Full Suspension for Short Riders: What’s Out There?

If you’re a smaller adult looking for a full suspension bike, it can be tricky to find what you’re looking for outside of the women’s specific market. …

By stwhannah

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Full Suspension for Short Riders: What’s Out There?

The headline made this sound like it was going to be useful but it’s just a list of bikes that come in a size called XS. No use at all in my experience of looking for a bike for someone 4’11” as most of those bikes listed will be too big. The only way to know is to be short and try getting on the bikes

I really hope you do an E-bike version of. . . oh, handy!

The headline made this sound like it was going to be useful but it’s just a list of bikes that come in a size called XS. No use at all in my experience of looking for a bike for someone 4’11” as most of those bikes listed will be too big. The only way to know is to be short and try getting on the bikes

I agree.
Some Specialized XS are as big as Trek Medium in our experience!

Sorry, that’s not a helpful article.

Now, if you need a volunteer 5′ tall rider to test them, mrs_oab can help.

Just thought I’d click through the adverts for the Levo – 0 from 3 actually stocking the S1. 0 from 6 so far when I’ve checked a few others. Suppose the theory is nice at least

Sadly agree not helpful. Any bike with an interrupted seat tube which blocks the dropper post severely restricts shorter riders.

Blocks of wood on pedals instead, like my dad did for me when I was 8 and I’d inherited my older brother’s bike ?

What’s the standover on these bikes?
What are the seat tube lengths?
What length is the dropper?
What length are the cranks?
Which ones come with a lighter shock tune?
What changes does the XS geometry bring; are the chainstays shorter?

I’m afraid this looks like a poor excuse to dump a bunch of affiliate links, yet the links are to brand sites.

As a 5ft 0 (153cm) bloke who’s had to get properly geeky about bike geometry and sizing over the years, even more so since dropper posts, that article was pretty much useless.

As an aside, I can’t emphasise how much the trend for short seat tubes has been a game changer for me.. at barely 5ft I’ve even been able to ‘size up’ to a size ‘Small’ on my current bike – the brand did do an XS as well but I wanted the extra reach / wheelbase and still fit a dropper (admittedly not as long a dropper as I would like but that’s the compromise I chose).

My OH rides a previous generation SC Tallboy CC in XS and at 5 foot 2, the geometry is just about right.
Can only get a 120mm dropper in though.

Unfortunately, she has only ridden the damn thing 3 times, which is a separate problem – doh.

Sorry, also in the ‘not helpful’ camp I’m afraid.

My partner is 5ft 4. She has the same leg length, and thus the same overall BB to saddle requirement as I do at 5ft 10 – I am a mens ‘large’ by the charts on most manufacturers but have stumpy legs that mean I have to choose my frames very carefully to get the right reach/seat-tube ratio, and select my dropper post lengths and crank lengths very carefully.

‘This frame comes in extra small’ is not really helpful at all, as its bascially meaningless.

(For reference, some manufacturers are great at the reach/seat tube ratio thing now as @Littleman pointed out – Santa Cruz, Orange, Ibis… some are terrible, Orbea, older Scotts, Trek etc etc…)

This needs a much more detailed study of geometry, and peoples body shapes to be useful.

Oh an dont forget, looking at Seat Tube Design, as well as whether the tru seat tube angle matches the theoretical seat tube angle.

As when theydo not, that does very odd things to the feel of the bike dependent on whether you sit higher, or lower, than the designer intended the theoretical ‘medium sized man or woman’ to sit on the medium size frame

Have you clicked through to view the full data on each bike? It includes minimum and maximum rider heights for each bike in all sizes.

@snotrag. Same here my wife is 6 inches shorter than I am but we have the same leg length. She also likes a high front end so it’s hard to find bikes that fit

My 11 year old lad is 4’7″, currently on a Ripcord which he will be grown out of next year I fear. I have already started to research, and save up for, his next bike as I think he will be needing a XS or S in 27.5″ flavour next time around. He does rip and would be a willing test pilot for any feature you would like to do to support this.

it is true, XS bikes are far from extra small.

my wife recently got a chromag minor threat to replace her million year old XXS tutus racer-x. it have 26” wheels, and up to date geometry. it could do with some lighter wheels, but it fits her.

Have you clicked through to view the full data on each bike? It includes minimum and maximum rider heights for each bike in all sizes

I haven’t because I’m already aware that reading those specs does not give much if any insight into how that bike will actually size up for a short person. I know this because I have been there with my 4’11” other half. When you are at that end of the size range small differences can be make or break as to whether a bike is usable or not. Standover at the point your crotch is over the top tube for example is critical and there isn’t much jiggle room once you’ve factored in how much of the top tube is shadowed by the saddle for instance. Try working that out from the specs when the top tube meets the seat tube at an unspecified point and may be curved at another unspecified point. Trust me it’s a pain in the arse (or the front bit) to find small bikes.

MARK

Have you clicked through to view the full data on each bike? It includes minimum and maximum rider heights for each bike in all sizes.

The point many are making rider height is largely irrelevant at either end of the scale.

Been through all this and totally agree with others its critical to have a matching bike and body geometry/proportions.

The Specialized Evo XS standover height is nearly 30 inchs!
All the bikes are weigh 0kg
Interesting piece of marketing.