need to buy my wife a bike

[VeloVT]

I read a very favorable review of this women's specific Felt in Bicycling a while back:

http://www.feltracing.com/08/product...,1508&pid=8688

It's a good price for Dura Ace too, although the two models below it are good as well (FW25 with Ultegra and FW35 with 105).

I started riding on a Felt and they are fast bikes at a good value.

Definitely make sure you look at the geometry tab on on that Felt page though. The frame sizes seem misleading to me -- the virtual TT on the 45cm frame is the same -- 51.5 cm -- as the virtual TT on the 49cm bike I just bought.

Trek, Cannondale, Specialized etc are all making smaller women's frames now. I don't have experience with most of them but my BF bought a 2007 Trek Madone which I really like (he likes it too ). The Madone 4.5 is in your price range and it is carbon (though Trek's TCT carbon is a little wooden feeling -- OCLV is much livelier if you can swing the price difference).

Bianchi also makes a lot of smaller women's bikes. I have no experience with their WSD bikes (I'm 5'6" and Bianchi ONLY makes WSD bikes in smaller sizes), but I have a Bianchi cyclocross bike which is very comfy and quick-handling, and I've tested a few others that I liked.

Good luck!!!