just wondering if there are any ladies on the forum that go touring.
looking to buy my wife a new touring bike, her bikes have so far been slick tyred mountainbikes and a couple of hybrid’s.
always a bit of a compramise i suppose, so i am going to buy her a new bike.
it needs to be suitable for a bit of steady offroad touring, needs to take guards and a rear rack.
and she is 5ft2”.
so what would be a good bike to buy

any ladies handy with some advice.

My experience of touring was a baptisim of fire with a month long trip in Spain and Portugal, including camping for the 1st time since i was about 10! Loved it though. 🙂 We toured on road so i can’t offer much advice on the bike, but i am the same height as your wife and i struggle to find bikes that fit me and meet the tick list of requirements.

Worth looking at women-specific frames. My wife is quite tall, but finds the reach of standard frames uncomfortable because of the different upper body/leg ratio for women.
Would a hybrid not be OK if your wife has used them before? Shouldn’t be a significant performance penalty unless you are planning on doing heavy duty, big mileage touring.

What is your budget? I recently bought a Ridgeback Voyage 2012, which I find perfectly comfortable. Not done anything long distance on it yet, but what I do like is the two sets of brake levers so that you can have a more upright position if you prefer. Think I paid about £850 for it, and it came with rear rack and mudguards.

If you have more of a budget, and want something thats a bit more suitable for off-road, then how about the Surly Troll?

Or, a ladies specific cyclocross bike?

Hols.

looked at all the obvious makes, but nobody makes a tourer in a 16”.

Hols, how tall are you?

Does she really need drop bars?

no mate. she is comfy with risers on her current bike.

Surly Troll is a good call for offroad touring and that definitely does come in 16″ flavour (even 14″).*

http://www.tritoncycles.co.uk/m1b103s2p9181/SURLY_Troll_Complete_Bike/RS_GB/24854

Or what about the 26″ wheeled version of the Long Haul Trucker?

*Not a lady but have been looking for something similar for my wife.

looked at all the obvious makes, but nobody makes a tourer in a 16”.

this was my problem too, even for road stuff but with touring add-ons (ie discs, mudguards, rack etc) I opted for a kinesis tripster for touring (the TT is too big for me with drops on it but it works for me with risers and mtb wheels). Might be worth a look into as its good on and off road?

Then have a look at the Ladies “Trekking” bikes offered by the Euros – e.g. Cube.

My wife is quite tall, but finds the reach of standard frames uncomfortable because of the different upper body/leg ratio for women.

Bollocks. This is individually based and has nothing to do with gender.

Bollocks definitely have something to do with gender.

What about something like this Tony?

Thorn Sherpa @ SJS Cycles

i will let her have a look at all the recommendations.
cheers all.

My OH is 5’3″, bought her a Surly Pacer from Spa in Harrogate in the summer that she’s chuffed to bits with. Mounts for rack and guards, she has 28s and guards on, there’s a bit of space so you might get 32s in there.
Got it as a frameset as I had the bits to build it up but it’s a 42cm frame.
Doing her 1st tour this year on it.

Check out the Spa Cycles site – sure I saw an ad in CTC/audax mag that mentioned a new smaller size tourer/audax bike in their range

Ayup Ton – have a look at a Kona Sutra – they go down to a C49 size frame (which is near enough same as 16″), sloping top tube gives plenty of standover height,comes with full guards and full set of racks,bottle mounts etc.
Love mine – and I ride like a woman 😉

Here we go:

Spa Ti Tourer

Smallest size comes with 26″ wheels

the spa tourer is a bit pricey, thanks tho mate.

Stan……ideal that mate, might be better with flats/risers tho.

Ton, make sure she has Egrons and/or bar ends on there as well. Multiple hand positions are pretty much essential for touring, I’d say.