Daughter's bike. Female Advice Appreciated.

[Hugh Manatee]

Hello everyone. My daughter has way outgrown her old mountain bike. It is true she didn't exactly wear it out with use but, next year as a family we are going to ride more.

She is 12 and is already 5' 8" tall and still growing like a weed. I have plenty of experience of bikes but have got out of touch with mountain bikes lately what with all the different wheel sizes cropping up each week!

Also, do I need to get her female specific geometry? Would a shorter stem, (are they still 150mm) a lady saddle and 170mm cranks on a standard frame suffice? 26" wheels or 650?

I'm stuck between wanting to get her something half decent for the weight etc but not wanting it to be too small by this time next year. What's really bad news for my wallet is she is one half of twins but buying for her brother is slightly more straight forward for me.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[lesley_x]

I can't help with the mountain bike side of things or sizing but I strongly feel that wsd is not always essential. Both my bikes are men's bikes with men's saddles. Don't get too hung up on wsd just get whatever she feels comfortable using and likes.

 

[Panter]

Hello everyone. My daughter has way outgrown her old mountain bike. It is true she didn't exactly wear it out with use but, next year as a family we are going to ride more.

She is 12 and is already 5' 8" tall and still growing like a weed. I have plenty of experience of bikes but have got out of touch with mountain bikes lately what with all the different wheel sizes cropping up each week!

Also, do I need to get her female specific geometry? Would a shorter stem, (are they still 150mm) a lady saddle and 170mm cranks on a standard frame suffice? 26" wheels or 650?

I'm stuck between wanting to get her something half decent for the weight etc but not wanting it to be too small by this time next year. What's really bad news for my wallet is she is one half of twins but buying for her brother is slightly more straight forward for me.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Pretty much exactly the same age and height as my daughter!
I got her a MTB from Decathlon. It's not a women specific one, but it was the entry level with 26" wheels in a medium frame size.
She loves it, and it should still be OK next Year (at 5' 11" I ride medium frame MTB's)


Sorry, i can't remember how much it was, but it wasn't expensive and is lasting extremely well.

 

[HarryTheDog]

I have done quite a bit of investigation into womens bikes in the past as my daughter used to race MTB and Road. however she was a bit more restricted towards womens specific as she is small but actually ended up on a mens bike anyway . With your daughter being quite tall just about any bike manufacturer will do one to fit male or female the only difference in womens specific MTB tends to be they do a very small one in the range with a low stand over height. . As to wheel size, depends what she want to do with it. If she is going to race XC I would advise the 650B or even a 29er. I was marshalling at the youth inter-regionals and only the very smallest kids were on 26 inch wheels, a few on 650B but the vast majority were on 29ers. None of the girls seemed to be on a womens specific though there were a couple of Merida Juliets. I would suggest 650b if she is just going to trail ride and only advise against a 29er if she is not particularly strong, ( more rubber to spin up on a 29er) or is going to do very technical stuff.

 

[fimm]

She's already an inch taller than I am, and I think of myself as fairly standard size for a woman (neither small, nor tall). So assuming she hasn't finished growing yet, there's a fair chance that she'll end up riding non-wsd bikes anyway. None of my bikes are "women's bikes".

HOWEVER the first bike I bought was a cheap mountain bike. If I'd known then what I know now I wouldn't have bought it, as it is a bit big for me and rather heavy. But you know more about frame sizing than I did 8-9 years ago!

 

[HarryTheDog]

In my previous post it may have looked like I was dismissing the 26 inch, I am not, I have one myself. Its just that in some corners of the MTB world, manufacturers seem to be killing it off unless it is for "gravity" or technical riding. The secondhand value of 26 inch wheel hardtail MTB bikes may suffer a lot in the future.

 

[Saluki]

I'm 5'8" and have a Spesh Hardrock with a 19" frame. It fits Hubster too and he's 5'11" although it's on it's limit for him. A 19" bike would give you a bit of growth room, unless your daughter shoots up like a Sunflower

 

[ufkacbln]

Don't take this the wrong way....

What does SHE want

I noted this year that most of the younger girls were riding pastel coloured traditional type bikes with baskets

These can tour

 

[ufkacbln]

Having just reread my post....

CanI explain that my interest is in bikes not young girls

 

[Hugh Manatee]

Having just reread my post....

CanI explain that my interest is in bikes not young girls

That's what I said to the magistrate!

Thanks everyone. I had this weird dream where she ended up six foot four! I will come up with a nice short list based on spec, weight and colour and let her choose.

I need to get to some shops and look and see what effect different wheels have on similar frames. Not 29 though. They still look a bit odd to my old, (I was in at the start you know) eyes!

 

[summerdays]

I'm 5'6" and I ride a medium sized men's bike. I think that chances are you might need larger. Although I'm about 6 inches shorter than Mr Summerdays, my inside leg measurement is about 2 inches shorter than his. Men tend to carry more length in their body that women. I can ride his bike, it's just a bit stretched out.

 

[azir]

I'm 5'8" and ride a small men's road bike (it is at it's limit for me though - it was on sale, what can I say?!). My bike fits me pretty well, although it isn't perfect (I probably do need a medium), and I'm happy with the bars etc. it came with - before I tried it though, I was convinced I'd need a women's specific bike because the hybrid and the tourer that I had previously been riding (both mens/ unisex) were uncomfortable and gave me shoulder pain from the too-wide-for-me bars they came with. I would say women's specific frame isn't usually necessary but you may need to swap stems and bars to make it fit her properly.