Why Bike Shopping Is So Challenging For Short People

If you’re under 5’4” or so, you probably know the struggle of finding a bike that fits your body and your riding needs. There’s no way around it: the bike industry favors taller riders. The good news is that as the world of cycling becomes more inclusive, so does bike design. 

In this post we’ll break down why short riders are so underserved and what we do here at Sidesaddle to make sure everyone gets to pedal away on a bike that’s a fabulous fit in both form and function.

Why It’s Hard

Market Capitalism

Simply scaling a bike up and down for riders of all heights doesn’t work for a few reasons. Resizing a frame without tweaking geometry and design elements introduces problems with strength and handling. Wheels are also an issue. Bike wheels only come in a few standard diameters, and a mismatch between wheel diameter and frame size becomes unworkable pretty quickly (more on this later). There are limits to how much you can change the dimensions of a bike frame before you need to switch wheel sizes too. 

Fewer adaptations between the smallest and largest size of any given bike model means makes it cheaper to produce. Many companies that are more interested in the bottom line than in servinging a wide range of riders, which leaves the shortest (and tallest) cyclists with way fewer options when it comes to finding a bike that fits. 

Industry Bias

Is “industry bias” just a euphemism for sexism? Yes and no. 

The bike industry under-serves short riders, no doubt there. But whether it under-serves short riders because it’s sexist or is sexist because it under-serves short riders is harder to pin down. 

Large-scale studies show that average height and biological sex do correlate to some extent. That said, chromosomes aren’t the determining factor of any one individual’s height. Genetics account for most of that, and there’s much more variation within sexes than between them. Still, an industry that doesn’t consider the needs of its shortest customers will, whether intentionally or not, exclude more women than men. 

It feels unlikely that the Bike Industry™ is oblivious to this fact. And while the world of bikes is becoming more inclusive all the time, plenty of unfounded assumptions about people and bodies still exist there. We know that people of all sizes, sexes, ages, and abilities love riding and want great bikes and can’t wait for bike culture everywhere to catch up.

Frame Geometry and Wheel Size

Now to the nerdy stuff. We mentioned above that making a bike that fits a short rider isn’t as simple as scaling down one designed for someone taller. Why not? 

Frame Geometry: Geometry is the first thing that makes one bike different from another. The way a frame is put together affects the physical position in which the bike can be ridden, as well as the way the bike handles. Handling includes things like how responsive the steering is, how fast the bike accelerates, and how stable or agile the bike feels as a whole.

Two bikes of different sizes will ride differently, even if they have the exact same geometric proportions on paper. A simple reason for this is that a short length of tubing is stiffer than a longer one. Some bike makers mitigate this by using thinner-walled tubing on smaller frame sizes, but many don’t. 

Frame Style: For diamond frame bikes (as opposed to step-throughs or mixtes), the horizontal top bar is necessarily higher than the top of the front wheel. So on this style of frame, wheel size dictates the minimum rider height. 

The smallest standard wheel size is 26” (66cm) in diameter. To stand over a diamond frame bike, you need an inseam of at least the same measurement. In practice, however, the two pieces of tubing that meet at the front of the frame’s main triangle add another inch or two to that number.

This is why bikes with slanted top tubes or full step-through design are often the first recommendation to short riders. And sometimes they’re a great solution! But just like everything else, a different frame style means a different bike in terms of feel and performance. 

The triangle is the strongest of all shapes. Take away a frame’s main triangle and you get a bike that’s less sturdy overall. A less stable frame creates power loss between the pedals and the wheels, so a 

Toe Overlap: To fit a shorter rider, a bike has to be smaller in both height and length. That means the wheelbase (the distance from front axle to rear axle) will be smaller too. Unless the wheels themselves are smaller too, that means less clearance between the wheel and the frame.

As the front wheel moves back toward the frame, the space between it and the pedals decreases. This can cause something called “toe overlap.” Toe overlap happens if the rider’s toe overlaps the front wheel while pedaling. No problem if the wheel is pointed dead ahead. But when turning–especially at slow speeds–the front wheel leaves that midline and can collide with the pedaling foot.

Bike designers usually mitigate toe overlap by slackening headtube angles on smaller sizes, effectively kicking the front wheel farther from the midpoint of the frame. Taken too far, this tweak negatively impacts how the bike handles. Our favorite brands use different wheel sizes and/or forks for the small, medium, and large versions of their bikes to ensure an inclusive size range with consistent ride quality from XS to XL. 

Wheel Size: So why isn’t having smaller wheels on smaller bikes the industry norm? We’d guess that the main reason is economic. Using multiple wheel sizes in a single production run is more expensive. 

But even the brands that use smaller wheel sizes on their smallest bikes are limited by other factors. One is that bike wheels only come in certain standard sizes. The three most common sizes–found on the vast majority of modern bikes–have diameters of approximately 26”, 27.5” and 29” respectively when fitted with a mid-sized tire. It’s easy to get tubes, tires, and other components that are compatible with these wheel sizes. Stray from the standards and everything gets more complicated–and more costly!

Smaller wheel sizes are available (like the 20” wheels on BMX, folding, and cargo bikes) but don’t perform well for most kinds of riding.

A step-through bike may feel more sluggish to ride. Without the bracing of a main triangle, the frame can be more prone to stress failures. To make up for this, many step-through bikes are built with extra robust tubing and welds, which means a heavier bike overall.

How We Can Help

We don’t think you should have to compromise when it comes to having the perfect bike, regardless of your size. We can’t magically fix all the factors that make bike shopping tough for smaller riders, but we do have years of experience helping folks of all sizes find bikes they love.

First of all, we’ll never sell you a bike that doesn’t fit! Instead, we work with brands that share our values around inclusive bike sizing, including ones that offer custom and semi-custom bikes that are made to order for each customer. We know which models and framesets tend to work best for short riders, and how to build and fit bikes that will suit your body and the way you like to ride.