Woman's geometry road bike suggestions - small hands - budget £2k-ish

[vickster]

For bikes I'd suggest you measure the reach and stack of the Galaxy and look for similar / appropriately tweaked numbers in the new bike. Off the top of my head Liv made much fanfare about proper female-specific geometry a while ago; these will all by trendy mass-market placcy jobs though so you won't get a nice steel frame from them.

Be aware that a lot of brands' offerings for female rides are just smaller frames in different colours (with no attention paid to different geometry) and often the geo on small frames gets really squirly with stack reduced while reach hardly diminishes (necessary with 700c wheels to avoid toe overlap (making the geo proportionally more aggressive). Another thing worth considering is that some better brands now offer smaller wheels (650b) on smaller frame sizes; which helps keep things in proportion.

If going with discs I'd strongly suggest you get hydraulic; and if taking this route IIRC both Shimano 105 and Tiagra shifters are offered in short-reach variants (I think the model numbers have a 5 at the end - so ST-R7025 is the short-reach version of the ST-R7020).

From the narrow range of bikes that interest me personally, the Fairlight Faran looks really nice, or if you want a placcy fork the more road-oriented Strael always gets glowing reviews. From a technical / design perspective Fairlight appear really on the ball and are also notable in their approach to sizing - which offers a good range as well as two variants of each frame size to cater for differing leg/torso ratios (which is typically where women differ most notably from men). They also have a sizing calculator which you might find of use and seems pretty close for me based on my measurements and preferred fit.

Finally there's the gorgeous Singular Peregrine - all steel, more traditionally styled and apparently pretty well proportioned in the smaller sizes (again due to using smaller wheels); although these all seem to be quite long of reach / short of stack so less intrinsically suited to those of us with long legs and generally more aggressive.

HTH

The OP does say she'd be happy with a carbon frame.
Liv a great place to start for smaller carbon framed (they do have different geo to the men's Giant range)

 

[wafter]

The OP does say she'd be happy with a carbon frame.
Liv a great place to start for smaller carbon framed (they do have different geo to the men's Giant range)

Indeed - while a steel frame was also mentioned by the OP hence the qualification in my post.

 

[Sea of vapours]

My partner is 5'0" (1.52m). A few years ago she acquired a new bike specifically to provide ease of braking via R7025 (the short reach version of Shimano 105 R7000, as suggested above). This worked well, both in terms of the reduced effort in braking due to hydraulics and the slightly reduced reach. It transformed her cycling; no exaggeration there. She also has 34cm bars (fitted later) with the hoods angled in a bit to produce a 30cm hood-to-hood measurement, which has further aided finger reach to the brake levers due to her hands not going 'round the outside' so much; her arms now line up properly with where the levers are. The bike she has is a Canyon Endurace in 3XS.

Unfortunately, Canyon seem to have stopped making a 3XS. Having looked recently, Liv's smallest endurance geometry bikes are quite a bit bigger, than her 3XS, though just about tolerable at her height, so that may well be true for your wife too, being a giant, 2" taller.

The advice above regarding bikes with 650b wheels is very good, with one caveat, that being that 650b road tyres are very rare. That's 'rare' in the sense that the only ones currently available are Continental GP5000s in either 30mm or 32mm, last time I looked. They're great tyres, so that's fine whilst Continental continue to make them. If they stopped, the bike would effectively be useless once our stock of tyres runs out :-\ So, do consider that if you find a bike with 650b wheels!

 

[farfromtheland]

Can you not adjust the levers so that they are not so far from the bars. Theres a screw under the hoods that brings the lever nearer the bars.

Fit longer screws?

 

[wafter]

My partner is 5'0" (1.52m). A few years ago she acquired a new bike specifically to provide ease of braking via R7025 (the short reach version of Shimano 105 R7000, as suggested above). This worked well, both in terms of the reduced effort in braking due to hydraulics and the slightly reduced reach. It transformed her cycling; no exaggeration there. She also has 34cm bars (fitted later) with the hoods angled in a bit to produce a 30cm hood-to-hood measurement, which has further aided finger reach to the brake levers due to her hands not going 'round the outside' so much; her arms now line up properly with where the levers are. The bike she has is a Canyon Endurace in 3XS.

Unfortunately, Canyon seem to have stopped making a 3XS. Having looked recently, Liv's smallest endurance geometry bikes are quite a bit bigger, than her 3XS, though just about tolerable at her height, so that may well be true for your wife too, being a giant, 2" taller.

The advice above regarding bikes with 650b wheels is very good, with one caveat, that being that 650b road tyres are very rare. That's 'rare' in the sense that the only ones currently available are Continental GP5000s in either 30mm or 32mm, last time I looked. They're great tyres, so that's fine whilst Continental continue to make them. If they stopped, the bike would effectively be useless once our stock of tyres runs out :-\ So, do consider that if you find a bike with 650b wheels!

Great work and a good point about the 650b road tyres; that said "gravel" was also mentioned in the OP and there's a much larger selection of such tyres available in this size - although this would of course be dependent on frame clearances and the rider's preference. Personally I'm yet to find tyres that are too fat, given the abysmal state of our roads.


Interestingly looking at the geo for the Liv Avail and Giant Defy (both of which seem broadly comparable endurance bikes) there doesn't seem to be much difference in reach and stack / reach and stack ratio between comparable sizes. What does differ is the stem length (changing effective reach) handlebar width (presumably to accommodate narrower shoulders on the ladies) and somewhat oddly head tube angle (the Livs generally being 1-1.5 degrees slacker; possibly to make the handling less twitchy with the narrower bars..?).

 

[Sea of vapours]

"gravel" was also mentioned in the OP and there's a much larger selection of such tyres available in this size

Yes, 650b is much more viable if it has 'gravel' clearances, though one hundred mile rides was also mentioned, which might lead to a road bike preference. Anyway, just an observation on the paucity of 650b road tyres currently, just in case. We're looking at a custom built bike currently precisely because Mandy always has to carry a spare tyre on multi-day trips as she'd otherwise be unable to carry on were a major tyre failure to occur. (Unlikely, obviously, but ....)

nd somewhat oddly head tube angle (the Livs generally being 1-1.5 degrees slacker

Having been looking at geometry recently, I think this is not only stability, but that the head tube angle being slacker reduces effective top tube, hence reach, too. The seat tubes tend to be a bit steeper, which has even more effect, per degree, on effective top tube.

 

[wafter]

Yes, 650b is much more viable if it has 'gravel' clearances, though one hundred mile rides was also mentioned, which might lead to a road bike preference. Anyway, just an observation on the paucity of 650b road tyres currently, just in case. We're looking at a custom built bike currently precisely because Mandy always has to carry a spare tyre on multi-day trips as she'd otherwise be unable to carry on were a major tyre failure to occur. (Unlikely, obviously, but ....)


Having been looking at geometry recently, I think this is not only stability, but that the head tube angle being slacker reduces effective top tube, hence reach, too. The seat tubes tend to be a bit steeper, which has even more effect, per degree, on effective top tube.

Thanks and yes - ll good points that I'd not considered in this context. While the reduction in effective reach with slacker head tube angles is probably minimal (I think I knocked up a spreadsheet to calculate this for my new build) of course the position of the saddle relative to the BB is a function of leg length and a pretty critical factor that's not accounted for by reach values but has a significant (and often difficult to quantify) effect.

It would be helpful if manufacturers put a number on this that was more easy to integrate with reach (say seatpost tube centre at stack height).

I assumed Giant / Liv would just fiddle with the reach and stack but hats off to them, it seems they've tweaked pretty much every facet of the frame

 

[Sea of vapours]

It would be helpful if manufacturers put a number on this that was more easy to integrate with reach (say seatpost tube centre at stack height).

Quite a few do. That measurement is - at least as I understand it; happy to be corrected - 'effective top tube'. That's the horizontal distance from the centre of the steerer tube at the top of the head tube to the centre of the seat post. More useful than 'top tube' and arguably a fair bit more useful than 'reach' too.

EDIT: Most bikes on https://www.geometrygeeks.bike/ seem to include 'effective top tube' in their data.