# How to Annoy Women Cyclists



## mtbxplorer (Dec 25, 2009)

How to annoy women cyclists - BikeRadar


----------



## MsMel (Dec 4, 2016)

This article has some excellent observations. The "Pink it and Shrink it" thing is something I find particularly annoying. For instance, I would love to support LIV cycling, but they "Pink" everything. Yes, I want a bike that looks hot and fast, but I also want it to have the best specs possible for my money. The specs and feel matter the most to me. 

I definitely would like to see more support and coverage for women's cycling, both road, cross and mountain.


----------



## tehllama (Jul 18, 2013)

I still have my suspicions that a lot of the women's-specific-design on some parts might also be driven by what parts are leftover from existing trends - the slightly steeper HTA and shorter reach are holdovers from older frames, 720-740mm bars, and the light-but-smaller inside diameter wheelsets should all conspire to make for really impressive bike values... just need a revised shock tune, some narrower diameter grips, and a set built around the notion of hips and any bike will be a winner.

I think the Kona approach is spot on - Scott, Yeti, and Juliana are a close second for that, although a truly distinct line comes down to how tastefully they can keep the colorways done. 
As a guy, I still with Yeti had a justification to make a Beti SB5.5c (honestly, body proportions are the biggest reason not to), because that's the bike I'd happily overpay for... 

I think parity in coverage will be hard to achieve, but covering the pointy end on both is where it's at, and at minimum getting all of the highlights from the XCO and a bit more of the Women's and Junior Women's is something I'd be all about. Ditto on the EWS stuff - those ladies shred, especially considering that they're riding the same transfers.


----------



## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

tehllama said:


> I still have my suspicions that a lot of the women's-specific-design on some parts might also be driven by what parts are leftover from existing trends - the slightly steeper HTA and shorter reach are holdovers from older frames, 720-740mm bars, and the light-but-smaller inside diameter wheelsets should all conspire to make for really impressive bike values... just need a revised shock tune, some narrower diameter grips, and a set built around the notion of hips and any bike will be a winner.
> 
> I think the Kona approach is spot on - Scott, Yeti, and Juliana are a close second for that, although a truly distinct line comes down to how tastefully they can keep the colorways done.
> As a guy, I still with Yeti had a justification to make a Beti SB5.5c (honestly, body proportions are the biggest reason not to), because that's the bike I'd happily overpay for...
> ...


That's an interesting theory. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. 

Seriously, its a brilliant idea for not wasting stock. However I tend to buy brands that don't "pink" or "pink and shrink".

I've always been one who wants slack and low and wide bars and short stems before it was the thing. Now that it's the thing, I have some great options. However, that's not necessarily in women's bikes. They might be there, but I stopped looking at them years ago when they revalved the shocks for a really lightweight rider, which I will never be.


----------



## voon (Nov 10, 2016)

Usually, things are market/experience driven. A friend of mine (tall, pretty blonde) was doing a research project thesis on rubber particles off tires for her studies and went to various car garages to look at tires ... you can guess the treatment she got. Tall, pretty blonde would equal to cut off any of her detail questions, trying to sell her something, where she can be happy that it's round, a wheel.

That's the garagists experience ("women have no clue about cars") mixed with latent social sexism that's just inside society's heads and used automatically without thinking and is even employed despite her stating obvious knowledge.

Pink apparel is the same. There's a market demand, otherwise they would not be marketed. I'm fine with pink apparel for the girlie drivers ... but there should be the same woman sized stuff in other colors. As long as there's a fair choice, it's probably not that bad. Although, wearing girlie style will automatically make society treat you as such, even though there's plenty of women around mixing girlie style likes with competent technical skills. That has not yet arrived in peoples heads.

Prize money is another market driven thing. If the market generates a giant amoutn of money with male sports, prizes will be giant. Look at soccer. Players being worth close to an absolutly insane 500 million for transfer? Now go check women soccer.

A lot of this stuff, including sexism, is market driven.


----------



## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

tehllama said:


> I still have my suspicions that a lot of the women's-specific-design on some parts might also be driven by what parts are leftover from existing trends - the slightly steeper HTA and shorter reach are holdovers from older frames, 720-740mm bars, and the light-but-smaller inside diameter wheelsets should all conspire to make for really impressive bike values... just need a revised shock tune, some narrower diameter grips, and a set built around the notion of hips and any bike will be a winner.


A bike company using WSD bikes as a dumping ground for poor operational/planning issues (left over stock is a bad situation that you want to avoid) is not going to be around for very long. That's some pretty terrible customer service and would relegate women's products to not fitting new standards. It would also be a terrible way to reduce cost. Frame manufacturers get the best pricing on product by buying in volume from component manufacturers, adding the component volume of a full WSD line would be valuable to supplier.

Anyway, getting a bike model to market isn't a willy nilly process. There are two key jobs at almost every bike manufacturer that you may not be familiar with:

Planner: this is the person who tries to predict how many forks, wheels, group sets the company needs to buy from each supplier to build the number of bikes they are going to sell in the coming seasons. This person is often working a full year ahead in order to get the bike frame manufacturing and the supplier availability to all come together. For example, they have to know how many forks in every travel, with every future spacing, to fit every upcoming wheel size the market in demands. From the inside, it is job for a meticulous person with incredible memory and god-like XLS skills. From the outside, it is basically witchcraft. You are looking at over 50 individual parts in specific sizes/specs that have to be organized for every size of every model.

Product Manager: this person works closely with engineering and planning to choose product for new models, and to choose the spec for every model level. Often times they are a part of the engineering team, as they have to have an intimate knowledge of everything happening in the industry and the ability to bring that information to engineering if it is work future use on a m. These people often have no idea what year it is currently, as they are working almost 2 years in the future. That is how long it takes to get everything to align for a new product's production and spec.

Some thoughts on manufacturing and women's gear and color / sizing options for bikes and clothing:

It is all about numbers.
Stocking gear for women


----------



## tehllama (Jul 18, 2013)

I suspect the WSD-dumping-ground philosophy is more robust than you think - look at the gems out there like the Eagle equipped WFO9's being hocked on the ad sections here [brilliant concept - toss a $800 grouppo at a $2500 bike build and finally there's a way to move some old inventory]. There are whole sites that exist on that model (bikesdirect is basically the answer - take all the unwanted groupset leftovers and build XTR level bikes for $1000 !), and I think there is actually some merit in a few areas to that approach.

If I was building up a WSD in an existing trail niche, with no prior information, I'd do the following:
I'd just take the carbon version of an existing bike which has a slightly shorter to tube and steeper HTA (which makes them handle better on average for people with a lower-body weight biased distribution compared to the imaginary median mountain biker)
Paint it in paired deep/jewel tone combinations - go with matte dark jewel tones and do the logos in the lighter color of the same (Navy with Periwinkle, Magenta with lighter red, Stealth Matte Black with deep purple) - but keep the exact same graphics package as the existing bike.
Put on a good set of carbon 740-750mm bars with relatively low rise, probably pair it with 60-70mm stems.
Add narrower color-themed grips (SantaCruz Palmdales or ESI silicone grips come to mind), a decent saddle, and stock a 100/125mm dropper
Run everything 1x11, even if it's NX/SLX. Go smaller on the chainrings, and spec some chain retention all the way across. Down-spec the brakes to Deore's or SLX.
Custom shock tunes are straightforward once outsourced - seems a bit dumb to me that it's not happening on both ends. I'd actually consider blowing the budget on getting forks/shocks with bigger negative springs just to make the suspension more active for lighter riders.
Put a longer fork on it (10-20mm more travel out front). Raises BB height, brings headline HTA back in line, and where budget permits tick the box for a dual-air solution to make it climb better, even where it may not make sense on the main line of the same bike.
Make the weight and budget back up with lightweight wheelsets - Arch or KOM i23's.

These would be slightly higher priced than competing bikes, but the suspension tune is what makes the difference, and something a simple as speccing chain retention on a bike will change the way it's perceived. 
Putting ladies on more capable bikes is always a winning idea, so burlier frames and forks paired with mass-appropriate suspension tunes and contact points is to me the correct solution (anything else smells like shrink-it-and-pink-it).
[For reference, I install my wife on my 150/140mm 29er with Minions for general trail duty - rollover impunity is wonderful for anybody riding]

No sense chasing 100g of weight savings optimizing an existing frame for lighter riders - to me in the numbers game it's smarter to spec a lighter and more XC-ish crankset to achieve the same goal (women aren't going to be as sensitive to crank stiffness as large oafs like myself). The intermediate school geometry works better for riders with more mass in the hip area - with larger air cans sitting deeper in travel and longer forks the net result is a bike that handles fine, and is less prone to pedal strike with BB heights about 0.5" higher.

As somebody with experience on the defense/aerospace side of product line management, bike development still comes across as remarkably haphazard to me, especially the way a lot of final products DO roll out having utterly missed the mark... although the way my brain works I'm convinced I'd do quite well as a product manager, or at least well above average. Then again I'm an engineer who works in areas where Excel is typically an inadequate tool for the job.

As a larger branding exercise, I'd actually be trying to piggy-back off of some related product areas - I'd much rather run deliberate re-branded Goalkeeper jerseys (which do make sense in ladies designs with good color palettes) than try making bespoke stuff - and I'd actual favor licensing existing kit designs for ostensibly men's stuff that works with well and just push along value pricing and try some crazy ideas like colors available only in black, grey, khaki, and gender-neutral pastels.

I think fundamentally the bike industry is still too caught up on women cyclists as +1 additions to an existing family member who rides... while it works in the more budget intensive side of the house where volume matters most, I think leadership looks like better kit parity EVEN IF IT MEANS TAKING A LOSS ON THE HIGH END... when women see a brand devoted to really doing women's stuff right, they'll choose those brands even if the price/capability bracket they're shopping in is one where efficiencies of scale do favor the tired old approach.


----------



## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

Companies whose bikes appear on these dumping ground sites are companies that have made an error in planning, or who didn't have the cash flow or engineering resources to develop new product to keep up with changing customer demand, thought they could get away with older designs, and now find themselves loaded down with stock that riders have lost interest in. These sites make dealers angry and devalue product to the point where dealers won't accept it anymore. They are a last ditch effort to get rid of inventory that didn't move. Most of these sites purchase frames from the manufacturer and then build the bike with components that they have sourced from somewhere else. These builds are not tested or endorsed by the frame makers typically.

Regarding your aerospace experience and the idea that bike development is haphazard - that is pretty condescending, as is the way you speak about tools used in the job. Product development capabilities vary from manufacturer to manufacturer - high-end, large-cap makers have a robust testing and development process that spans multiple manufacturers and is typically several years of collaborative engineering and product planning work for an entirely new product. Your smallest-cap makers don't typically have the cash, access to costly manufacturing processes, or the OE buying power to support that kind of program and tend to be a bit behind when it comes to incorporating new developments and components - I'd compare them to hobbyists who build airplanes from kits in garages... Now, none of these companies comes even close to the capital and capabilities of a Boeing or Airbus - the US bike industry (including clothing, accessories, etc) had sales of roughly $6.2 billion last year, the aerospace industry was very roughly $685 billion. Of course, if we could get our customers to pay $150 million for a new bike, I'm sure you'd see some pretty surprising new R&D coming from the bike industry.

Regarding your suggestions for clothing and product development - the fact is that the majority of women riding high end MTBs _are_ +1 additions to a group of primarily male riders. The woman who rides high end product without the influence of friends or a spouse is very, very, rare. The estimates that women are 50% of the cycling market include moms buying bikes for their kids as mass market retailers - they are the majority of bike purchasers and do nothing to drive bike development. High end women's MTB is actually about 3% of the total high end MTB market. if you expand to include all bikes purchased at bike retailers for use by adult women, you are looking at 7% of the total bike shop market - but this includes townies, hybrids and other less technical products.

Setting up a new carbon frame in size medium that fits a guy will work for about 30% of the high end MTB market, which is pretty good. Setting up 3 unique WSD sizes for women? or even just painting your stock for that group? You might be addressing the size needs of 1% of your share of the market, half of which are just going to buy the unisex version anyway because they don't like the colors on offer in the WSD model, whatever those happen to be. It is huge cash risk for potentially very low sales. This is why it is mostly the largest companies that offer these WSD projects. They have the scale, the dealer network and the ability to try riskier projects.

There are multiple approaches to how companies are currently developing product for women:

Giant: One of the largest manufacturers in the world. These guys can afford to create carbon molds with unique geometry for women. Is that geo necessary? Maybe, maybe not, but they have the marketing dollars to tell the story that it is, and it differentiates them from everyone that can't afford to set up unique molds, so it is a worthwhile investment. They tend to go with traditional women's market colors, something I know that they backed up with market research. When a customer is getting lackluster service in a bike shop, she can still self identify product on the floor as "meant for her", based on the color. Is that fair to those of us who aren't fans of that color group? No, but who said retail was fair?

Santa Cruz / Juliana: These bikes are identical to unisex models with new paint based on similar theories to the colors used in the snow sports industry. They change their touch points and are done. These guys were a lot smaller than the big 3 until recently. They have been purchased and have access to huge capital and may change their approach.

Trek: Similar to Giant. These guys also own the trademark on WSD, I believe.

Specialized: similar to Giant.

Yeti: similar to Santa Cruz - they are a much smaller company than the big 3.

Side note about coverage of Enduro, etc: that market is cool, but super overpopulated and problematic when it comes to media. First, lots of people in this category are selling "lifestyle" in a world that is less and less receptive to engagement with that kind of marketing. The fact is, the DH racers are still faster downhill and go bigger, and the XC racers are fitter. Enduro is still too often the bastion of retired racers looking for fun. Second, the enduro venues are super hard to cover. Unlike DH, where a single 3 minute track can be set up with tons of cameras for 4 days of track walk, practice, qualifying and finals, and where they have been using the same venues for years, so Red Bull et al know exactly what they need to do to get a great show, enduro purposely finds new venues in remote places each season, making it difficult for media companies to predict logistics and cost. Additionally, the sheer miles of track that have to be filmed are too many for the kind of full-track coverage that makes World Cup DH exciting to watch. Women are getting pretty great coverage on the XC and DH circuits - not quite as much as the guys but it is far far better than it has ever been and is improving every year. We do have a small Rachel Atherton Problem to deal with to really make women's DH racing compelling next season - there are really only 5 women realistically in the hunt to beat her, and they have to have a very good day indeed to come close.


----------



## tehllama (Jul 18, 2013)

First off, I massively appreciate the injection of actual statistics, I'm learning a lot.
[ "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to chuky again." = weak sauce ]
I didn't realize the market share was that small, but considering how saturated the market is, I'd still look at that area as a real opportunity for growth (even if those are effectively just halo/flagship models).
I can't find the source, but it was a Specialized marketing manager who was explaining that in order to sell trail bikes, and even budget hardtails, there was no point in having their pro riders show up on those bikes. Come in riding DH bikes, because that's what sets the brand image, then the sales of the more reasonable capability envelope and price point models will come along.



chuky said:


> Regarding your aerospace experience and the idea that bike development is haphazard - that is pretty condescending, as is the way you speak about tools used in the job. Product development capabilities vary from manufacturer to manufacturer - high-end, large-cap makers have a robust testing and development process that spans multiple manufacturers and is typically several years of collaborative engineering and product planning work for an entirely new product. Your smallest-cap makers don't typically have the cash, access to costly manufacturing processes, or the OE buying power to support that kind of program and tend to be a bit behind when it comes to incorporating new developments and components - I'd compare them to hobbyists who build airplanes from kits in garages... Now, none of these companies comes even close to the capital and capabilities of a Boeing or Airbus - the US bike industry (including clothing, accessories, etc) had sales of roughly $6.2 billion last year, the aerospace industry was very roughly $685 billion. Of course, if we could get our customers to pay $150 million for a new bike, I'm sure you'd see some pretty surprising new R&D coming from the bike industry.
> 
> Regarding your suggestions for clothing and product development - the fact is that the majority of women riding high end MTBs _are_ +1 additions to a group of primarily male riders. The woman who rides high end product without the influence of friends or a spouse is very, very, rare. The estimates that women are 50% of the cycling market include moms buying bikes for their kids as mass market retailers - they are the majority of bike purchasers and do nothing to drive bike development. High end women's MTB is actually about 3% of the total high end MTB market. if you expand to include all bikes purchased at bike retailers for use by adult women, you are looking at 7% of the total bike shop market - but this includes townies, hybrids and other less technical products.


I do typically come across as condescending (sorry), but with honestly about the same capital resources as some boutique bike manufacturers, the place I work at makes satellite componentry and fusion reactor x-ray detection systems. 
That gap between us and big firms is absolutely the depth of T&E for long development cycle projects, but the safety/risk space we work in is more to bike manufacturing. 
The biggest thing we don't have to contend with is the enormous gulf in OEM buying power, but as long as the bigger manufacturers remain content to pad their bottom line with that advantage instead of hacking and slashing for more marginal market share, there is plenty of opportunity.

The SantaCruz/Juliana, Scott:Contessa, and Kona approach to me is the most appropriate one given those development margins, especially given the option to have gender-neutral choices which can have a lot more sales bandwidth... and therefore maximize ROI on that testing.

I do totally agree on the retail unfairness - but fairness does nothing to explain the metric tons of PinkRealtree that flies off shelves this time of year, so the freshwater economist in me wonders if the market rationality behind that is due to hidden factors.

As far as the media setup - I think trying to bring more focus onto the personalities, and training required for everybody in the top 20/10 with video segments is very much a great way to help with that. Can't solve a dominance 'problem', but making the mid-pack battles more appealing can go a long way - see Formula 1 from 2012 to now. Same deal with EWS - it basically suffers from the same problem as WRC Rally racing, but with some innovative media coverage and a fair chunk of editing, it's still a very marketable package -- and the primary function of the race series is to race stuff that resembles actually usable consumer hardware, and it succeeds in that way.


----------



## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

tehllama said:


> I can't find the source, but it was a Specialized marketing manager who was explaining that in order to sell trail bikes, and even budget hardtails, there was no point in having their pro riders show up on those bikes. Come in riding DH bikes, because that's what sets the brand image, then the sales of the more reasonable capability envelope and price point models will come along.


Yes, this is correct.



tehllama said:


> fairness does nothing to explain the metric tons of PinkRealtree that flies off shelves this time of year


I don't have a ton of good data on this, I do have personal experience, but anecdotal evidence isn't worth the pixels I use to type this. With that said, Pink Realtree is a completely different issue, I think, one better examined through the lens of women's studies and anthropology programs than as an aspect of high end outdoor product sales.

I think that women who are actually getting licenses and going hunting (this would be your rough equivalent to women buying high end mountain bikes), are wearing real Realtree. The pink stuff seems to be the bastion of women supporting a lifestyle and cultural stance more than a hobby, typically as a mom or wife. At the risk of igniting a bunch of dry brush, when I lived in hunting country, wearing this stuff had a very, very, high correlation with conservative political and religious beliefs and sometimes, education level. Not always, but it definitely had a class and party aspect. Based on November, that is roughly 50% of the country using it to signal their "tribe", the Red state equivalent to wearing Lululemon yoga pants in a Blue state. This is way way bigger than bikes and makes carrying a few racks of pink camo well worth it.

Pink Realtree is also a thing that husbands buy their wives for Christmas while wandering the aisles of their local Walmart or farm store looking for gifts. It's cheap, the pink says "buy this for a woman" and solves a consumer problem.

Bringing it back to bikes, realistically, the cost of entry into hunting is pretty similar to bikes, if you are buying guns and a side by side, etc. I am betting, but don't know for sure, that a woman walking into a store to buy an ATV and a new scope for her rifle is about a rare as a woman participating in high end MTB.



tehllama said:


> As far as the media setup - I think trying to bring more focus onto the personalities, and training required for everybody in the top 20/10 with video segments is very much a great way to help with that. Can't solve a dominance 'problem', but making the mid-pack battles more appealing can go a long way - see Formula 1 from 2012 to now. Same deal with EWS - it basically suffers from the same problem as WRC Rally racing, but with some innovative media coverage and a fair chunk of editing, it's still a very marketable package -- and the primary function of the race series is to race stuff that resembles actually usable consumer hardware, and it succeeds in that way.


I do have experience with this. The issue with EWS is really, really, simple.

1. They don't get all the top talent. The DH riders are faster and go bigger and the pool is deeper. There are really amazing riders in EWS, but the pool isn't as deep and most of these riders couldn't cross over to DH with the same ease that the DH riders cross over to Enduro.
2. Covering the event costs more than the resulting audience is worth:

DH is relatively easy to cover:

They use the same venues every year, with little variation. 
Riders ride the same track for 4 days straight allowing for camera adjustments and planning based on rider speed and course features. 
Track is only 2-4 minutes long. 
The media companies know how many cameras, operators and other pieces of equipment they need for each venue a year ahead of each DH event. Planning and budgeting is easier because of this. Hotels, vehicle rentals, everything is easier.

Enduro is hard to cover:

uses different tracks every year. 
They seek out remote unusual locations. 
The media companies have to find new lodging, new rental car vendors, etc every season. 
track is used 1 time for the event - no practice to get camera angles right, and no past events from which to draw knowledge
track is really long. the number of cameras required to cover the event coherently is prohibitive.


----------



## miatagal96 (Jul 5, 2005)

Regarding #3,#4, and #5 in the article, I think that we women have some responsibility to break those stereotypes and not feed them. What annoys me more than anything is when women want it both ways and use their 'womanness' to get guys to fix their bikes, babysit them on the trails, etc. and don't take any responsibility for learning how to fix their bikes or learning the trail system. It takes 10 or more competent women to undo the impression that one women can make by this behavior. The fact is that most women didn't grow up taking things apart (like many boys did), so we might be behind the 8-ball on maintenance, and we on average aren't as physically strong as men, but that doesn't mean that we have an excuse not to aspire to excellence, or competence at a minimum. We all can learn basic bike maintenance if we put some effort into doing so. We can all have good behavior on the trails.

There are many, many great female cyclists out there, but the few that give female cyclists a bad name by being super-needy and throwing tantrums on the trail give us all a bad name. Not sure what everyone else's experience is, but the percentage of women I've seen exhibit this type of behavior is much higher than the percentage of men.


----------



## petey15 (Sep 1, 2006)

What a good and interesting discussion. The fact that women are really being addressed is a good thing and having options available sure is refreshing.


----------



## chuky (Apr 3, 2005)

miatagal96 said:


> Regarding #3,#4, and #5 in the article, I think that we women have some responsibility to break those stereotypes and not feed them. What annoys me more than anything is when women want it both ways and use their 'womanness' to get guys to fix their bikes, babysit them on the trails, etc. and don't take any responsibility for learning how to fix their bikes or learning the trail system.


Tantrums, lack of repair skills, needing to be babysat on the trail are in no way behaviors that are unique to women. By numbers alone, there are 10 times as many male beginners out there as there are female, and just as many of the guys lack the trail manners and savvy to be good riding partners. I think you may want to ask yourself why we are less tolerant of women as beginners than we are of guys as beginners, and if the problem lies with them, or with us as their more experienced friends. It may be that you notice the women out there more often when they have trouble, but the question/fault lies more with the observer than the observed, IMO.

Additionally, I am in no way responsible for breaking other people's assumptions and stereotypes in order to deserve being treated with respect.


----------



## formica (Jul 4, 2004)

> Not sure what everyone else's experience is, but the percentage of women I've seen exhibit this type of behavior is much higher than the percentage of men.


about zero here, for both sexes.


----------



## tehllama (Jul 18, 2013)

MASSIVE necropost, but wanted to actually revisit this.

I'm pretty happy with how this discussion has aged - and was actually blown away by some of the BikeMag BOBT authors specifically mentioning wanting to run a Juliana (when they want Tallboy performance) because the colorway and shock tune is actually better.

Unfortunately it seems like Beti has died off as a concept, and none of the big direct-to-consumer brands has really taken off on a WSD concept (yet...), which is surprising.


----------



## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

tehllama said:


> MASSIVE necropost, but wanted to actually revisit this.
> 
> I'm pretty happy with how this discussion has aged - and was actually blown away by some of the BikeMag BOBT authors specifically mentioning wanting to run a Juliana (when they want Tallboy performance) because the colorway and shock tune is actually better.
> 
> Unfortunately it seems like Beti has died off as a concept, and none of the big direct-to-consumer brands has really taken off on a WSD concept (yet...), which is surprising.


You know that WSD has been around for 20 years right? Gary Fisher was doing WSD in 2001.

It's about time it died off IMO. While it got many women on bikes, there's enough people who need different tunes and sizes of ALL sexes. There's no reason to have a his and a (lesser and more expensive) hers in today's world.


----------



## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

Yeah, when my wife got a new bike, she got a customized SB5, rather than a Beti. It just seemed like a better value, as the Beti would have had to get the custom treatment anyway, and she was happy with the shock tune on the SB5.
Rather than a women's specific shock tune a weight specific - or a bike size specific - tune makes much more sense.


----------

