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My name is Vanessa I'm 25 years old and I'm interesting in taking up cycling as a hobby. I'm shopping around for my first bike but don't know what to buy. Heres my specs' I'm 5" and 115lbs, with that height and weight what am i looking for as far as the size of the bike and spec's? I've looked online for help but they further confused me.
If I'm reading your post correctly, you're only 5' tall - that's very petite. Chances are you're going to be better fit on a WSD (Women's Specific Design) frame. These have shorter top tubes, proportionally, narrower handlebars, shorter cranks (sometimes), short-reach brake levers (sometime), etc. If you do a search in this forum on WSD, you'll find a lot of posts. You're probably going to want to try frames in the 43-44 cm range to begin with. It can be hard to find little frames like that to test ride, unfortunately, so you might have to call/visit many bike shops. Do try to test ride bikes, though; that's the only way of knowing which size and geometry suits you.
Just for comparison sake, I am 5'2.5" with a 28.5" inseam and ride a 44 or 46 cm frame. If you have a long inseam for your height, you might take as large a bike as a 47 cm WSD, but that's still smaller than the smallest standard "unisex" sized road bike. Those normally start at 48 cm. I don't know much about the newer "compact" frames, but I do know that they come in sizes like XS, S, M, L, etc, so you might fit an XXS or XS in a compact.
Welcome and good luck!
Emily
I did go a bike shop and the smallest unisex they had there was a 49, which was a little too uncomfortable as far as reach. I've got a couple more shops to visit but hopefully someone will have something for my short stature, hehehe. :p
thanks for the advice and the welcome. I prob. will have more questions to come.
It can be tough for us shorties. Don't necessarily discount something just because of its posted size, though -- it's difficult to generalize on sizes, because not all bike brands use the same methods of measurement, and because different frame designs might have an effect (e.g. you have more "stand-over" wiggle room with frames whose top tubes slope down toward the seat tube.)
Unfortunately, few bike shops are going to have any tiny bikes around for you to try out, but a good bike shop can tell you which sizes of which brands are most likely to work for you.
By way of reference, I'm 5'1 (if I take a real deep breath!) with a 28.5 inch inseam. My two most recent road bikes were a "size small" compact-geometry Giant OCR, and a 48 cm Airborne Carpe Diem (with a sloping top tube.) My new ride (should be here by this weekend!!) is a 47 cm Jamis Aurora, with a traditional flat top tube.
Good luck!
my bike is a 49 and i am 5'3 1/2" my niece who is your height tried to get on it...
it was SOO Big and the reach the bars for her was impossible.
Go back to your local bike shop (LBS) and ask them if they could order something, tell them how much you can spend.
Good luck
Hi Vanessa,
I know exactly where you're coming from - I'm 5' on a good day ;)
Whether or not you'll fit into the smallest WSD bikes will depend mainly upon your relative leg/torso dimensions. There are a bunch of online bike fit calculators that will give you a clue. I can't say which one of them is the best - some people think that the online calculators are set up more for guys, or hard-core roadies - but I still have found it helpful to use them for reference. Wrenchscience.com has one that's very easy to use.
If you try an online fit calculator, the measurement to hone in on is the effective (horizontal) top tube length. (Wrenchscience combines this with stem length, but others will spit out the top tube length for you.) The shortest ones out there for production bikes are around 48-48.5 cm (Terry 16" bikes, Cannondale WSD 40cm, Trek WSD 43). If you need shorter than 48, like me, then the choices of production bikes are not so great.
So, as briefly as I can summarize:
--If your ideal top tube length turns out to be at least 48, there are WSD bikes out there that may fit you well. Look at Terry, Cannondale WSD 40, Trek WSD 43 because these are among the smallest ones out there. If you can get up to around 49-49.5 top tube, then there will be even more WSD choices.
--If less than 48, then there are a few directions you can go.
First is to use a really short stem (something like 5 or 6 cm) to compensate for the top tube being a bit longer than it should be for you. Some people don't like how this affects the steering, however.
Second, consider a high-quality kid racer bike - these are significantly smaller than WSD. Felt and Orbea make ones with 24 inch wheels. Specialized has an Allez Junior, but they put regular sized wheels on it, which I don't think is smart. There are some more obscure but good-quality brands like Javelin and Argon that also make kid racers. The major disadvantage of going with a junior racer is that the quality of components is usually not so great, and it would be expensive to upgrade. However, there are also advantages - kid racers usually have short-length cranks (150-160) that you will never find on a WSD bike.
Third, and this is what I eventually did - take your time to search around for special-sized used bikes. There are some older models, such as the Miyata Pavea, which are junior-sized. If you look really, really hard, you might even find a custom small size, which is what I eventually ended up with.
Fourth, if you have enough money and can justify the investment, get a custom bike. If you're just starting out, you're probably not in that situation. I'm certainly not there myself yet.
Fifth - this is one I've seen online, but don't know that much about. Convert a mountain bike frame into a road bike. Mountain bike frames are already set up for smaller 26-in wheels, and they have much lower standover.
Good luck finding the right bike for you - the search may be long, but it will be worth it in the end!
Oh, forgot to tell you my own (and bike's) dimensions, which might be helpful. I'm 5' (optimistically!) and have a 70.33 cm inseam. My bike has:
38 cm seat tube
68 cm standover
47 effective top tube length
8 cm stem
650c wheels
Top tube+stem=55, which hits exactly what wrenchscience put out as my ideal total length. It's working pretty well for me so far! Note that you also could come up with 55 by having, say, a 48 top tube and 7 cm stem. I personally wanted to keep my stem length in a normal range.
Thanks for all your advice with sizes. :) YA'LL ARE GREAT!!:D
The dude at one of the shops I visited said I'm size 43/44, but i have noticed that when i stand over the top bar I have very little room to move around, and thats with a inch heel from my shoes. I have quite a bit of window shopping and research still to do. I'm in no rush to get a bike, but my goal is to have one by next month.
Again thanks for all the help.