranks in 145 or 155mm for $35: https://poweroncycling.com/product/fo...k-arms-756.htm
These are simple cast aluminum parts. They use a JIS taper BB, for example the Shimano UN-54 can be had for $20 or so. I am using a set of the 155 mm cranks on my recumbent bike (makes high cadences a little easier) and am quite pleased with them so far.

It looks better to my eye. Does it feel better to her?

I've noticed where her feet are on the pedals and I guess she's just rolling along for you to take a picture but I think she would be better off with the ball of her foot on the pedal rather than her heel and to do this I recommend refitting the top clip pedals. This should stretch her effective inseam out a fraction. The cranks that cod.peace has linked to would be good in the 145mm length for your GF.

EDIT: Also in absolute terms I think the saddle still needs to go back for her comfort but take it one step at a time. A combination of shorter 145mm cranks combined with a rear set seatpost to get the saddle further back will make things more comfortable for her and make it easier to control the levers. Taller riders who are sitting further rearwards in relation to the BB and therefore have less weight on their hands just don't realize how hard it is to use road bike brake/gear levers when your also trying to hold up so much weight on your hands.

Anthony

I don't think the setback seatpost is an option, due to the fact that we have to BURY the entire seat post inside the seat tube... but if I get a one-bolt post, I might be able to move it back another centimeter and a half if the bracket is behind the post.

Also, if you look at the middle picture, her hands are on the corners, not the hoods, and her elbows are almost locked. She's a little more upright than I like to ride, but even so... if I move the seat back, I'm thinking I'm going to have to also find an extremely short and extremely high-rising 1" quill stem or of course the adapter + stem route.

Any thoughts on that?