5'1" and also fairly new to road bikes --

Finding a bike that fits might be your biggest challenge. My own search for my first road bike was rather frustrating. (I hadn't yet discovered TE, so you're already shopping smart by getting information off of these boards!) I started looking for one rather casually a few years ago -- LBS never seemed to have smaller bikes in stock, and I wasn't comfortable test-riding bikes that were obviously too big for me. I mean, what's the point?

I figured from a number of sources that I wanted to find something in the neighborhood of 44-46cm and what I was able to find all seemed to be high-end and/or custom bikes.

It took me a couple years to come to the conclusion that unless I was very, very lucky, I was not going to have my husband's experience where he was able to find a used bike for under $100, because he is right in the middle of the bell curve in terms of rider height/size/proportions.

If you're looking for something used, there are a million bikes out there for people of average height. You'll have a tougher time if you're very short or very tall. Really big and really little frames are simply not as common, so they seem to hold their value. There are a few companies that produce smaller frames as part of their regular product line, but I think there are other TE members who can speak to that better than I.

I wasn't ready to plunk down money for a custom bike, but I did identify a local framebuilder (R+E cycles) that seemed to have a lot of experience building bikes for petite riders (as well as bikes for taller than average people), and kept an eye out for one of their bikes on Craigslist. As fate would have it, a 42cm custom red Rodriguez with 650C wheels was listed just as I was getting serious about finding a bike. The lady who owned it was having health problems and had to stop riding (why else would you sell a custom bike?). She wanted $800 for it, which was more than I wanted to spend, but I also knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity after taking a SWEET test ride, and knowing that the same bike, new, would put me out $3,000.

I also thought, if I had spent that kind of money on a bike and couldn't ride any more, I'd probably want a fair amount of cash for it.

So I bit the bullet and have never regretted it. Not even after that bike was stolen . . . . which is another story, but if you see someone trying to sell it, my insurance company would be very interested to hear about it . . .