# Yeti Beti



## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

I want to be psyched. After all, I have an 80's pro FRO and they sponsored Juli Furtado. So, they've had the time to watch the marketing reports that show more women are buying bikes and seeing other companies making the effort to capture it.

However, same mold. Just different specs and ba boom....PAINT. Same long top tube that's been on their bikes since the 80's. Smaller chainring. Thinner grips. Shorter cranks arms. Lighter wheelset. Narrower bars. And a women's saddle.

Do I think they could have done better? Yeah. Is it a nice bike? Yeah. At this rate, I'm never going to get a woman specific bike. I could do those swaps easily myself. At least it doesn't cost more than the mens version like shoes. 

First Look: Yeti Beti SB5C and ASRC

Thoughts?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm starting to look for a 27.5" am bike although not exclusively women's specific. Certainly check this one out however $6,899 for the SB5c BETI is a stupid price


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## miatagal96 (Jul 5, 2005)

The SB5c is my dream bike. I love my current bike and don't have the extra cash laying around to upgrade, so I don't plan on getting one soon.

As for the Beti version - I'm 5'8" and I feel I fit fine on unisex bikes. I'm used to 175cm cranks, but am fine with 170 (I have them on my road bike) - they might be better from a pedal-strike perspective. I like larger grips for cushion. Bars might be fine - my bar size is more dictated by the distance between trees than by anything else. I like the idea of a 30t chain ring and lighter wheels. I'm happy not to pay the weight penalty for a bike that is designed to take an abusive 200lb guy. On the down side, they will be harder to sell when the time comes to upgrade. As for women's saddles - I've tried a ton of saddles and my favorites are unisex.


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## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> I'm starting to look for a 27.5" am bike although not exclusively women's specific. Certainly check this one out however $6,899 for the SB5c BETI is a stupid price


yeah. gotta wait for somebody to blow them out or get it used.


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## Rae6503 (Jun 30, 2009)

If I got to choose between my bike, and my bike in a better color with a women's seat, I'd pick the better color. I don't see anything wrong with more options as long as they aren't charging extra.


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## mtbxplorer (Dec 25, 2009)

Color-wise, I prefer Yeti's traditional aqua. I'd love to try one, not sure if it would be too long or not, the reach does not seem bad. The 29.8 standover on an XS will likely discourage some smaller riders. The lighter wheelset is brilliant (though obviously not the right pick for all women), and the savings would be significant in a complete bike compared to swapping them out.


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## Lucy Juice (Dec 29, 2010)

This is in the same mold as Juliana to me. It's just another option that's out there for women, but it's not dumbing anything down. I really like this approach to WSD, actually (similar to Pivot's: https://www.pivotcycles.com/womenandpivot/). Manufacturers make bikes that fit a wide range of body sizes and types, and riders ride what fits.

I think the WSD marketing hype can be detrimental to women's entry to mountain biking sometimes. Example: I was at a Trek demo a few weeks ago. I'd just gotten back to the truck on a Superfly FS. Two beginner women walked up to me and asked which bike I was riding. They wanted to know because they were disappointed to find that the only women's mountain bike available to ride was the Lush. I had to explain to them that it's really more about your individual proportions and the bike's geometry than whether it's a WSD bike, and they should throw a leg over the Fuel EX and Stache and see what they thought (and the Trek truck blessedly did bring small sizes to the demo, which doesn't always happen!).

The Yeti Beti--I could take it or leave it; I agree that all those upgrades are things I would do myself--but I DO think that the Yeti Beti and the Julianas are overall good things for the sport. They obviously see that women riders have needs that aren't being met in the bike industry, and they're taking steps to address it. Something I would like to see more of is using lighter tubing for small sizes. At 5'3", 120 lbs, I will just simply not be putting the same forces into a bike frame that a 6', 200 lb man will, and with lighter weight tubing, it improves the overall power to weight ratio for small riders. Then again, short people aren't always light, so yeah.

I ride a Lush, but after 2.5 seasons on it, I've grown out of it and I'm moving towards non-WSD bikes because they offer more of what I want and need.


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## Lucy Juice (Dec 29, 2010)

Stripes said:


> Yeti didn't change any of the geo from the unisex bikes to their women's bikes. They just pinked it. Their standover on their XS is still too much for me.
> 
> It's a shame too--Yeti had a chance to make a big difference.


Whoa... in the XS SB5C, it's almost too much for me, and I"m 5'3"... It's really high on both bikes. Huh.


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## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

Stripes said:


> Yeti didn't change any of the geo from the unisex bikes to their women's bikes. They just pinked it. Their standover on their XS is still too much for me.
> 
> It's a shame too--Yeti had a chance to make a big difference.


I agree with ya, personally. I know we're supposed to be all grateful and stuff because now they're caring but it would have been nice for them to take into account that our average torso and leg lengths proportions are often quite a bit different than men. Like it or not, jamming a saddle forward on the rails or using a shorter stem does affect handling and body position and these are things that you really can't change past a certain degree like handlebar widths and crank arm lengths.


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

girlonbike said:


> I agree with ya, personally. I know we're supposed to be all grateful and stuff because now they're caring but it would have been nice for them to take into account that our average torso and leg lengths proportions are often quite a bit different than men.


So, that torso thing is partly true and partly not. What I've seen in 22 years of fitting bikes and working in the road and MTB industry is that there are just as many women with longer torsos as there are women with shorter torsos. There are also a lot of guys with deer legs and tiny torsos. Back in the day, we just didn't have any options for the short torso'd folks out there - everything was for long fit. Now we do have these options, which are just as likely to work for a guy as they are for a woman.

In road bike fit, top tube length plays a huge part in getting the right set up. The right reach and a forward center of gravity is essential for good descending and cornering and this is hard to achieve in a seated position without a very specific stem/top tube combo.

In MTB - this same centered position is typically found standing not sitting - cornering and descending is an active, out of the saddle activity that takes place in the center of the cockpit. Your ability to descend and corner effectively is far more dependent upon whether or not you can get enough weight onto your front wheel and fork than it is on top tube length. You can make a lot of adjustments to you MTB fit via stem length and bar width. There is some overlap with road fit when you start to look at hardtail XC bikes meant to be ridden seated for very long periods of time, but it is less important than on the asphalt.

How does this affect industry choices around bike geo for women? Well...

- WSD has a 50% chance of working for 10% of the total MTB population (the rough estimation of the number of women buying MTBs at bike shops with the intent of actually riding them in dirt), not a 100% chance as is currently assumed by many customers and shops. So basically, 5% of potential total customers for a given company could benefit from a standard frame with gender specific component choices, and 5% of potential customers could benefit from a "WSD" style frame with gender specific component choices.

- The bike industry is not as big as you think it is. Carbon molds are really very expensive and take a lot of time to amortize across the sales of a single size in a single model of bike. If a company will sell the same number of bikes whether or not they make a new mold, it makes far more financial sense to focus on specifications and weight-specific shock tune rather than does creating a new frame. The same number of women will benefit from the thoughtful touch points, component selection and tuning and the company will see a greater profit, which enables them to continue the women's program into the future, and maybe even expand it, IF they see profitability. Big companies sell exponentially more bikes and the cost of those molds is minimal per bike - it makes great sense from a marketing standpoint to promote the "you need WSD" perspective, as they have little to no competition, except from other large companies and these rarely co-exist in the same bike shop. Small companies would have to significantly increase the cost of a bike on the sales floor and would lose competitive advantage in order to do the same thing.


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## formica (Jul 4, 2004)

As always, great info from Chuky. I can't rep you right now.


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## mtbxplorer (Dec 25, 2009)

chuky said:


> ...
> How does this affect industry choices around bike geo for women? Well...
> 
> - WSD has a 50% chance of working for _10% of the total MTB population (the rough estimation of the number of women buying MTBs at bike shops with the intent of actually riding them in dirt_), not a 100% chance as is currently assumed by many customers and shops.


_10%, the saddest number_ :sad:


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## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

chuky said:


> - WSD has a 50% chance of working for 10% of the total MTB population (the rough estimation of the number of women buying MTBs at bike shops with the intent of actually riding them in dirt), not a 100% chance as is currently assumed by many customers and shops. So basically, 5% of potential total customers for a given company could benefit from a standard frame with gender specific component choices, and 5% of potential customers could benefit from a "WSD" style frame with gender specific component choices.
> 
> - The bike industry is not as big as you think it is. Carbon molds are really very expensive and take a lot of time to amortize across the sales of a single size in a single model of bike. If a company will sell the same number of bikes whether or not they make a new mold, it makes far more financial sense to focus on specifications and weight-specific shock tune rather than does creating a new frame. The same number of women will benefit from the thoughtful touch points, component selection and tuning and the company will see a greater profit, which enables them to continue the women's program into the future, and maybe even expand it, IF they see profitability. Big companies sell exponentially more bikes and the cost of those molds is minimal per bike - it makes great sense from a marketing standpoint to promote the "you need WSD" perspective, as they have little to no competition, except from other large companies and these rarely co-exist in the same bike shop. Small companies would have to significantly increase the cost of a bike on the sales floor and would lose competitive advantage in order to do the same thing.


Great explanation and interesting numbers (source?) but I think that: 1) like you say, it's economics for manufacturers. 2) the average woman's torso is shorter than the average man of equal height. 3) the average woman's legs are longer than a man of equal height.

Are Women's Body Proportions Different From Men's? -

Regardless of the realities of (1), let's theoretically discuss an ideal world of what women, as a whole, would benefit from: Given (2) and (3), it would be great if there was a top tube that was shorter to fit the average woman - and then should the specific woman buyer be short or long torsoed, then stem lengths and bar widths/reaches can be factored from there _just like how it is currently designed, marketed and sold with mens' bikes to male buyers_. While shorter stems and bars may compensate for some people, it does not compensate to fit the same number of women that men have options for in their line of bikes specifically designed for men.

Now, I absolutely know the costs and reasoning for the decision to use the same molds. I am just wistfully and simply saying, it would be great if WSDs are designed for women rather than perceived girly paint colors and part choices. After all: WSD is Women's Specific Design and you would think the _design_ of the frameset itself would be part of that equation. Right now, it's just window dressing and a cop out. Women will just have to make it work like they've always have and always will, apparently.

Again, I understand the realities of it from the business perspective. I don't think you can slap on different colored paint and swap a couple of parts and say you've done your best and call it a WSD. Just add the color to your mens lines and say it's for both gender, and offer a different kit for women for any colored bike for the same price and don't mislead the public by saying the whole thing from top to bottom is designed with the women in mind when really, it's about the bottom line.


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## Andrea138 (Mar 25, 2009)

chuky said:


> So, that torso thing is partly true and partly not. What I've seen in 22 years of fitting bikes and working in the road and MTB industry is that there are just as many women with longer torsos as there are women with shorter torsos. There are also a lot of guys with deer legs and tiny torsos. Back in the day, we just didn't have any options for the short torso'd folks out there - everything was for long fit. Now we do have these options, which are just as likely to work for a guy as they are for a woman.
> 
> In road bike fit, top tube length plays a huge part in getting the right set up. The right reach and a forward center of gravity is essential for good descending and cornering and this is hard to achieve in a seated position without a very specific stem/top tube combo.
> 
> ...


This should be copied and stickied for reference any time someone wonders about a WSD bike


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

Source: A couple of decades working in the bike industry, sell through data from various market research firms (very expensive to access) and a little over a decade of data analytics, via digital gathering of age, height and size preference from women and men at demo events, reviewing the same data in world wide warranty registration info, etc. Thousands of data samples from actual women who ride - not anecdotal. Your points 2 and 3 don't hold true when I look at the data. Nor do they take into account non-European-descent populations - we see wildly different size selection and fit issues in Asia and Latin America and the corresponding US population centers.

The bar/stem adjustment thing with a universal ultra short toptube is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it works less and less as the bikes get smaller - forcing odd head tube and seat tube angles on the very smallest bikes - you have to have room under the down tube for the wheel and fork and as wheels get bigger and tires get fatter and fork travel increases, this is even harder. This theory also doesn't account for designing frame shapes for ride performance - back when custom work was a lot more common, it was not unusual to see riders on bikes that fit really comfortably but handled very poorly - performing equally badly on both the up and downhill. And this is the thing - there are geometries that just plain ride better, and they don't always fit the traditional ideas of what provides best fit - you also have to design for performance and fun. There are women out there who wish they could descend and corner and ride technical sections as well as their guy friends, and too often, it is the bike and not their skill set that is holding them back.

Ironically (because she solved it first, in 1991), the Georgena article you link to doesn't address the one almost universal anatomical issue for women - the pubic bone and how it affects pelvis rotation and reach. This is the other secret of those women' specific lineups - too often the thing that people are really experiencing as a fit improvement is the extra two inches of reach provided by being able to rotate your pelvis onto the soft nose of a women's saddle and not the reduced 1-2 cm of a WSD top tube. This improvement keeps all the performance angles of a well designed frame in place, helps you to center your weight, and makes it so it doesn't hurt to pee when you get home from a ride. The diagram below shows what happens to your reach if your saddle is not a good fit for your shape:









Now, about that "window dressing". Imagine if you are new to MTB and you walk into a bike shop with the intent of buying a bike. Let's say that service is poor and you aren't really getting the help you need to choose a bike. Then, across the room, you see a display of bikes in traditionally feminine colors. While they may not be your favorite colors, you are able to identify that somehow, these bikes are meant for women. You might not know anything about brake reach, but when you get on this bike, you are able to safely stop and slow your progress. You don't know anything about shock compression ratios, but this bike gives you a smoother ride than you expected. You have never thought about your pubic bone and how it relates to bike fit, but you do notice that on the test ride, your wrists, elbows and neck don't hurt. You didn't get the help you needed at the bike shop, but you still found a bike that is set up better for you than all the others that you have tried and now have a better chance of sticking with MTB as a long term hobby. I'm not a fan of pink either, but manufacturers have to overcome a lot of obstacles to reach new customers and feminized colors and graphics are a fast track in an environment where you might only have 5 minutes before she leaves the shop in frustration.

Even your suggestion about kitting unisex frames for women is tougher than you think - adding a single option to the warehouse causes massive shifts in inventory planning, market outreach etc. What if you do add a women's saddle option? Well, it's more profitable to add a saddle from in-shop stock than it is to add it as an upgrade from the manufacturer (in-store mid priced saddles typically are "keystoned" or marked up double), plus then the shop has an opportunity to provide the customer with some show of expertise (wow, that guy helped me to be way more comfortable!). So then, the manufacturer who added that option is stuck with $50,000 in last year's saddle product - more than the cost of a standard employee. It is 100% about the bottom line - a business that isn't looking at this will fail and fail fast, which does no one any good at all.

The one thing that none of this stuff is is a cop out. There are meetings every day in the bike industry addressing the women's market. There are women all over the industry advocating for smart, brave choices around women's product, often sticking their necks out in meetings where people don't trust them and they are still actively working to get through the glass ceiling. While some of these plans might be wrong, no one is making them lightly - it is far too expensive.



girlonbike said:


> Great explanation and interesting numbers (source?) but I think that: 1) like you say, it's economics for manufacturers. 2) the average woman's torso is shorter than the average man of equal height. 3) the average woman's legs are longer than a man of equal height.
> 
> Are Women's Body Proportions Different From Men's? -
> 
> ...


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

One other little thing - WSD is a term that was originally coined by and used by a bike manufacturer as a part of an early women-targeted marketing program - it is not a generalized term that applies to all bike design. This company picked a good idea, called it "women's", came up with some supporting design theory and because they were first, got to define what that was for everyone else. Whether or not there is any science behind it is debatable. The fact that it has stuck around and become generic in many people's minds just goes to show how powerful that message was. There are a lot of riders out there who consider WSD to be a set of facts rather than an opinion.


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## formica (Jul 4, 2004)

Chuky, if you have time I'd be very interested in learning more about the pelvis saddle thing. I'm on a new bike this season that I love and feels very different/better for me, and I have assumed it was and may be variation in geometry over what I was on before. ( formerly on a specialized wsd FSR and now on a Liv Intrigue fwiw)


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## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

chuky said:


> There are a lot of riders out there who consider WSD to be a set of facts rather than an opinion.


 This is obviously true about all marketing terms coined by industry insiders.



chuky said:


> Source: A couple of decades working in the bike industry, sell through data from various market research firms (very expensive to access) and a little over a decade of data analytics, via digital gathering of age, height and size preference from women and men at demo events, reviewing the same data in world wide warranty registration info, etc. Thousands of data samples from actual women who ride - not anecdotal. Your points 2 and 3 don't hold true when I look at the data. Nor do they take into account non-European-descent populations - we see wildly different size selection and fit issues in Asia and Latin America and the corresponding US population centers.


Interesting! I'm actually speaking of the entire population of women and men, not just riders. We are, after all, trying to get more women riders into the sport, no? I'm sure a ton of women and men have memories of ill fitting bikes and never got on another bike to make it into your marketing studies. The warranty info cards isn't that helpful because presumably, they got a bike that fit well enough for them to buy it. Also, unless you get consistent measurements like you probably have trained people at the demo events, it's sort of whatever somebody who fills out the card wants to think of him or herself as. For example, if you have a card that says, is your torso, average, short, or tall, then hell yeah, I'll tick off average and I'm sure a bunch of other people would too.  2 and 3 are correct from a human anatomy standpoint. It's sort of a biological given. Maybe not the ones that end up riding because of various other factors but that's a factual reality.

However, it's really interesting to hear that your data indicates that women other than the human average are the ones that are riding bikes. Perhaps it's the athletic ones that are more inclined to ride bikes and our average is different? Certainly an interesting thing to ponder and I'm glad you have that information at your disposal.



chuky said:


> The bar/stem adjustment thing with a universal ultra short toptube is a good idea in theory, but in practice, it works less and less as the bikes get smaller - forcing odd head tube and seat tube angles on the very smallest bikes - you have to have room under the down tube for the wheel and fork and as wheels get bigger and tires get fatter and fork travel increases, this is even harder. This theory also doesn't account for designing frame shapes for ride performance - back when custom work was a lot more common, it was not unusual to see riders on bikes that fit really comfortably but handled very poorly - performing equally badly on both the up and downhill. And this is the thing - there are geometries that just plain ride better, and they don't always fit the traditional ideas of what provides best fit - you also have to design for performance and fun. There are women out there who wish they could descend and corner and ride technical sections as well as their guy friends, and too often, it is the bike and not their skill set that is holding them back.
> 
> Ironically (because she solved it first, in 1991), the Georgena article you link to doesn't address the one almost universal anatomical issue for women - the pubic bone and how it affects pelvis rotation and reach. This is the other secret of those women' specific lineups - too often the thing that people are really experiencing as a fit improvement is the extra two inches of reach provided by being able to rotate your pelvis onto the soft nose of a women's saddle and not the reduced 1-2 cm of a WSD top tube. This improvement keeps all the performance angles of a well designed frame in place, helps you to center your weight, and makes it so it doesn't hurt to pee when you get home from a ride. The diagram below shows what happens to your reach if your saddle is not a good fit for your shape:
> 
> View attachment 999319


Awesome information. Thanks!



chuky said:


> Now, about that "window dressing". Imagine if you are new to MTB and you walk into a bike shop with the intent of buying a bike. Let's say that service is poor and you aren't really getting the help you need to choose a bike. Then, across the room, you see a display of bikes in traditionally feminine colors. While they may not be your favorite colors, you are able to identify that somehow, these bikes are meant for women. You might not know anything about brake reach, but when you get on this bike, you are able to safely stop and slow your progress. You don't know anything about shock compression ratios, but this bike gives you a smoother ride than you expected. You have never thought about your pubic bone and how it relates to bike fit, but you do notice that on the test ride, your wrists, elbows and neck don't hurt. You didn't get the help you needed at the bike shop, but you still found a bike that is set up better for you than all the others that you have tried and now have a better chance of sticking with MTB as a long term hobby. I'm not a fan of pink either, but manufacturers have to overcome a lot of obstacles to reach new customers and feminized colors and graphics are a fast track in an environment where you might only have 5 minutes before she leaves the shop in frustration.
> 
> Even your suggestion about kitting unisex frames for women is tougher than you think - adding a single option to the warehouse causes massive shifts in inventory planning, market outreach etc. What if you do add a women's saddle option? Well, it's more profitable to add a saddle from in-shop stock than it is to add it as an upgrade from the manufacturer (in-store mid priced saddles typically are "keystoned" or marked up double), plus then the shop has an opportunity to provide the customer with some show of expertise (wow, that guy helped me to be way more comfortable!). So then, the manufacturer who added that option is stuck with $50,000 in last year's saddle product - more than the cost of a standard employee. It is 100% about the bottom line - a business that isn't looking at this will fail and fail fast, which does no one any good at all.
> 
> The one thing that none of this stuff is is a cop out. There are meetings every day in the bike industry addressing the women's market. There are women all over the industry advocating for smart, brave choices around women's product, often sticking their necks out in meetings where people don't trust them and they are still actively working to get through the glass ceiling. While some of these plans might be wrong, no one is making them lightly - it is far too expensive.


I've already agreed that it often comes down to economics. I wasn't arguing that it's a viable option. Again, I realize it's a matter of economics and I'm really not arguing with you regarding the economic impracticability of it.

I love the information and time you put into your posts, chucky. It's great to come in here and have a great discussion about something that often gets overlooked. Nobody is so naive as to ignore the economics of putting out more bikes for a really small market segment. However, I am merely stating that it would be lovely to have women's option be more than paint and parts (and I totally agree with you regarding when the bike gets too small, other factors start coming into play).

Anyhow, I love the inside look, Chucky! Thanks for the info. It's outstanding.

Alright! I'm off to a lunch ride. And promise to shut up now about this subject!  Happy fourth everybody!


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

mtbxplorer said:


> _10%, the saddest number_ :sad:


And actually, probably on the high side. My methodology is fairly loose for the sake of ease of conversation.


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

formica said:


> Chuky, if you have time I'd be very interested in learning more about the pelvis saddle thing. I'm on a new bike this season that I love and feels very different/better for me, and I have assumed it was and may be variation in geometry over what I was on before. ( formerly on a specialized wsd FSR and now on a Liv Intrigue fwiw)


It's a pretty simple idea. Ideal riding position when seated is an aligned pelvis, back and neck, loose, relaxed arms and loose, straight wrists with a full, easy grip on the handlebars. A rider in this position can use their abs and skeleton to support their body weight, rather than their wrists and elbows. Have you ever seen a woman riding who is trying to ride with her fingertips on the grips instead of her full hand? Has anyone ever complained to you in your beginner classes of sore wrists, elbows, neck? In almost every case, this is saddle/pubic bone related - the rider can't align their pelvis with their spine when seated due to saddle discomfort.

Look at the two figures below - the left figure shows what happens when there is an impediment to pelvic rotation - their back is hunched, elbows locked. The right figure shows a rider with a pelvis aligned to spine. They are able to relax their arms, shoulders and neck. They can also look down the trail instead of at their tire. You can actually try this yourself while seated on your bike - rotate your pelvis back as if you don't want your pubic bone to touch the saddle and then rotate forward and align your pelvis and spine. It is really easy to see how a comfortable saddle/chamois gives you up to two inches of extra, easy reach to the handlebars.









There are a few things that can cause riders to rotate their pelvis back, into an unaligned position:
- No chamois 
- a hard saddle nose (typically found on non-women's saddles)
- a really really really soft saddle that does not offer pelvic support
- unusually weak abdominals
- UTI or other medical issue

In many cases, when riders get onto a WSD bike for the first time, it is also the first time that they are getting onto a women's saddle. The huge increase in comfort and the aligned body position feels great and they buy the WSD bike.

What new riders don't know that you can improve your fit with a women's saddle on almost any bike, WSD or unisex, and that it greatly increases shopping options to test ride every bike with the same, good seat. A quality shop will do this happily.

The consequences of poor pelvic alignment go a lot further than comfort. It is also a huge factor in seated descending and cornering ability - an unaligned pelvis/back effectively moves your center of gravity back and takes weight off of the front end of the bike. This causes instability and significantly reduces front wheel traction. Many women who think that they are poor descenders/cornerers are actually just not in a good position on the bike - road and seated MTB in particular. You HAVE to put weight on both wheels to corner effectively _(for more on great MTB technique, check this video series from Fabien Barel. Skills + hot French guy bonus! Applied diligently, these techniques will change your riding forever)_.

All that said, some bikes are just plain better riding than others - particularly in the WSD categories (because many of these bikes are designed more for a beginner's test ride than they are for an experienced rider on the trail). You are a really experienced rider and I doubt that you are riding around all hunched up. It may be that the LIV you are riding has a geometry better suited to your riding style than your previous bike. Or that the suspension is set up correctly and your previous bike wasn't (the number of people who don't know that suspension is something that requires frequent setup and checking is something else that we in the industry need to work on - if you own a full suspension bike, you need to own a shock pump or your bike will never ride the way it was designed to and that is a real shame).


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

girlonbike said:


> This is obviously true about all marketing terms coined by industry insiders.


Nah - for the most part, we aren't evil and we are all working to find fast, simple ways to communicate complex ideas for better cycling experiences. It is rare that marketing doesn't align to some sort of core technical theory. Whether or not that theory is as good as another is another issue, but that doesn't mean that the person who coined it doesn't believe the idea behind it. Even WSD has value, it's just important to know that it isn't the only option.


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## Lucy Juice (Dec 29, 2010)

^^ If only finding a good women's saddle to demo was... not even easy, just feasible. I'm in freaking Boulder, CO, and 1. any shops that have demo saddles don't carry WSD saddles in those demo lines (or they hand you a big *ss Terry even if you're looking for an MTB race saddle) or 2. shops just plain don't carry a manufacturer's full line of saddles, so you have to special order a saddle just to try it (and most likely return it and be that jackass). 

If I can't make this work in effing Boulder, where can I???


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## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

Unfortunately, that's the challenge. I've also done the buy-and-ebay method, accepting some monetary loss in a quest for a good fit. It sucks, but it was worth it at the time. See here for conversation about why shops stock what they do - it's a numbers game, even on the Front Range.


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## laine (Oct 4, 2012)

I think my challenge with the Yeti Beti is not that the XS has the same geometry as the original bike, but that they don't create one additional frame size in XXS. Granted I'm biased towards Pivot (since I ride one), but they make the same bike in very small sizes to fit a wider range of people. I understand that there is a lot of expense in creating a new frame mold, but doing this is only one additional mold and it shows that they actually put some thought/effort into trying to meet the needs of various women.

While I agree that there are men and women of different leg and torso sizes, I think we can all agree that on average, women are shorter than men. The average American woman is about 5'4-ish, which means there are a helluva lot of women around my height (5'1"). I really struggled to find a FS trail bike where I actually have standover clearance to avoid the "clam slam". 

What I didn't like about some of the WSD bikes was that they came as a full build with lower-end components than I wanted. It seems that some of the bigger companies don't provide a frame-only option for their WSDs. I ended up with an XS Pivot Mach 5.7 because it has one of the lowest standovers I've seen, it fits me well, and I was able to get the components I want. Ok, vent over.

As for a saddle, I love my WTB Deva, which I was lucky enough like after I took the risk and got it on eBay.


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## petey15 (Sep 1, 2006)

laine said:


> I think my challenge with the Yeti Beti is not that the XS has the same geometry as the original bike, but that they don't create one additional frame size in XXS. Granted I'm biased towards Pivot (since I ride one), but they make the same bike in very small sizes to fit a wider range of people. I understand that there is a lot of expense in creating a new frame mold, but doing this is only one additional mold and it shows that they actually put some thought/effort into trying to meet the needs of various women.
> 
> While I agree that there are men and women of different leg and torso sizes, I think we can all agree that on average, women are shorter than men. The average American woman is about 5'4-ish, which means there are a helluva lot of women around my height (5'1"). I really struggled to find a FS trail bike where I actually have standover clearance to avoid the "clam slam".
> 
> ...


I don't know how I missed this thread before. VERY enlightening, especially after I did that post about WSD. I HATE the dreaded clam slam and also have had issues with reach. BUT...I also have had saddle issues, too. And now I'm wondering (thank you, chuky) if that is actually stemming from a poor saddle fit. I've tried tons of saddles from all sorts of manufacturers and still have issues. I mentioned how I tried the Giant Intrigue SX and literally forgot about the bike underneath me...including the saddle. Literally the first time I sat on a seat that after a few minutes didn't bother me, let alone 2.5 hours of solid riding. So, got me thinking...maybe I need to order one of those saddles and see what happens. After all, I already got to demo it. Now if I do that and it doesn't improve how I feel on my current ride...would it be safe to say it's the bike fit?


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## Lucy Juice (Dec 29, 2010)

I feel like this thread and the other recent WSD thread need to be stickied.


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## formica (Jul 4, 2004)

maybe edit the material and update the (ancient) existing sticky on bikes for women?


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## Lucy Juice (Dec 29, 2010)

Yeah, I feel like guys coming here to ask advice for their SOs are not reading that because it's old... probably time for an update.


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## laine (Oct 4, 2012)

Might also be helpful if we had a post/poll asking the women on the forum how tall they are (or their standover) and what bike/size they ride. That would probably answer a bunch of questions for anyone who's looking.

Just a thought....


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## sooshee (Jun 16, 2012)

laine said:


> Might also be helpful if we had a post/poll asking the women on the forum how tall they are (or their standover) and what bike/size they ride. That would probably answer a bunch of questions for anyone who's looking.
> 
> Just a thought....


I like this idea. I've been reading all these threads and going "WTF is clam slam?" because I've never had issues with standover height so it must be a very height specific thing (I'm 5'10" with a 34" inseam) as my clam has never been slammed! Doesn't sound pleasant, though... one problem I'm glad I don't have!

Simple thread where everyone goes "Hey, I'm this tall, this is my inseam, and I ride these bikes with these sizes." Or because I'm OCD with organizing, a different thread divided up by height ranges so someone can find something applicable to them easier than reading 50 posts of people not near their height?


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## petey15 (Sep 1, 2006)

sooshee said:


> I like this idea. I've been reading all these threads and going "WTF is clam slam?" because I've never had issues with standover height so it must be a very height specific thing (I'm 5'10" with a 34" inseam) as my clam has never been slammed! Doesn't sound pleasant, though... one problem I'm glad I don't have!
> 
> Simple thread where everyone goes "Hey, I'm this tall, this is my inseam, and I ride these bikes with these sizes." Or because I'm OCD with organizing, a different thread divided up by height ranges so someone can find something applicable to them easier than reading 50 posts of people not near their height?


That's a really good idea. And yeah, clam slam is real! 5'4" here and 29.5" inseam. Oh to be tall and have a ton of bikes to choose from!


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## sooshee (Jun 16, 2012)

The only thing my clam has been slammed on was my seat once during a cyclocross race that involved a hill that had to be at a 45 degree downward angle and ice covered. Whew.

I got the long leg thing down, but I have a short torso so I have to change nearly all my stems on my bikes so I can reach the bars at a comfortable angle.


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## elainelb (Aug 1, 2014)

interesting thread!


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## Varaxis (Mar 16, 2010)

It says in multiple articles that the suspension was tuned for lighter weight riders, specifically with lighter rebound damping.


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

Varaxis said:


> It says in multiple articles that the suspension was tuned for lighter weight riders, specifically with lighter rebound damping.


That's what I had read also, thanks for pointing it out.


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