It would be a good idea if you have a read of what Sheldon Brown has written on bike fit, https://sheldonbrown.com/frame-sizing.html

Here's a quote of part of the article.

Basically moving the saddle rearwards takes the weight OFF her hands/shoulders so she can easily lean forward without so much weight on her hands. Now the long cranks will start becoming more of an issue too as the saddle goes back so this is why I recommend the 145mm cranks with a rear set seatpost. Yes you will need an alloy one bolt clamp to do this. The bent steel posts aren't going to work in your situation.

Ultimately you may need a shorter stem but she may be surprised to find that reaching further forward is easy once the seat is moved back.

EDIT: I should also add that the reason WHY I'm recommending you go to this sort of trouble is to do with the requirements of a ROAD bike. If she sits bolt upright then a LOT of sins of fit can be masked but as soon as you want to adopt a good road bike position things fall apart and you need to sort things properly.

Anthony

So, I had her read your post, Anthony... so she'd know what to look for when out riding. And then we went out tonight for a 12 mile ride, and I noticed she was correctly riding on the hoods most of the time, and the rest she was in the corners... and I said something about getting a new seat post, and she was like "You know... I don't think I need one... this feels great right here, since we moved that bolt to the back."

She still doesn't want to let go of the handlebars to shift, but there's (sort-of) good news on that front... my Trek died. Derailleur hanger (non-replaceable) gave up the ghost on our ride last night, and so I cannibalized the Trek for parts to build up my Nashbar Touring in time for the Wednesday night ride. It's now a flat-bar commuter, and that means the Sora shifters are going to the little lady's bike. That should get her shifting more often instead of just riding the whole time in the lowest gear on the bike.

My girlfriend's got a downtube shifter bike. She didn't like the shifting at first but has gotten used to it. She never shifts the front derailleur though because she can get to speed on the 42 pretty well. I made sure to get a her a wider saddle and raise the bars as high as possible. It took a while for us to dial in the saddle tilt so that it's comfortable. I also put my 28c on her bike and took her 25c and she likes it more.

Her bike's got a milk crate on the back, so I'll sometimes raise the seat up and bike to the store. The combination of a lugged steel frame, 700x28 tires, and cushy (but not too cushy) saddle makes the bike really smooth. It's definitely the most comfortable bike I've ridden.

one cheap upgrade option might be some barcons, or bar end shifters.
it allows riders to shift from the drops rather than the the DT.

Well I'm glad she's now more comfortable on her bike. Because she's new to road biking it will be quite overwhelming and it will take many hundreds of miles to feel totally in control but I also think newcomers are better off with the saddle as far back as possible until they want it further forward. On my custom bike I have a little OVER 70mm of saddle setback. Thats a tiny bit more than most average sized men have, (55mm to 65mm) is kind of normal and to be honest without that much saddle setback I wouldn't feel comfortable about reaching down to down tube levers either.

The big question is is do the speeds match up on the Sora levers your intending to use with the GF's bike. I think your GF's bike is 7 speed and if you have 8 speed Sora levers they won't match up properly. I used bar end gear levers for many years on an ill fitting road bike and they were OK. I couldn't manage down tube levers either at the time because my saddle was WAY to far forward. This was MANY years ago before I knew anything about bike fit.

I do think she would be better off if you could get the saddle back further however as I stated in a previous post the fact that the cranks are too long for her will start becoming more of an issue as the saddle goes back because it will cause her knee's to rise higher. I guess she just needs to ride it more for a while and when and if she decides road biking is for her you could look at buying the 145mm cranks and a rear set seatpost.

EDIT: Another thing. I know you leveled the saddle from the previous picture you posted but a tiny bit of nose up on the saddle wouldn't be such a bad thing at the moment. It will help to move her weight back and make her feel a little more secure.

Anthony

Yup 7 speed Sora... although 8 would work... the spacing is close enough that you can lock out the last click and it's sketchy but it works... The Trek was a 7 speed until its untimely demise. Both frames are from the early 90's, when apparently they started building everything with 7 speeds but 130mm spacing. So her frame is ready to go up to 8 or 9 if I should ever so desire.

I'll keep looking for a setback seat post and tiny cranks (and ultra-shallow-drop bars), but for the time being I'm glad she's happy with the way it is now. Even more glad that she seems to be taking to road biking like a duck to water.

My son is under 5' and rides a C'Dale size 45 women specific design. He has plenty clearance. It's the Six13 model from 2008. Great little bike, besides this we looked at TRek, Fugi, Giant, Specialized, they all had small frames, went with this bike as he liked it and it had 700cc wheels.

Something else to add. I think that soon you should have her using toe clips or clipless pedals. I think that having your feet come off the pedals is one of the most dangerous things about bicycles and I can't ride even cheap (riding around the block) style bicycles without at least having toe clips on them and this will be additionally important if/when you fit shorter cranks because one of the minor downsides of fitting short cranks to frames that weren't designed for them is that when you start off you now have a bigger step up to get started. I think all the benefits of shorter cranks far outweigh this one disadvantage but I would certainly want to be using a secure pedal system first.

The shorter cranks as well as allowing for a slightly higher saddle will also provide a smidgen more saddle setback at the same time.

Anthony

I can not believe that with that thread title, this has gone 4 pages without:


or

Believe me, we're working on it. The lady who leads the beginner group rides was like "So how long is it going to take us to get you to clip in?" and it seemed to click with her that she was going to have to eventually go that route... but she's still scared of falling over. I can relate, because I've fallen over in clipless multiple times...

Sooner or later, though, we'll get some SPD's on there.

Ok, Sora has been added... another group ride tonight... we'll see if she still thinks it's perfectly comfortable after 25 miles!

SPD pedals added too! Now we're cookin' with gas...

This is a good step. I recommend that you back the release tension right off for a while and slowly increase the release tension as she gets used to them. You really need to twist your feet to get out of them and unless she's sprinting she's not going to come out of them accidently.

Anthony

She's an ANIMAL since we installed the Sora, btw... with the clipless, I may have to actually earn my paycheck on the group rides...

She went from a 9 mph avg speed the first week (because she was afraid to shift) to a 14 mph avg speed this last week (and added 6 more miles to the trip).

There is a significant chance of awesome...