Tri bikes, women, materials and wheels...

[Bluetree]

This is kinda old, but has some interesting information about the bikes women are riding. It's written from a marketer's POV, but interesting all the same..

The Women's Field in Kona
We have never, to our recollection, considered just the women's field at the Hawaiian Ironman. Frankly, women were of small relevance to the triathlon industry during the 1990s, since so few women were part of the sport. This was true both on a percentage basis and as a hard number.

That's all in the past. Not only is the sport of triathlon a lot bigger now than it was a decade ago, women make up 35% of the sport here in the U.S., not 15% as was the case in the early to mid '90s. Further, the rate of new entries into multisport is evenly split among the sexes.

This means what, exactly? It means that if you're industry, and you're watching this trend, you'd better pay a lot of attention (both at the manufacturer and retail level) at what sort of bikes you currently make or stock to service triathlon's entry- and mid-priced levels. It also means you must face this fact: you're going to be selling just about as many mid- to high-priced 47cm, 49cm and 51cm tri bikes as you do 57cm, 59cm, and 61cm units, in the last half of this decade.

The whole article:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadin...005_women.html