Stop looking at my messy shop!
Here's the after-pics of the bike with the "Bosco" bars installed.
Here's the dumbass-looking bars I installed - mainly for a need to either make it worse or make it better - which is one of my most-valuable diagnostic techniques. Makes it look pretty weird, but this was honestly a step in the right direction. She feels better and more-comfortable riding it, but is now worried that she looks like a dork... which she does. It doesn't help me singing the wicked witch of the west bicycle theme whenever she's on it.
This bike is a medium frame. Being 5'8" tall, I felt that she could easily handle a medium, and there were no smalls available, so that made the decision easy. However, I feel like I made an error in judgement.
So you can see my dilemma here. I love my wife and I want to rode with her, but I feel like she does nothing but complain about this bike. She loves her Linus, and it fits her perfectly. If I could get her a dutch-style frame that would accommodate big wide tires, I think we'd have a win. For what its worth, my wife is not a drama queen, nor is she a clothing horse or a person who spends much. She doesnt complain much about anything, and thats why I take her so seriously when she b*tches... er... complains about her bike. Like I said, she has some childhood fears of bikes. She dumped her sister's old schwinn in some loose gravel and bashed out a few front teeth, and spent most of her teen years and later, a couple adult years in braces and prosthetics, and in the last 10 years, some new implants - which look great btw. Any loose sand makes her nervous, understandably, so I try to be as accommodating and resourceful as I can be. I've been working on bikes professionally and as a hobby since 1972, and this one has got me flustered.
Sorry for being so verbose, so I appreciate it if you have read this far and not fallen asleep yet!
ETA: I made an error in measuring the reach of her frame, so bear with me if you've read this post before I edited-out the paragraph where I was talking about the frame measurements.