i made a fit app't!!

[Eden]

I once read (on Sheldon Brown perhaps?) that bikes used to really only have a variable seat tube. This means the smaller the bike, the proportionally overlong the top tube would get.

Enter my reasoning: Since blokes only go down to a 52 or so it does not hurt yet. But if you go down to a 44 or something the top tube is way too long, so they needed to shorten it, and since 99.8% of all small bikes are ridden by women, call it WSD (the 0.2% being vertically challenged men).

Re: the wind tunnel - I'm not good enough for that

I've heard the same thing - though when this was true bikes generally only came in 2 or 3 "sizes" anyway..... with only a 52, 54, or 56 people on both ends of the spectrum were pretty well out of luck....

Bikes started coming smaller with variable tt lengths before the label "WSD", but they were still proportioned for people with longer torsos and arms and the very smallest sizes (yes generally used by women) were not around yet. My first 10 speed was probably about a 48- which yeah, I could stand over, but the top tube was about a 52.5, and I really need under a 50 - I now have a 49.5 and could really go shorter.

WSD does have some other connotations too - usually it means that the frame sizes will go smaller, and some other things, like handlebar width and crank length will be scaled down too. Some WSD bikes have short reach levers - but all of these things could just as easily be called "small people design" as "women's design"