Hi Christine,

Glad to be of some help! I can't say if a 16" Terry frame will work for you, but I do know that different manufacturers have different ways of measuring frames, so it may not be bigger than some of the others you've ridden even though they claim to have a smaller size. You already know that the standover is *less* than your Marin, so that would seem to indicate that their way of measuring frame size is quite different from Terry!

It would be great to see if there is any way to locate a 16" Terry in your area to try out. Barring that, you can get all the geometry measurements off the Terry site for that size, and probably also off the other manufacturer's sites to compare various measurements. Top tube length is especially important to make sure your reach to the handlebars is correct. You could compare the top tube of the 16" Terry (19.3") to the length on your Marin or to any others you've tried, as it should be on those manufacturer's sites. Here is a link to the Classic geometry:

http://www.terrybicycles.com/Bikes/classicgeo.lasso

Just one datapoint - there is a woman in our bike club who is either 4'10" or 4'11", and she has been happily riding a 16" Terry for years. She just upgraded from a Symmetry to a Titania (titanium). She has very short legs too!

As far as I know, you can't swap 700 and 650c wheels - the frames have to be built for them.

Good luck - I am very interested to hear what you do! If you do decide to go with the Classic, I'd go with the 2002 demo - there's probably not a significant difference between that and the 2003, and the difference in cost would buy you some nice accessories!

Emily