Mrs mW is looking for a new mountain bike, she’s a (important) smidge over 5′ tall and is probably looking for a hardtail around a 13″ or 14″ frame, budget around £1,000.

Does anyone know of any shops in Southern England that actually has anything suitable in stock, ideally more than one make/model as a being able to make some comparisons without traipsing around the country would be handy.

I doubt she’s looking for a full on test ride but being able to ride it up and down the street/round the car park would at least give her some idea of how it feels in comparison to her current bike and make her a little more comfortable parting with the cash.

Give Jackie at Beyond Mountain Bikes a ring on 01483 267676, can’t tell you what they’ll have, particularly at this time of year, but they often carry a decent range of the Trek WSDs and the Spesh women’s bikes.

When my smidge under 5′ (but not technically a dwarf 🙂 ) girlfriend wanted a bike Evans had a reasonable selection in their Crawley warehouse store (NOT the store in Crawley town). The warehouse was out of town towards Gatwick.

Give them a call to check what they have. When we were looking was a couple of years ago but they had on display Scott, Specialized and at least one other make down to around 12″ or 13″.

Here’s a link to the store details

Evans Gatwick Warehouse

Evans may not be everyone’s favourite store but it is so hard finding bikes to try in such small sizes. Anywhere is worth a go if they have stock. FWIW I found them fine to deal with.

Biketart.com has an entire section devoted to the girlies. and believe they have an orange ladies test bike(and trails across the road).

their just outside of Canterbury, give them a call always super friendly and helpful

Bigfoot bikes in Hayes are always good as are Bromley bikes and Freeborn in Horsham

Paul

Thanks so far.

I’ve bought stuff from beyond before so will give them a call to see what they have in stock although the website only shows a few sub £500 hardtails and a myka fsr at around £1000, but still worth a call I guess as you never know how current the website is kept.

Big Evans warehouse might well be a good shout Rubber_Buccaneer. Will look into it. Thanks.

but still worth a call I guess as you never know how current the website is kept.

Not convinced it’s changed at all since I worked there 😉

I’d definitely give them a ring!

you possibly want a Spec Myka (13, 15, curved top tube gf = 4ft10 on 13)

if you’re near Faringdon can prob offer you a go

gusamc: Thanks for the very kind offer, we’re going to take a look around over the weekend and see what’s available, hopefully it won’t come to trying to ‘borrow a go’ on other folks bikes but if it does I’ll be in touch.

Another vote for Evans warehouse, if you call them up in advance and explain what your looking for they can arrange to have a number of bikes in the right sizes built up and waiting for you, just don’t expect to just walk in off the street and have half a dozen bikes ready to go, the shop floor is no bigger than a regular bike shop and is stocked in the same manner i.e. the most common sizes.

Pearsons in Sutton. I work there. We have Jet 29er specialized in small. £1000 in an electric blue . Its very nice looking . We keep having to tell the blokes its a chics bike . If you wanna test ride it on the high street no problem. We also have some mykas in but they are a bit below your budget. Plus you can say you’ve visited the oldest bike shop in the world. Ask for Deke. I’m off on Friday and Monday.

lol i know how she feels…im to a 5ft dwarf…lol my first real bike was a specialized Myka Elite..they start at 13 inch….yeah had some good fun on that bike.. us 5 feet small people find it hard to get the right bike to fit…. 😉
infact i still have my hardtail and never ride it..still in good condition and i upgraded to forks too…and other bits n pieces… i now ride a 14 inch orange five (short) frame… duno if i grew over nite but anyway it fits me…lol

Just to let you know, the 15 inch jett can be ridden by small people. My colleague is 5 foot nothin and test rode it fine.

The idea of a tiny 29er seems counter intuitive to me, not saying you or your colleague are wrong but in my head it just don’t seem right!

Hi. Thought I’d bring this post back up in the hope you may have an update muppetWrangler? Did you find a helpful shop?

I’m a 5’2″ woman looking for a hardtail mtb. Budget is lower – thinking of £500 – £750. Mountain bike wheels seem to have grown since I last bought a bike – but I haven’t – so should I ignore this trend? I seem to have trouble with the reach on small unisex bikes (short arms!) so am looking at female-specific models.

Would be most grateful for any pointers, reviews or reference to old threads if this has already been done to death!

Capers, give Head for the Hills in Dorking a try, too. Mrs Udder has a smashing Trek from there, and she’s 5’4″. From memory the frame was 14″, and I know they go smaller. She was able to test ride the owner’s wife’s personal bike, and liked it so much she bought one pretty much exactly the same. From memory, it cost £650, and was in the middle of the range of bikes they had available. HTH!

Thanks – shall look them up. Really useful to hear of a happy Trek customer. (I have a Trek FX as my ‘pottering about with a picnic on the rack’ bike – and am very happy with it – until I see an interesting short-cut through the woods… )

The Trek Mynx looks like it could have everything I want – at least on paper.

capers, this forum gets a lot of Spec Myka recommendations for shorts, (mrs gus 4ft 10, Myka 13)

Thanks. Did Mrs Gus go with the 29″ wheels? (I’m trying to replace a Specialized Rockhopper from the days when they made a women’s version).

no, she’s had it for years, so 26″, the frame size (about the only bike she could have) + curved downtube were the clinchers (and we found one in a sale – yahoooooo).

capers, we had a quick look around and the current favourite was a cube wls which went down to a 13″ frame but we never got around to finding one to try out before something far less fun reared up to swallow any disposable income we had spare. It sounds as though the new bike is on the back burner until the spring now unless a bargain shows up in the meantime.

double post

Oh, sorry to hear that. Real life has a habit of getting in the way, doesn’t it! Thanks for replying.