Originally Posted by
ThermionicScott
P.S. Now that you bring up BB height, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason for the industry standardizing on 170mm cranks is to fix that aspect of frame manufacture, rather than needing to offer a zillion more frames with varying BB heights. If a bike company were sympathetic to the need for a wider range of crank lengths, perhaps they could scale the BB height with the frame size. Maybe some makers do already...
My GF complains often that she can't put a toe down to balance herself on any of her bikes. She has to get off the seat at a stop. This is because even though she's on the shortest Trek frame made, its bottom bracket is the same height as mine. The industry really doesn't support shorter people wanting to ride bikes. Some of this has to do with wheel sizes and how geometry changes affect handling; but to me it just sounds like they don't want to do the harder work of figuring it out.