indyfabz

I like the way you think.

And as for colors, when I had my custom ti frame built I wanted a Cerakote ceramic finish. My first choice was pink. Thought is would look great with the red Chris King hubs on the wheelset being moved over from my existing road bike. I was planning on matching that with a red headset and post collar. Unfortunately, the applicator couldn't quite get the shade correct. (Cerakote colors are normally a boring, matte finish, but if you mix them with gloss white you get a pearl finish.) Came out looking too much like bubble gum. So I went with what we call a sea foam green.

Road Fan

I don't think I've seen it. Thanks for the pointer. The ones I'm talking about were recorded perhaps 10 years ago.

Korina

@Road Fan, that's them. They were all posted to iTunes on 6/20/2018.

AnthonyG

Most womens specific frame designs were just a marketing scam anyway so I'm not sad to see them go.
Until they get them right anyway.

The main premise of "WSD", for better or worse is that Women are more likely to have a longer leg to torso ration than men are which isn't always true to be honest.
Still, lets say that's what they were designing it for so did they get it right?

No, they failed miserably and they probably knew they failed but continued for "Marketing" reasons.
When designing a frame for best fit you need to consider behind the BB (bottom bracket) and in front of the BB separately. You specify behind the BB for the legs and in front of the BB for arms/reach.
A true WSD for a long legged / short torso woman would have the same seat tube angle that a man need but then the front/centre distance needs to be pulled in which would lead to the front wheel being closer to the BB and a relatively tall head tube. At a certain point of course you will need a smaller front wheel to allow the reach to come closer.

That's what's truly needed but not what bike manufacturers do. What they do instead is give "WSD" designs a steeper seat tube angle which moves the rider forwards towards the bars. The top tube length is now shorter on a spec sheet which seems right yet it just places more weight on the riders hands/shoulders.

Its just a quick and dirty fudge. I'm happy to see it die.

If they get it right though, that's a different matter.

Road Fan

I have to say, I'm not that familiar with what Trek and Specialized did to make a WSD product that is actually different from the general road product line. What you outline as truly needed is what is done by Georgena Terry, and she started doing them back when horizontal top tubes were de rigeur. I think she started around 1985 but I'm not that sure. I've also seen a custom Mercian with that design and I think a Japanese touring brand, maybe Nishiki. Several women in the local bicyle touring society have custom Serottas with this feature. If Spec or Trek are able to accomplish a similar result with equal wheels (such as the Ruby), fine, not all Terry bikes have small front wheels. There are other ways to pull in effective reach and to make a good compromise on handling, bar height, and weight distribution.

By now, the big companies have been able to observe, analyze, and copy the thinking of Ms. Terry for nearly 35 years, and to test their own adaptations of "the woman's road bike" in the marketplace and the race track, if still relevant. For a woman whose skeletal proportions and weight distribution are similar to those of a particular man, I have no doubt their frame design solutions should be similar if their intended riding styles are also similar.

But Terry also introduced more features: narrow, low-reach, shallow-drop handlebars that reduce the required hand size, with brake levers suited to smaller hands (pre-brifter/pre-Ergopower), saddles (such as Fly and Butterfly) that are intended to enhance anatomical comfort. Clearly slotted saddles (to look only at the coarse nature of the feature) are not ubiquitous for both genders, as are sitbone supports combined with reductions of pressure in the areas forward of the bony contacts. Perhaps it's just that the science of saddle design (Joshua Cohen and others) has moved forward in the same time frame, even Brooks has applied the research, and innovative leathersmiths (Rivet and Selle AnAtomica) are growing into their own games.

Terry had a special new handlebar, selected (or commissioned?) from 3T with bend that suited and a cutout behind the hook, and a tall brazed stem with a short extension, both used on Mrs. Road Fan's 1997 Georgena Terry Classic. Now the "compact" bar style accomplishes the same thing, and the saddle-bar drop can be managed with taller head tubes and threadless stems.

So I think there was a lot of valid innovation in conceiving women's bikes, and a lot of opportunity has been taken to apply some of these innovations to the whole cycling market. While there is probably still a reasonable need to use staggered wheel sizes, I would not call "the woman's bike" just marketing, nor would I call the withdrawal of WSD bikes a mistake, in the mainstream. But if it's left to the LBS to fit the female cyclists, are they adequately skilled? In the component and frame space, the tools are there.

And guys, pink is the color for the winner of the Giro d'Italia (arr arr arr)!

AnthonyG

I was only commenting on the big companies WSD designs and not on Terry bikes.

I can read the geometry and to a "T" they all just steepened the seat tube angle to make the top tube spec shorter on a spec sheet and left it basically at that. Maybe some narrower handlebars and a different seat but that was about it.

In truth you can only build a bike with 700c wheels down to a 52/54cm frame. Any smaller than that and you are into some serious geometry bodging. Bellow 52cm you need 650c wheels or even 24" wheels to get the geometry right.

Craptacular8

Speaking from my own personal experience with Specialized's Ruby versus Roubaix, there was no difference in the seat tube angle. In a men's/unisex road bike, I ride a 52 typically. In the Ruby, I take a 54. Both the 52 Roubaix, and 54 Ruby have a 74 degree seat tube angle. Identical horizontal top tube lengths of 371mm, and seat tube angels were nearly identical at 72.25 (Roubaix) and 72(Ruby). They differed in Head Tube length however. 110 on the Roubaix, versus 140mm on the Ruby. In order for my husband's bike to be as relatively "upright" as the Ruby, we needed to swap out the stock stem for one with more rise, which made them fit nearly identically for stack/reach. 52 Roubaix comes with a 143 saddle, and 42cm bars, while Ruby comes with 155 saddle, and 40cm bars.

I'd never had a WSD specific bike before. All of my other bikes, AC Spacehorse, Diverge, etc have 42cm bars, and I've swapped out saddles on everything I've ever bought, but have to say, they all ended fitting me very similarly, though the Ruby is probably the most comfortable of all. I hope the end of wsd bikes doesn't mean that I'll only have choices of various takes on "black" for color.......

AnthonyG

Sure. My view is that a 74° seat tube angle is too steep for men as well. Its a geometry fudge. Neither short men or women are served by pushing them forwards towards the handlebars.

I'm waiting for the day when small size bikes have decent geometry for men or women. Current/previous "WSD" designs are just something that needs to die before this can happen.

I used to be very pessimistic about this happening. Currently though I'm seeing some hopeful improvements. There are some current juvenile bike designs from Giant and Specialised that have made some HUGE improvements to the point that I can now ride an off the shelf bike with only some minor adjustments.
I bought one of these recently,

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/au/arx-24

A 24" wheel juvenile bike. Its a HUGE improvement geometry wise for short people over what came before it.

fietsbob

So Is Merida, who owns a fat share of Specialsed a brand they supply with product going to continue?

Trek has a WSD geometry model in many lines..

more than 1 source .. Shoppers..






....

bbbean 

There is as much variation between individuals within a gender as there is between the genders as a whole, and that two individuals of a particular height and weight are likely to need a similar fit regardless of gender. That is to say, they are selling bikes to individuals, not to genders. "Women" don't buy bikes as a group, they buy them as individuals.
Consider socks. Outside or fashion or cultural preferences, there's no reason a man and a woman who both have, say, a size 42 foot can't wear the same socks.
I think Specialized's logic makes sense. Sell frames for people of a given size, and leave the gender specific fitting to things like saddles, bibs, or other areas where gender plays a bigger role than simple size.

livedarklions

My only question is whether this means they're going to stop selling smaller size bikes or that they're just going to produce the same range of sizes and just not "gender label" them. If there really aren't statistically significant differences between the average proportions for the two sexes, then it's just the same problem for both sexes buying bike--finding the combination of sizes and proportions that fit you individually. Since virtually no one is "average" in both of these dimensions, that's the same as it ever was. Sex, then, enters into it only as styling and naming preferences.

I would think that not gender-specifying should actually allow Specialized to be able to market its smaller bikes more efficiently. If you divide up the already small segment of the market at the left end of the size curve into two parts, you're increasing your production costs per bike--in theory, lumping all the small riders together should allow Specialized to produce the smaller size at lower cost than is currently the case.

bbbean 

My understanding is that will still market a full range of sizes. They simply won’t be marketing frames by gender. Like you, I suspect this may result in increased efficiency and less waste in smaller sized frames.

Banzai

Unless you’re talking about the geometry challenges inherent in very small frames, the whole “women specific” thing was always marketing. They do up charge nicely for it though, don’t they?

Most of the women I know who ride just ride bikes. Like most of us, they choose saddles, stem length, and bar width for their unique morphology. But they’re riding “men’s” bikes I suppose.

fietsbob

Georgina Terry got The Segment going , now She seema focused on selling what you wear ,

to look good, riding , rather than selling bikes.

wipekitty

Seems fair to me.

In many cases, the main differences seem to be the stock saddle, color, size availability, and sometimes, handlebar width. IMO stock saddles are usually gross and handlebars are easy enough to replace. For Trek's Emonda and Domane lines, these are in fact the only differences: the frame geometry, by size, is identical.

Maybe this is a backwards move for Specialized, but I doubt it. Turns out that a lot of female road cyclists - particularly those expecting to drop $2K+ on a bike - are athletes like anyone else, and really do not want/need something that looks girly. Entry level and comfort bikes are a different story entirely.

livedarklions

A lot of the stores I'm in seem to have two sections "women's bikes" and " bikes", the latter section being divided into several subcategories. As a man, it's tempting to see this as special treatment for women, but then I realize that just means I'm considered the "default" gender, and the store has a little pink ghetto. There's so much variation within the genders that it just makes sense to throw out a range of colors, sizes and geometries, and let men and women sort out which combination suits them best.

KraneXL

That's because men ride bike far more often than do women. The closet you get to an even distribution in on college campuses.

You are in contradiction. What's good for the former should be good for the latter. Should it not?

Counterpoint: why not devise a scheme to discontinue building women's bike without creating any negative feedback that the company is anti-female? Clever girl?

Counterpoint: black goes with everything.

NomarsGirl

But my bike is so pretty! Then again, I don't think the silver/pink paint scheme would necessarily be a turnoff for all men. I've had plenty of compliments on it out on the road - and none from women. And I didn't have to sacrifice on quality. The Ruby Sport and Roubaix Sport had exactly the same components. And the list price was the same for both. I got a deal on the Ruby because they needed to clear inventory and they don't have a lot of people looking for 56 cm women's specific carbon fiber bikes.

livedarklions

So basically, what made it a WSD is that they said so, and a splash of a rather subdued pink. Like I said before, Specialized should just offer the same range of colors and sizes and just let people choose whether or not they see it as appropriate for their gender.

It sounds to me like your bike would probably be a perfect fit for me, but I wouldn't have bothered to look at it because I would just assume there weren't any 56 cm bikes in the women's section. I really couldn't care less about the color. So basically, they probably cut off half or more of the potential buyers of that bike because they stuck it into a section where most men just wouldn't bother to look.

I do love that you got such a good deal off of a change in their marketing strategy.

fietsbob

so nobody actually in the company or a shop employee writing here just consumers in the bleachers , watching..

wipekitty

I also love that you got a good deal due to the change in marketing strategy

That might be the main downside to eliminating women-specific bikes: fewer good deals on WSD bikes in sizes that are usually found in both men's and women's varieties (I'm thinking 50-56cm or so). FWIW, my road bike is pink. I'm definitely not a pink person, but the bike is pretty rad, so I roll with it.

MEversbergII

You can't just say that and not show us what it looks like!

M.

KraneXL

We pay for those bleacher seats, so ours is the only opinion that truly counts.

NomarsGirl

She's further up in this thread. Post 12.

radroad

They've probably been losing money, a lot of money, for a long time now. I'm sure they stuck with the line for as long as they possibly could, and then some.

It's like the wnba: it's been losing tens of millions of dollars since it's inception. It's not a business, it's a social justice campaign. It's pathetic because the women players claim they are "underpaid" even though the league has never, ever turned a profit!

The BOTW women's tennis tournament just shut down operations at Stanford University recently. My understanding is that the tournament lost money just about every year as well.

How much money is being wasted promoting women's cycling? I would lay a bet that every single bicycle company is losing money on women's specific designs.

Women spend money on yoga pants, shoes, makeup, stuff like that. Bicycles, not so much.