Originally Posted by
RichardHaas
I agree with that. I have never understood why there had to be a difference but for some reason it started out like that for the gender's.
Skirts. Women wore skirts and dresses in the 1800s, and a low bar kept them from having to hike the skirt up to get on the bike. Wouldn't want to expose the knickers accidentally.
Also,dropping the top bar weakened the frame. Since it was assumed women would only ride recreationally and not competitively, this wasn't an issue for women's bikes.