User Guide

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Most bikes are built for men
For years women have been riding bikes
designed partly, if not totally, for men. If you
were one of the lucky ones, your dealer sub-
stituted a few parts which made a men’s bike
work pretty well for you, especially if you are
a taller woman.
Adaptation and adjustability
Fitting bikes is a combination of adjusting
a bike and adapting the rider.
Larger bike are more adjustable, since
their stem lengths are usually of average
length and rise. Changing to a shorter stem
reduced the reach to the bars, and changing
stem angle on a mid-length or longer stem
could significantly effect handlebar height.
On a small bike, the stem is likely to be
quite short to begin with. If an even shorter
stem is desired, the right extension may not
exist. Changing the rise angle of a very short
stem has little effect on handlebar height so
vertical adjustment is not readily available,
either.
When analyzing movement of a person, the
range of motion is critical to efficiency and
power. If you move a fit component on a bicy-
cle a given amount, it will effect the range of
motion of a person with shorter limbs more
than a person with longer limbs. Simply put,
when fitting a bike a shorter person has
less adaptability than a taller person. Smaller
bikes generally have less adjustability than
big bikes, so it’s more important that a small
bike fit just right.
Smaller women rider smaller bikes. With
less available adjustment on their bikes, and
less adaptability of their bodies, small women
have suffered fit problems that lead to perfor-
mance gaps. Serious riding on the road is
much more fun when your bike is comfort-
able and handles well. Off road, anything less
can make cycling really unpleasant.
More than a dropped top tube
The new Gary Fisher Genesisters and
LeMond women's bikes are spec’d with wom-
en’s specific components, like saddles, bars,
and crank lengths. The Genesisters mountain
bikes have women’s specific suspension forks
with softer springs.
More importantly, these frames feature a
geometry designed for women. So while most
‘women’s’ bikes make due by just tweaking
a men's bike with a few add-ons or maybe a
dropped top tube, we completely redesigned
these bikes to meet the needs of performance
oriented smaller women.
Women sit on a bike differently
There are several major differences in how
men and women sit on a bike. The most
obvious and most discussed of these is the
difference in pelvic structure. A woman’s hips
are wider, and the bony protuberances we
all sit on, called ischial tuberosities, are also
wider apart. This accounts for the popularity
of women’s saddles that are wider in the back
than a man’s.
A man’s pelvic structure allows him to roll
his pelvis forward on the saddle and lean
forward aggressively. For most women, this
hurts. The result is a woman sits on a bike
seat with her pelvis in a more upright posi-
tion. For the smaller woman on a man’s
machine, this means her lower back is curved
and the handlebars are hard to reach.
Adjusting geometry to fit women
Fisher and LeMond engineers addressed
these issues in several ways in the
Genesisters and LeMond women's geometry.
To support their wider pelvis, women appear
to sit further back on the saddle. With a
steeper seat tube, the seat can be positioned
placing the legs over the cranks for optimal
power, while her butt is on the most com-
fortable part of the saddle. To adjust the
reach for a more upright angle to the back, a
shorter top tube is used. The handlebars are
placed higher by using a taller head tube, so
her back and arms can be at a relaxed angle
for steering control and shock absorption.
These adjustments put a woman in a
more comfortable and powerful position. That
makes hills easier and long rides less tiring.
A common complaint among women riders is
back pain, and the correct position goes a
long way to alleviate this problem.
Some of the corrections Fisher made to
these frames can be made to a men’s frame
with similar results, especially with a taller
woman’s bike where there is more adjust-
ment. But any frame will handle its best with
the weight distribution applied in a certain
way, and a men’s frame is designed to have
a man’s heavy shoulders pressed firmly onto
the handlebars in a bent over position. When
you put a woman, who already has lighter
shoulders, in a more upright position, there
WOMEN ON BIKES