So my good lady has finally realised mountain biking is the sport of the gods and would like a steed.

Now, not being to familiar with bikes of the opposite sex I wonder if anyone could give me some real world experience of entry level bikes.

Looking around the £300 – £350 price band and so far the few that are interesting me are:

Specialized Myka
Felt Grace
Scott Contessa
GT Avalanche

Is there anything else out there I should be having a look at?

All recommendations welcome as long as it doesn’t have a dropped top tube 🙂

Go!

A good start is finding out wheither a “Woman Specific model” suits her, or if a small ‘mans’ bike would do the same job and be better value…

I tried my better half on a small (man’s ok Boys) HT, and messed around with stems & seat position, but she just couldn’t get on with it. So we tried the neigbours Myka, and one was purchased not long after. Now she’s much happier with the shorter TT, and more upright position.
Men’s bike ‘tend’ to be better value, components wise, so if a ‘mans’ bike fits her, go for that!

EDIT: A quality saddle, that she likes, is also a really good starting point. If she’s uncomfortable, she ain’t gunna ride it, no matter how good or expensive it is
(recommendation for specialized ‘arse measureing’ service here, and cheapish ‘right sized’ seat)

I bought The Wife a Carrera Vulcan from Halfrauds, currently £265

She likes it…she spent a good couple of weeks buying colour coordinated accessories for it.

It’s good enough for her…she doesn’t want to do anything challenging on it.

But be warned…unless your wife is the sporty type, you’ll be committing yourself to leisurely 10 mile rides lugging picnics about.

first of all work out if she is significantly taller/shorter than oneself.
Provided shes not that much taller/shorter have a look for a bike that YOU like and can take mudguards/rack etc. – that way it can double up as/ eventually end up as your commuting bike/winter bike.

Not that you’d ever catch me doing this – doesn’t everyone’s wife really want a cyclo cross bike ??? 😉

Have a look in the usual places for second hand, maybe even post a wanted ad as there are lot of bikes out there gathering dust. I built the mrs her bike from various bits from here and spares box and she like it. Using second bits means she’s ended with a pretty decent spec (bombers, lx disk brakes and gears, old spesh full suss frame). Its her third time in Morzine next month.

We brought a Myka Elite a couple of years ago for £300 it came with a nice spec for a beginner (which my better half is). But you are probably better trying to get something second hand because they have no real resale value unfortunately/fortunately.

If she is tall then I would suggest going for a mans version and maybe swapping the spring in the fork to a lighter version. With the myka they put the soft spring in, which is a bit too light no matter how much preload you put on it(she’s only a tiny thing I’ll add at this point).

One of the girls in the office has a Myka that she commutes on and that seems to cope quite well considering it gets pretty much zero maintenance despite being used in all weathers. She’s also down a fair bit of mountain biking and it seems competent enough for a bike with V-brakes.

For my own wife I ended up building a bike around a 14″ Inbred frame plus some bits from the parts bit, and it’s been good.

Beware I bought my wife a Specialized Myka to start off with and she loved it. 2 month later went to a demo day and decided she wanted to demo things aswell ended up costing me over £2k for a lapierre zesty female version because she decided she hated her bike after riding that. So keep her away from the good stuff

It’s nice to go out and find out what’s available but remember it’s her bike, not yours. I can’t imagine anything worse than some guy (no matter how knowledgeable he was) telling me what I wanted.

If you get too involved, she won’t feel ownership of the bike and will get bored of it more quickly.

Rachel

Kona Lisa, Giant range as they seem to do a few W models
gf has a Myka,

For that kind of money I would be tempted to go down the second hand route (as mentioned above).
Women don’t usually ‘rag’ their bikes to death. Or as is often the case, some women take up the sport and maybe have families so their bikes are up for sale without having has much use.

Kona are a good brand for a start. However It’s best to try a few out.

Thanks guys for the useful tips. There seems to be a lot of good vibes about the Mykas.

Think I’ll have a good scan of Fleabay et al too.