Specialized Eliminating Womens models

For those of you paying attention,  there has been a gradual movement in the bike industry moving away from men and women specific bikes and products to unisex products.   In the 2020 model year we are seeing Specialized finally put a nail in the coffin of the gender split and all but eliminate their line of women's bikes. 

To understand what is going on with the shift lets take a look back at the history of gender specific bikes.  I wasn't around in the early 1900's so I don't have any pictures that I have the rights to,  but if you look back pretty much as far as you care to you can see that almost as long as bikes have been made there have been women's bikes with the top tubes dropping drastically lower than the men's versions.  This is what we think of as a traditional woman's bike.   This low top tube allowed woman to ride bikes without the frame of the bike pushing their dresses up to inappropriate levels.

As we reached the mid- late 1900's our cultures across the world began to shift and it was more common so see women out and about in pants, shorts and even Spandex.   Despite the fact that less and less women ride in dresses the drop bar remained as a tradition, but two other shifts began to occur.   First men, especially older men found that getting off and on the women's bikes was much easier,  and those who had long ago learned so swallow their pride hopped on bright pink women's bikes and rode off into the sunset.

The industry took note,  and by the early 2000's manufacturers had started to produce "Step-thru" bikes with more neutral colors marketed at casual riders both men and women.  While most consumers still considered these to be "women's" bikes but the shift had started.

Meanwhile on the high end the big manufactures were producing women's specific bikes without the drop bar.   "Compact Geometries" dropped the top tube from the traditional men's parallel to the ground top tubes, so men's and women's top tubes met somewhere in the middle.  Most large manufactures had (and still have) a men's and women's version of their bikes.  The women's versions are typically geared towards petite women and are often not even made in larger sizes.  Usually these models are the same as the men's with the exception of color, saddle and handlebar width.  But on the very high end there are subtle geometry differences based on the idea that the average woman has proportionally longer femurs etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile at Goose Creek Cycle and bike shops around the world we have gotten better and better at fitting people to their specific bike,   and have spent a lot of time convincing women that it really is okay to ride a men's bike if it feels and fits better.  

At long last the crew at Specialized, being the data junkies that they are,  have looked at the data from 10's  of thousands of bike fits and realized what many of us have kind of understood for a long time.  People are all really different and have different body types.    So with most of the measurements that matter for fit, leg length, arm length, torso length etc,  If you pick two random people of the same height, you will have measurable differences but those differences are not significantly linked to gender.  You will just have to fit them to bikes based on the body they have.

But wait!  Men and women are actually different!!

Ok you got us there are real differences between men's and women's bodies but they are isolated to specific areas.  So yes saddle women's and men's specific saddles and clothing will remain.  And if you look closely and model lines even if the bikes are not men's and women's specific you will see some nods to the fact that the bikes are designed for both.  The biggest example is this.  Because women are on average shorter than men, and women on average have wider sit bones than men,  you will see wider saddles speced on some of the smaller bikes.  This allows the bikes to fit more people more closely and allows bike shop staff to swap saddles around between bikes to fit customers more closely without having to stock as wide a range of aftermarket saddles. 

So welcome to the new age of bike fitting where we are fitting you as an individual and letting you have the experience you want without having to be bothered in the back of your mind if the bike you really like was designed for the other gender. 

Converting a Hardtail to Full suspension

Hi all.   Wanted to start off by saying this was a joke.   It was designed to allow me to ride a bike to failure and document the process.  What we created was actually functional.   We never rode it to complete failure because the other components on the bike were so bad that they failed before the frame did.  

Either way... WE DO NOT ACTUALLY RECOMEND THIS!   Following this procedure can lead to injury or even death.   But we had a lot of fun risking our lives. 

Anyway the concepts was based on the old soft tails which basically used the natural flex of the chain stays and put a bumper or small shock into the seat stays which allowed a small amount of movement in the rear triangle.    We used a little more movement and a lot less bumper and this was the result.    Hope you enjoy.