Women Specific Design (WSD) - bike set-up

sled driver

Just wondering if there are any female boardies, or male boardsies that have helped their other half’s, familiar with WSD bike set-up, if indeed there should be any difference, compared to a male set-up (other than saddle).
My other half purchased her first road bike, a WSD, last week and was “fitted” in the shop. Saddle height, fair enough, is what it is. Someone with absolutely no experience could almost get that right by themselves so that won't be far off. The issue I’m concerned with is the handlebar height being higher than the saddle height and then inverting the stem (see pic below). At a very basic level, I would have said the bars should be below the saddle on a road bike set-up (a regular road bike set-up) or in general is it/should it be different for women??
I’ve had my bike expertly fitted for me and I’m very comfortable with the set-up. Her bike is a smaller frame and the seat is obviously set lower aswell. You'd imagine then, taking a very crude comparison, that if everything is proportionally reduced (i.e, her reach, the frame, seat height etc) then the handlebars should be much lower aswell, but her bars are positioned much higher compared to mine (mine’s on the outside in the photo).
I’ve now got it into my head that the issue may be that the frame could be a size too big and they’ve just compensated with a much higher bar height and inverted the stem so the reach will be ok. I guess what I’m getting at is, does this set-up look odd, awkward and wrong or is it the norm on WSD’s??
I know it’s impossible to generalise bike set-up, and that bike fitting is like the black art of scrummaging and there’s as many theories on bike fitting as there are people willing to dispense their opinions about it, but even on looks, surely this looks wrong??
Any thoughts, feedback, experience appreciated.

Holyboy

That is bizarre to say the least and if the saddle height is correct I would say the bike is too big!

Colmhayden76

Womens spec is imo a bit of a cod and only needed if the lady in question is pettit.
In general a lady's legs are about 2 inches longer to a mans of equal hight and her body is 2 inches shorter. I reackon getting a straight stem instead of turning it over would be a much better option as the effect would not be as major to the feel

Lumen

Colmhayden76 wrote: »

In general a lady's legs are about 2 inches longer to a mans of equal hight and her body is 2 inches shorter

That's a myth, at least for Americans.

http://www.spadout.com/a/does-gender-matter-when-fitting-a-bike/

Perhaps women like to think they have longer legs, but they don't.

niceonetom

Shorter arms?

jameverywhere

women are on AVERAGE smaller than men, but there are plenty of small men and large women. I think women-specific bike setup is nonsense. It should be PERSON-specific.

the only thing that makes sense to me is different saddles, due to men having hangy bits that we don't have, ergo the wrong style of seat won't crush us the way it might could crush a dude. but still, even that is minor and I don't have problem riding on unisex saddles??

the only other consideration is if you want to be cycling in a full on skirt, ergo they remove the top bar. but who does that on anything other than an upright Dutch-style bike anyway?

Lumen

jameverywhere wrote: »

the only thing that makes sense to me is different saddles, due to men having hangy bits that we don't have, ergo the wrong style of seat won't crush us the way it might could crush a dude. but still, even that is minor and I don't have problem riding on unisex saddles??

I think it's a question of sit bone spacing. Both genders have soft bits which don't appreciate being squished.

But as you say, fit is person-specific.

QueensGael

That set up doesn't look right to me at all! I recommend taking it back to the shop and asking for it to be re-fitted, and if you're still not happy, take it to another one.

I have a Specialized WSD (I'm 5'3") and I wouldn't go back to men's bikes after it (I had men's bikes since I was a wee wan!). The difference I feel between it and a men's bike of similar size is my reach feels a lot more comfortable, and I don't feel the same tightness in my shoulder blades that I used to. Whether that's women's specific or person specific, you can debate all you like, but I wouldn't change back to men's again

sled driver

niceonetom wrote: »

Shorter arms?

Perhaps, maybe if Ms Sled Driver looked like this........;)



But that essentially my point, and seems to be the consensus here, if her arm reach is that much shorter then it would appear that a smaller frame may be required so that a regular road bike set-up is achieved and then tweaked accordingly for her.

If the frame size starting off is incorrect, there's only so much adjusting a bike fit can achieve.

Lumen

Off-topic, sort of.

Women With Long Arms More Attractive Than Those With Long Legs, Study Shows

victorcarrera

Is she comfortable with this set up?
Does she have any physical or flexibility issues that may have resulted in the bike fitter setting the bars that high.

Road bikes can be set up for pure comfort, touring or racing. So the same bike for the same person can have different bar heights.
You seem to be using your own bike set up as comparison.

As an example I gave my smaller sister a loan of one of my 56cm road race set up bikes for a one off 80Km sportive. On the test run she turned back after 500M and said she couldn't ride it. I lowered the saddle to its lower limit flipped the stem and moved a few spacers to make it look very like that Trek in the pic.
She didn't look like a road racer and the set up would look all wrong to a road racer but the leg stretch was right, she was comfortable and had a great day.

DirkVoodoo

Lumen wrote: »

Off-topic, sort of.

Women With Long Arms More Attractive Than Those With Long Legs, Study Shows

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney conducted the study, which involved having volunteers rank women based on their looks.

Yes, research. Do they hand out PhDs in fapping now?

Sr. Assumpta

Lumen wrote: »

I think it's a question of sit bone spacing. Both genders have soft bits which don't appreciate being squished.

But as you say, fit is person-specific.

Indeed. For obstetric reasons the female pelvis is considerably different in geometry to the male pelvis. This factor allows skeletal remains (assuming they include a pelvis) to be promptly identified as being either male or female, long before anything else can be claimed.
It is also why men and women need different saddles.

nak

Sr. Assumpta wrote: »

It is also why men and women need different saddles.

I have tried so many different women's saddles and didn't find any of them comfortable. Bought the men's Selle Italia Max Flite Gel Flow a year ago and it has been the comfiest saddle I have found so far.

It's not an exact science and I personally wouldn't bother with a WSD bike. I'm 5ft4 had a WSD road bike and it wasn't really any different to the men's frames I have now. Even though it was WSD, it came with huge handlebars that I found uncomfortable and I couldn't reach the levers when riding on the drops. Would rather build my own bike or have a bike fit and choose components that suit me.

Caroline_ie

FWIW I only ride a women's bike because I'm 5'0. If I was taller I would probably go for a men's bike. They're way nicer.

lennymc

mrs lenny is about 5 ft tall and her wsd giant looks like this:


its an extra small, she finds it comfy

i supposes its a personal thing and if the rider feels comfortable thats the main thing

fat bloke

Well if you were in the shop with her at the time, maybe they took the measurements based what they presumed she'd been riding up to now

:pac:

Check out contemporary women road racers bikes - the drop from saddle to bars tends not to be as severe maybe as men's
but the saddles are always higher than the bars from what i can see. As far as i knew, the wsd thing referred mainly to the
combination of a compact sloping frame, available in small sizes and with a women-specific saddle.





http://womenscycling.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Olivia-D.jpg


Woah - sorry about the size of that last photo, but I suppose it illustrates the point.

-edit - last image removed and replaced with link - far too annoying.

Lumen

Tall people always seem to run more drop. I don't know why.

sled driver

victorcarrera wrote: »

Is she comfortable with this set up?
Does she have any physical or flexibility issues that may have resulted in the bike fitter setting the bars that high.

Road bikes can be set up for pure comfort, touring or racing. So the same bike for the same person can have different bar heights.
You seem to be using your own bike set up as comparison.

As an example I gave my smaller sister a loan of one of my 56cm road race set up bikes for a one off 80Km sportive. On the test run she turned back after 500M and said she couldn't ride it. I lowered the saddle to its lower limit flipped the stem and moved a few spacers to make it look very like that Trek in the pic.
She didn't look like a road racer and the set up would look all wrong to a road racer but the leg stretch was right, she was comfortable and had a great day.

Is she comfortable with the setup? Too early to tell yet. Only really been out for one decent 80km spin since getting the bike. She'd had a hybrid for years and has no problem racking up anything from 50-90km spins on that so she is comfortable being on a bike. 20-25 km into the spin last weekend and she was complaining with pain in her wrists and she didn't feel confident and stable (and therefore didn't feel comfortable) but the wrists that could be just a matter of getting used to the different position of the shifters and brakes compared to what she's used to and the comfort could be down to the different riding position, being clipped in - always strange at the start, feeling more of the bumps on the road (compared to hybrid) etc. These will just take getting used to before you could make a call on it.

No, no physical or flexibility issues which would result in the bars being set that high. But I do take your point on the various set-up of roadbikes depending on comfort, touring or racing.

I'm trying to convince her that a proper professional bike fit would be money well spent (if only to stop me overthinking it aswell ) but she's reluctant after spending over a grand (without BTW scheme) to be forking out more cash, when the LBS should be able to get it right.

Cheers for the input victorcarrera

sled driver

fat bloke wrote: »

Well if you were in the shop with her at the time, maybe they took the measurements based what they presumed she'd been riding up to now.

What can I say. Perhaps I'm also built for comfort and not for speed

Caroline_ie

That's it. You are not going to set your bike up for racing if you're not racing. What's the point? Race Aero position is not comfortable, it's not supposed to be either.

If you are looking at leisure cycling , you don't need to be as low as you'd be racing.

As you cycle more, you'll tweak your position anyway.

Enjoy the miles

manwithaplan

lennymc wrote: »

mrs lenny is about 5 ft tall and her wsd giant looks like this:


its an extra small, she finds it comfy

i supposes its a personal thing and if the rider feels comfortable thats the main thing

There's some tilt on that saddle but whatever works!

Caroline_ie

manwithaplan wrote: »

There's some tilt on that saddle but whatever works!

... yeah. Ouch. Her bum must be slipping a bit.

doozerie

@sled driver, That setup looks odd to me too. My wife's current bike is a hybrid, which is always likely to have less of drop from saddle to bars than a "racer", but even on that the saddle and bars are about level i.e. the bars are not substantially higher as is the case with your wife's bike. When my wife rode a racer the bars were a little below the saddle from what I can recall. She is 165cm in height.

I have a vague memory of reading somewhere before that below a certain height women's bikes tend to be fitted with 650C wheels in order to maintain a conventional fit of saddle and bar height - I don't recall a specific height being mentioned, but unless your wife is substantially smaller than 165cm I wouldn't have expected it to be necessary for the shop to adjust the bike they way they have done in order to accommodate her. If she prefers the bars higher than the saddle then that's one thing, but I can't imagine it helps the handling of the bike so it wouldn't be a setup that I'd think many people would end up with if they could avoid it.

velogirl

My first racing bike was a WSD - which in hindsight was ridiculous as I am 5ft 8 with an extremely long reach. I now ride a mans bike with a 54cm top tube and a 12cm stem which fits perfectly and is really comfortable and could never get the reach I need on a WSD. But then that is something you only discover over time and several bikes later.

I think WSD design is only suitable if you are below 5ft 4 or so and have a short reach. As for the set up of the handlebars - I would flip the stem back around and see how your OH gets on. The wrist pain could be caused by the set up of the handlebars.

How low you go in the front in comparison to saddle height is all dependant on flexibility and preference and I would stick with what is comfortable until she gets used to the race bike position.

sled driver

Thanks for all your input guys and gals. Refit booked in LBS on Saturday morning and we'll take it from there.

I'll post a pic of the result for your perusal.