Quote Originally Posted by broken_cynic View Post
she wants a touring bike..
I'm 5'1" and had similar problems trying out small bikes. I decided I wanted a touring bike, but there are very few small enough which are easily available over here and bike shops didn't have any for me to try.

I have just got a surly LHT size 42. I wasn't able to try it built up before i decided to go for it, but there were frames in the bike shop of different sizes so I could get a rough idea of what would work. From this I found that there'd be barely any stand over on the 42 cross-check, but the LHT would be ok in both 42 and 46.

It's early days (I've had it for less than a week) but size wise it seems pretty perfect. There's a decent amount of stand over, so there was quite a bit of flexibility in how it was set up. I have it with low gearing and Netto Randonneur handlbars. It's lovely to ride too, and to me seems fast enough and not too heavy at all.

anyway, that's just a few additional thoughts on this topic.