Little Britain style...I'm a LADYYYY!

KarynPebs

Ladies road bikes....I have a £1k budget for bike and accessories and I have some rather grand ambitions which at the moment are pie in the sky but which I do hope to achieve (some kind of ridiculously epic journey for charity, I have a sickly child). Initially I am well aware that I will probably be all the gear and no idea but hey, if I'm going to fail spectacularly I might as well fail in style!

I did start road biking last year and loved it, I have a reasonable hybrid but am in a position to be able to buy something reasonable (I hope!). I wasn't able to continue with it for various reasons but I made good progress and my speeds and times were coming along nicely.

Do I just look at the mens bike reviews and hope they do a ladies version or are the two splendid in their isolation?

rubertoe

I'm trying to get my Girlfriend to get one of these...

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... 65710#dtab

Leaves you plenty of money for all those extras that you need and a well specked bike for the money.

Peddle Up!

Trek do a range of women-specific models and they get reviewed as such from time to time. A quick search should throw a few up. Good luck.

andrewjoseph

I think you need to give more info on the plans for your epic.

if you are riding fast then a lightweight road bike, if your are riding long distances then a comfortable road bike.

if you are doing long distance touring unsupported then you will need a different type of bike and extra equipment.

SFT

Another vote for the Boardman.

My wife has two (one for UK and one in France for the Alps) and luvs it!

Great value as well as unlike the mens Boardmans the prices have not gone up.

Secteur

Do you need a "racer" or a "tourer"?

I spent £1k on my bike (my budget was £600). I then spent another £1k on accessories, clothes, bits & bobs - many essential, some just for fun.

The non-bike bike stuff costs a fortune!

Be more specific on your needs and ambitions if you can - will help make a good recommendation.

And finally, good luck!

Secteur

PS how does your bum look in lycra ;-) (see thread in cake stop!)

1892

Probably the first thing to do is have a chat @ your LBS, if you have a good one. I know cycling plus has done review on ladies bikes in the past so maybe have a look on here?

Hope your child gets better.

KarynPebs

I can't bring myself to say what the epic will be as it seems so utterly ridiculous to even contemplate it at the moment, lets just say it's a bloody long way and will take a couple of weeks. Distance (comfort) over speed, definitely!!

I have a few good LBS', I'll go and entertain them with my plans tomorrow. And lycra is a dirty word at the moment, I'll cause car crashes for all the very wrong reasons!

Many thanks for your replies...the Boardman bikes certainly seem worth a look.


Is there a world of difference in the bikes needed for supported and unsupported rides?

andrewjoseph

KarynPebs wrote:

I can't bring myself to say what the epic will be as it seems so utterly ridiculous to even contemplate it at the moment, lets just say it's a bloody long way and will take a couple of weeks. Distance (comfort) over speed, definitely!!

I have a few good LBS', I'll go and entertain them with my plans tomorrow. And lycra is a dirty word at the moment, I'll cause car crashes for all the very wrong reasons!

Many thanks for your replies...the Boardman bikes certainly seem worth a look.


Is there a world of difference in the bikes needed for supported and unsupported rides?

yes. no. depends

a race bike like the boardman won't have the bolt holes needed to carry racks to put panniers on. Unless you get the commuter with flat bars.

I think it would be best to go for a touring bike that can carry loads, has mudguards and has a more comfortable position. You don't have to load it up, but the option is there.

if you buy a race style bike you will be limited to what and how you can carry things, should you need to.

Right, I'm off to sleepless in the saddle for the weekend.

tatybi!

Pickle Lily

I recently bought a Giant Avail 2 (RRP ~ £725) with the intention of using it for a bit of lightweight touring and general road use. Easy enough to fit a rack and carry a couple of panniers. You'll end up packing exactly the same for a few days touring, as you would for a few weeks. You'll just have to wash your clothes a bit more!

Originally I intended to get a more touring specific bike, but having gone into my LBS and picked one up, I decided they were far too heavy for my liking.

racingcondor

My wife also has an Avail 2. Nice bike and has drillings for panniers / mudguards.

KulaBen

Would a specialised Dolce or Ruby be worth a look? Looks like they may take racks, and I think they a more upright for longer distances like the Spesh Secteur and Rubaix mens.

Evil Laugh

Hi

I dont know much about your planned trip but I can share experience of one I just completed.

6 of us cycled from NW france down to Foix At the Easterly end of the Pyrenees, southern France.

We cycled about 700 miles in 10 days. 4 of us went on our "fast" road bikes. For eg I took my Cannondale Six Carbon.

We stayed in hotels, B&Bs, all bar one right at the end were extremely accommodating wrt keeping bikes safely, ie indoors in a locked room/garage or in the bedrooms themselves.

This meant we could travel light. 3 of us used Topeak MTX seatpost pannier racks with the biggest corresponding DXP bags. This was absolutely ample room for a couple of changes of normal clothes, a pair of evening shoes or flipflops, raincoats, longsleeve jersey, tools, spare tyres, tubes, energy powders, locks and any food we needed en route. My missus took her full make up bag too.

Initially you can feel the effect of the seatpost pannier on the handling of the bike (rear feels heavy, weight swings about, especially when standing on pedals, but the body gets used to it very quickly and compensates. So after about 6-7 rides with the rack prior to our trip I was more than comfortable sprinting and climbing standing with the rack on. In France I didn't notice it at all. The key is to set it as low over the back wheel as possible and to keep the bike straight with a good grip on the bars when sprinting/climbing although you soon do this without thinking. We did some fairly big climbs and longish mid 40mph descents while loaded, no problems.

I'm not sure a lightweight roadbike and a comfortable bike are mutually exclusive! Personally I wouldn't get too hooked up on whether you have a so called sportive or race bike if you go down the light luggage or supported touring route. I would say getting a good bike fitting done on whatever bike prior to going is far more important and will make sure you are comfortable on the bike. I would highly recommend the Bike Whisperer if you live in London or near to. They would also help you choose a bike. All of us that got a fitting done were perfectly happy on our loaded race bikes over the 700 miles. I'll also add when you hit a 15 mile stretch of headwind, you'll be thankful of a nice aero position on the drops.

Be prepared to spend a good few hundred on cycling clothes, tights, jersey, longsleeve jersey, rain jacket, socks, shoes, overshoes, pedals, gloves, helmet, glasses. If you're doing a long trip having good quality, well fitting, comfortable kit makes such a difference.

Don't be intimidated by distance, 2 of the people we went with were not hugely regular cyclists and had not done much long distance cycling. But they manage to do 65-85 miles a day with only one day off in the 10. The key was for them to go at their comfortable pace and to keep well fed and well fuelled in carb drinks and water. the rest of us could have done the distances about 50% quicker but we all waited at major junctions and we all completed every day's goal re target destination.

Do some training on hills if you're going somewhere hilly. That's the area where the weaker cyclists struggled on our trip. Make sure you have a decent gearing for hills. There's no shame in a compact chainset and a 12-28 cassette. It's much better for your long distance endurance to be able to spin up long hills.


Couldn't have wished for our trip to have gone much better (just a few days of rain) and the 4 days I got to spend cycling the Pyrenees on my tod at the end was heaven.

Good luck!!!



PS if you're buying a small women's bike watch out for the crank length. My friend bought a corratech for our trip, and she's about 5'3". It came with 172.5mm cranks which are the bigger of the two sizes I hover between at 5'11". I've got 175mm cranks on one bike (too big) and they feel horrible, stretches my thighs in horrible ways.

MichaelW

Road bikes come is several different styles:

Race bike. High gearing, no threaded eyelets, close tyre clearance.

Sportiff bike: Lower gearing (compact double chainring), more comfort-oriented position, often lacks eyelets.

Audax*/winter training style. Lower gearing (compact double), comfortable position, threaded eyelets for luggage rack and mudguards, more tyre clearance through using deep drop caliper brakes.

Cyclo-cross: More tyre clearance by use of cantelever brakes or sometimes, disc brakes.

Touring: Heavier duty frame, front/rear rack fittings, MTB gearing, cantelever or disc brakes for more tyre clearance.

If you are looking for a road bike for general fitness and training, occasional long events and some light (B&B) style touring, then Audax/winter training is a good style.


Womens bikes generally have proportionally shorter frames for the size. Sometimes they have narrower bars and women's saddles.
......
Audax are non-competative organised rides held all year round, where mudguards are compulsory to keep riders clean.
Sportiffs are racier events held in summer where the mudguard rule doesnt apply.
Winter training bikes are used by serious riders to save their race bikes from muck and grime in winter.

slowlanejane

Re OP & women's bike or no: Don;t look at it from a gender perspective, you've got to try the bike. WSD models assume women have longer legs & shorter torsos than men, but you might not. I don't. The WSDs felt all wrong, I got a man's model in the end, then swapped out the handlebars to fit my narrower shoulders & smaller hands. LBS were fab but I went to a big one who stocked more ranges and manufacturers, as they inevitably want to sell you their stock, so I chose a store with a variety of stock to be sold.

andrewjoseph

KulaBen wrote:

Would a specialised Dolce or Ruby be worth a look? Looks like they may take racks, and I think they a more upright for longer distances like the Spesh Secteur and Rubaix mens.

The spesh Dolce my wife bought a few years ago (05 model) was definitely not touring friendly, it had a triple crank but totally unsuitable gearing range.

When we tried to get it sorted for touring we realised she needed a proper touring bike.

We went for custom titanium from burls.co.uk and I built the bikes up myself.

mattshrops

i've got to agree on dont necessarily go for women specific, we all have different body shapes. try some out and see what suits.
A quick point on comparing different makes/specs at a particular price point, providing where you are buying from is not charging a ridiculous price(a quick google will tell you) then its just about personal comfort/preference- basically its quite hard to find a crap bike these days at £1000.

re your epic - in the words of those modern day philosophers(ahem) "woulda shoulda coulda are the last words of a fool"
Go for it and good luck

petemadoc

Some great advice already

I've just bought my wife a Bianchi in the sales and she loves it. Fair enough if you need help from a LBS but there are some cracking deals in the online sales at the moment.

Happy shopping

1892

How did you get on?