As regular readers of this blog probably know I work in a bike shop and one of the most regular questions I’m asked by both men and women is: Should I buy a flat bar road bike and a drop bar road bike. So I thought it would be useful to talk about the pros and cons of both types of road bike. Firstly I have to confess that I ride a drop bar road bike and love it, so I won’t be changing to a flat bar any time soon, but I can see some merit in them, and
Read moreCategory: women’s bikes
It’s not a ‘lady’s bike’, it’s a women’s bike
There’s been quite a lot of discussion of late about how to make bike shops and cycling in general more attractive for women, and while I’ve not weighed in to the various discussions until now I thought I’d put in my views.I’m reasonably well qualified to do so. I work in a bike shop and although I’m relatively new to it (two years) it gives me a unique perspective because I can still remember back to when I was a customer of women’s cycling gear. One of my own issues is actually about the use of the word ‘lady’ instead
Read moreHow to find the right bike if you’re a short woman
One of the interesting/rewarding things about writing a blog is that you can check out how many people are viewing it. My analysis isn’t particularly sophisticated, but it is very interesting to see what topics are the most popular with my readers. By far the most popular blog posts I’ve written are about bikes for short women. I can’t be sure why this is occurring but my best guess is that short women are not getting the information they need when they visit a local bike shop. To me it’s a sad indictment of the bike industry because there are
Read moreFocus on women’s bikes and accessories strong at Trek
You may have read my blog post a couple of months ago about women’s product development at Specialized. I also made contact with a few other companies at the same time and so here’s the women’s development story from Trek. I would have preferred to have spoken to someone from Trek, instead here’s some Q&A via email from Emily Bremer who is based at Trek HQ in the US and among other roles is responsible for the marketing of women’s products. How many people at Trek work on women’s product development? Are they all women? Women’s specific product
Read moreWomen’s product development at Specialized HQ
As you may have read in my previous post I attended the Specialized dealer launch on the Gold Coast last month and enjoyed seeing and hearing about the emphasis being put on women’s products by Specialized. It got me thinking about how the products are actually developed. I’ve often heard other people from Specialized talking about the women’s product development team so I decided to delve deeper and find out how it all works. Erin Sprague who heads up the women’s product development team in California was kind enough to chat with me last week via Skype. Erin heads up
Read moreWomen’s product highlights from the 2015 Specialized launch
Over the last few days I’ve been lucky enough to attend the annual Specialized dealer launch held this year on Queensland’s sunny Gold Coast. I’ve seen a plethora of product – the whole 2015 range and I’ve been impressed by the range of women’s specific offerings. Specialized has nominated women’s specific products as one of its key areas of focus for the next few years. In the presentation I attended they divided the market into a number of experiences (a little bit cheesy I know but it sort of made sense). The ‘experiences’ are: fitness; endurance road; triathlon/performance road;
Read moreHow to find the right saddle for women who cycle
For me it’s a no brainer that women need different bike saddles than men. Nowhere on the body is it more evident that women have different needs to men, than in the area of the body that makes contact with the bike seat, known as the saddle. The saddle is the key contact area of the bike. It takes most of your weight and therefore it is crucially important to having a comfortable seat. If you buy a women’s specific bike then chances are it will already be fitted with a women’s specific saddle but it’s not necessarily the right
Read moreDon’t be left out, there are plenty of road bikes for short women
About this time last year I wrote a blog post about road bikes that are specifically built for short women, and ever since my monitoring has shown that this is a really popular topic. So I thought I should update the information for all you shorties. I’m a relatively short woman at 160 cm (5 foot 3 inches) but I’ve met quite a few female road cyclists who are shorter than me and one of them mentioned to me that she and other short stature women have trouble finding bikes to ‘fit’. A lot of people are dubious about the
Read moreGreat Christmas present ideas for female cyclists
This year’s Christmas list is a little extravagant and is really a bike bling wish list for me. I guarantee that if the special women in your life is a dedicated road cyclist, then she’ll love these suggestions or something similar in her favourite colours. My favourite bike colours are unashamedly white, red & black in combination. Specialized Amira Pro This gorgeous bike has a carbon frame and is powered by SRAM Force gearing and includes Roval Rapide carbon wheels. It’s also available in a Specialized-lululemon team replica version and is a bargain at $5,699.
Read moreThe frame is the most important part of a road bike
Before I worked in the bike industry (a mere one year ago), I was of the view that if you wanted to buy a road bike then your focus should be on the gearing of the bike, but the more I learn about road bikes, the more I realise that the frame is far more important than the gearing which plays a secondary role. Just like many road bike buyers, when I bought my current carbon-framed bike I used the level of gearing on the bike as the key determinate. I first decided whether I wanted an aluminium or carbon
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