My wife started competing in Tri's one year ago. She has mainly competed in sprints and a few olympic's so far. About a year ago we decided to buy her a tri bike, because we were confident that she would be dedicated to the sport. She is 5'3" although she would say 5'4". Last year the shops did not have an abudance of bikes, at least in our price range, but the shops were putting her on a 49cm or 50cm bike, both with 700c wheels. We ended up going with the 49cm. Through the year she has repeatedly said she didn't feel like she could get the seatpost high enough to get a true aero position. I haven't given her comments the time necessary until just recently.

I have started doing a lot of riding on time trial bike fitting and it seems that at least for men it is very common to size down multiple sizes. I read time and time again of guys sizing down 5-7cm from their road bike size. The more I read it seems she might fit better on a smaller frame with 650c rims. Last year we were pushed away from 650c wheels as well, maybe partly because they had nothing in stock.

One of my main dilema's now is that it seems very hard to find TT frames smaller than 48cm for men or women. I have found a few 47cm or 46cm's, but they are few and far between. I have been interested in the Trek Equinox WSD, but found out that two years ago they stopped buiding it around 650c wheels and now the WSD geometry is kind of worse than the men's geometry.

Anyway I am open to any ideas/advice. We are not close to a decent bike shop and are light years away from a tri shop. I also would like to hear things from you guys, especially since I feel that last year shops did not fully do what they could have. I also know much more now than I did then and could probably get further with a salesman. Thanks again and I look forward to any comments.