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Womens bike for riding in a city :)

Old 04-26-22, 02:55 PM
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monkeylife
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Womens bike for riding in a city :)

Hi,
I'm looking for a bike for riding in the city. I'm female and 5"9 and my budget is really around £200.
I am clueless... thank you so much!
Violet
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Old 04-26-22, 03:06 PM
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In your position, I think I would start by finding some local bike shops that maybe sell used bikes and let them know your budget and how you plan to use the bike. See if you can test ride different types of bikes. Keep in mind that you will probably want to get some accessories, such as a helmet, bell, and lights. Things that can make it safer to ride, especially on city streets.
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Old 04-26-22, 06:35 PM
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Hello monkeylife:

Riding in the city can mean different things to different people.
What I mean by that is some folks like road bikes which riders are in a racing type crouch position.
By their usual nature, these bikes are typically lightweight and can move about at relatively fast average speeds (average pace..)
Now many people enjoy riding like that, but not everyone does.
You simply need to determine how that you would most prefer to ride your bicycle.
THERE IS NO WRONG or RIGHT WAY, it is simply your choice.
There are advantages to riding Upright/Tourist style, namely greater stability and control as such bikes typically have longer wheelbase and are heavier, along with typically wider handlebars, and geometry(frame angles) that provide more predictabilty and stability from the rider's steering input.
You must look at it that faster-lighter racing style "road bikes" are designed to be nimble and quick, and their geometry and typically shorter wheelbase makes them more manueverable but will require much more attention and respect from the rider's steering input. To put it bluntly, if you are going along really fast and depending on road surface conditions, if turning/manuevering at fast rate of speed, the rider can more easily overcook it and lose it and end up in trouble (crash) IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Loose sand and or small sandlike debris is all that is needed to escalate it into such a situation.

Like others have said, you are going to have become acquainted and up close & personal, testing out various style bicycles so that you can actually determine for yourself what you'd like to ride. There is no substitute for this actual real world real time testing with you as the bicycle jockey riding them and evaluating them.
You cannot rely on what some magazine article says or what some website says, or what some proprietor of a bicycle shop says!
You certainly can if you wish to, just buy something without first ever riding it, or even buying something sight unseen from a shop, the web , or wherever BUT you might not like the fact that you will have to adapt to that bike. (no choice but to adapt to that bike whether you like it or not...)
It is better to find out what you actually prefer before you get something that possibly does not agree with you.
Take a look at and ride the bicycles of family members and friends to get an idea of certain likes and dislikes.
It appears that you are in the U.K. since you are seeking to keep your spending below 200 pounds.
You should not have any difficulty finding something used, reliable and dependable in a size that fits you perfectly as a tall lady of 5' 9".
You probably have the best of all overall choice options because you are in fact 5' 9".
Just guessing here but my opinion is that something in the neighborhood of a 53cm vintage steel frame (21 inch frame, as 21 inches = 53.34 cm) likely would seem to fit you well. You'll find this frame size very often on old mixte frame bikes of the Seventies and early Eighties. You'll also find this frame size on run of the mill, Korean, Chinese, and older Taiwanese and Japanese diamond (mens) frames. You will also find plenty of Women's frame step through English bikes (Raleighs...etc) from the Seventies and even earlier in this approx. 21 inch frame size.
Panasonic and FUJI made a bunch of outstanding basic step through models in the late seventies through about 1984/ 1985, that are bulletproof and durable, with wide range gearing that is suitable to tackling any hill. Panasonic left the bike building business after the death of Panasonic's founder in about 1989. Like their electronics reputation, even their lowest cost, most basic bicycle was solid and well built for what it was.
How you wish to ride, & what gear range (wide range of gearing) that you will need is going to be hugely important!
It is not the overall number of gears that one has, it is the practical usefulness of those gears.
What is Vintage Schwinn saying? 3 speed, 5 speed, 7 speed, 10 speed, 12 speed, 21 speed Does Not Matter So Much AS LONG AS THE GEARS THAT YOU HAVE GOT ARE wide ranging ENOUGH SO YOU CAN GET UP A HILL WHEN NECESSARY.
Now bear in mind that certain specific bicycles have small corn cob type cassettes or freewheels such that you have all close ratio gears that are geared for GO GO GO once you get it rollin', but at the expense of having anything that would be decent for hill climbing. Such a bike might be great for a world class tour de france racing athlete but not for a normal human unless you have no hills at all.
I cannot emphasize enough that you need to learn and understand what the practical overall GEAR range is. LOW GEAR (ability to get up hills comfortably) is more important than High Gear (top speed capability) unless you plan to race your bicycle, or ride with the A-group yo-yos who treat their group rides as a free for all sprint like they were trying to win the tour de france or make the olympic team.

How do you wish to ride? This will help determine how you'll proceed with your search. Try and see what you like.
Do you wish to ride comfortably in ordinary everyday attire (normal fashionable clothing) in total comfort --OR-- do you wish to ride in serious CYCLIST attire (cycling specific shorts, cycling jersey, cycling shoes, etc.) The serious CYCLIST specific clothing attire is very practical for riding a fast, lightweight road bike but some of it has no practical use on a slow spoke upright tourist/city style cruiser bike. Do always wear a helmet on every ride, no matter what bicycle that you may ride. You matter and are unreplaceable, and a helmet can only do you good, as if you don't wear it, you have zero head protection. The roadway is hard. Your skull is hard too but no match for head bangin' on the asphalt-concrete. Don't be like Humpty Dumpty, there is a good chance that your helmet will save your skull. Hopefully, you'll never need to become a crash test dummy and test the helmet in action but if you wear it, it will be there when you need it. Don't get on a bike without it.
It is ultimately your personal choice to wear a helmet or not but you are unreplaceable..
How and where you ride and what you actually wear (Visibility....so others see you) is extremely important.
Be careful to choose where ( the route) you will ride. Often so many stupid cyclists take the insanely silly view that oh well, I can ride there because it is not prohibited and thus I have the legal right to ride on that roadway or street. This is beyond dumb because one recognizes that you will never have anything close to perfection and the simple physics of an automobile versus a bicycle and rider if anything at all goes wrong will result in at least a severe injury to the cyclist if not permanent disability or death to the cyclist. You might remember the old song that goes something like this: "pedalling fast along route one, I fought the cars, and the cars won."
Accept that if you have a safer alternative road or street that you could take instead, that you should do so. Others might disagree but there are some streets/roads that one should never ride a bicycle along. Paved roadways are made for automobiles, and are designed to move thousands of motor vehicles at an average swift pace.With that you have thousands of different folks, all trying to reach their destination, some are running late, some are distracted, some are daydreaming, some are tired and sleepy, some are intoxicated... Nearly all of them are exceeding the posted speed limit. Glare, fog, and other weather conditions such as a wet roadway from an earlier cloudburst make things potentially worse.

The English produced a great many, great, enjoyable to ride, and extremely practical bicycles from about 1947 through about 1977.
There is no shortage of bicycles in your vicinity.
If you wish to ride something old, I'm certain you can find something nice enough that fits you like a glove.
Such bicycles aren't too complicated, yet they are designed very well such that they are comfortable and stable and advanced enough to have excellent practical gearing to handle most situations if you don't mind riding with the slow spokes.
All the replacement parts that you'd ever need are available. In the particular case of the old derailleur equipped 5 speeds and 10 speeds of British, French, Italian, Austrian, Belgium origin, can be massively improved with the substitution of a Japanese rear derailleur in place of the original French or Italian rear derailleur. Now, remember the old saying, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT" that certainly applies for Huret rear derailleurs which were decent but you should expect Campy & Simplex rear derailleurs to break as they were not nearly as decent, so maeda SUNTOUR & SHIMANO would be what you'd want instead of those and just stick the old Campy and Simplex units into a plastic sandwhich baggie for storage as some future owner might want a museum display bike, but you want a reliable bike that can be ridden without worries.

Have fun.
You can always own more than one bicycle, if you so desire.
First things, first, get the bike that you need now.
Trust your own instincts. If you don't like something about a prospective bicycle, keep looking, or if the price is more than you wish to spend, keep searching.
Ride ride ride as many different bikes as you can borrow.
Ask questions of everyone about how/what/why and why not, as in why doesn't it have this..?
There are no silly questions. Sure, some folks sometimes for whatever reason are impatient and even sometimes beyond rude for whatever reason.
Sometimes you may encounter that on various web forums where certain fools for whatever reason dislike the discussion of elementary basic topics as if that should be prerequisite knowledge before entering such a forum. That is just idiotic and totally unwelcoming in my opinion.
Most of the time, folks will do their best in assisting you in obtaining whatever answers to the questions that you may find that you have about specifics/particulars/differences/the why and how and what to look for question answers.
Have fun with your search. Stick around. BF is a good community.
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Old 04-26-22, 06:39 PM
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Totally new and a limited budget, you need a used bike shop as @Ogsarg suggests.

even better would be to go with a friend, esp one who has better bicycle info than yourself.
a bigger budget will offer progressively better bikes.
up to a point.
don't buy the 1st one you ride.
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Old 04-26-22, 07:19 PM
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Check CRC, Wiggle, Bike24, Bikediscount.de etc. for bikes like this:

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/.../rp-prod199751
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Old 04-26-22, 09:47 PM
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Originally Posted by PDKL45
Check CRC, Wiggle, Bike24, Bikediscount.de etc. for bikes like this:

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/.../rp-prod199751
Nice bike, but it really grinds my gears when they call step-thrus "women's" bikes. Plenty of men would benefit from a step-thru; last month I saw an older man on his Liv, and he loved it. /rant
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Old 04-27-22, 12:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Korina
Nice bike, but it really grinds my gears when they call step-thrus "women's" bikes. Plenty of men would benefit from a step-thru; last month I saw an older man on his Liv, and he loved it. /rant
Yeah, they're UK-based, though. Step-throughs were traditionally women's bikes there due to the length of skirts around the turn of the 19th century I believe. That's not the case universally, however, as evidenced by Rivendell and Jones. Even Marin is doing a cool step through (for the US market I guess) as reviewed by Russ from PLP. Don't let stuff like that get to you! The rest of us are doing just fine with things like comfortable unisex saddles (I refuse to ride anything else) and step-through designs.
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Old 04-27-22, 01:54 AM
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sup violet, unless you are wearing skirts and dresses a bunch you won't really benefit from a "womens" bike as opposed to a mens. I think you should go to your local bike store and ask them, you probably want a low end hybrid bike with slick tires and flat bars. Buying from a bike shop is more expensive than buying used, but they can help you for free with the inevitable repairs you will have to do.

Last edited by LarrySellerz; 04-27-22 at 02:05 AM.
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Old 04-27-22, 05:17 AM
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Originally Posted by LarrySellerz
sup violet, unless you are wearing skirts and dresses a bunch you won't really benefit from a "womens" bike as opposed to a mens. I think you should go to your local bike store and ask them, you probably want a low end hybrid bike with slick tires and flat bars. Buying from a bike shop is more expensive than buying used, but they can help you for free with the inevitable repairs you will have to do.
One thing I would say though, even while agreeing about the top tube or lack thereof, is that woman's specific bikes often feature wider saddles with cut-outs appropriate for female anatomy and geometry/frame sizing that may be a little more friendly to female bodies. I am male, however, and I really can't comment with the authority of lived experience. From riding buddies, though, and an ex-girlfriend who had a memorable name for a disliked saddle on her bike, I can state with a lot of confidence that female specific saddles with female specific cutouts greatly help with comfort for female riders.
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Old 04-27-22, 11:21 AM
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Originally Posted by PDKL45
Yeah, they're UK-based, though. Step-throughs were traditionally women's bikes there due to the length of skirts around the turn of the 19th century I believe. That's not the case universally, however, as evidenced by Rivendell and Jones. Even Marin is doing a cool step through (for the US market I guess) as reviewed by Russ from PLP. Don't let stuff like that get to you! The rest of us are doing just fine with things like comfortable unisex saddles (I refuse to ride anything else) and step-through designs.
It's okay, I'm not going to get hysterical or anything; gender-based marketing for things that aren't really gendered is just annoying. The Marin and Riv bikes are pretty cool, and don't forget Soma's mixtes. Saddles are a pain, until you find the right one.

Originally Posted by PDKL45
One thing I would say though, even while agreeing about the top tube or lack thereof, is that woman's specific bikes often feature wider saddles with cut-outs appropriate for female anatomy and geometry/frame sizing that may be a little more friendly to female bodies. I am male, however, and I really can't comment with the authority of lived experience. From riding buddies, though, and an ex-girlfriend who had a memorable name for a disliked saddle on her bike, I can state with a lot of confidence that female specific saddles with female specific cutouts greatly help with comfort for female riders.
Whoops, and here I am on a Brooks B17 with no cutout. The trick for me was to lower the nose, and it was comfortable right out of the box. Anyway, the wider saddles are for the upright riding position found on most step-thrus, as well as for perceived "comfort". Having ridden one of those couch seats, I can say they are not comfortable for anything over five miles.
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Old 04-27-22, 03:39 PM
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Easy solution. Go look at used bike ads. Choose an IGH 3 speed DUTCH bike. There are thousands of these in UK.
Find somebody to do a good lube job on it. They already have comfortable upright swept bars, fenders, chain guard and likely a good saddle.
For info go look at YouTube videos of these bikes, lots of those also. Several of these guys are bike flippers too.
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Old 04-27-22, 10:54 PM
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The most important thing to a bike is fit, If the bike doesn't fit it doesn't matter what gender or lack thereof it is you aren't going to be able to ride it or ride it comfortably. Having a lower entry frame shouldn't define women nor should it be off limits to men or people of other genders of lack thereof. If you want to ride a lower entry frame go for it and if not don't.

In terms of budget if you are looking that low and you are clueless you are in a bit of bind going at it alone. You could easily get a bike that is overpriced, under maintained, stolen or just wrong for you on the used market. Yes your budget is certainly not going to land you with a quality new bike and you may get lucky with a decent enough used bike but I would consider upping the budget or talking with someone who knows bikes and can guide you in person. You may have shops that sell used bikes or you may be able to meet people selling at a shop so the shop can look it over but you may also consider upping the budget a good healthy bit and buying a new bike, which will get you warranties and support and potentially some free tune ups or accessory installs and allow you to test ride a wider range of bikes.

Without knowing your plans or city it can be tough to really have a good recommendation as we don't really know what you need.
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Old 04-28-22, 12:43 PM
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Anyone else notice OP hasn't come back?
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Old 05-03-22, 06:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Korina
Anyone else notice OP hasn't come back?
Hit and runs aren't all that uncommon around here, but this one seems fairly anodyne. It's the ones that lead to a massive argument that are really questionable.
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