My wife is about 5’10" with an inseam of roughly 34". About how large of a frame should I purchase for her 1st bike. I’m figuring about a 58cm Frame. Thoughts?
Got a pic? Remember we like low riders. Or a swimsuit\bike short shot may be more helpfull to accurately pinpoint her legginess.
I figured it would end up here, just not so soon.
Here’s a great site that explains how to determine your approx. frame size. Just realize that different manufacturers often measure their frames slightly different. What may be a size xx for one company may be a size xy for another, but this is a very good start.
You main concern as a long legged person is that you want a frame with not too long a top tube. Although frame sizes are based on the seat tube, in reality the most important measurement IMO is the top tube. You do have some degree of adjustability with this with stem length. Some bike types are made with short/same/long top tubes in relationship to top tube measurement.
Are you thinking of a road or a tri bike? If it’s your first bike, I’d strongly recommend a road bike.
Read this site over. It should be very helpful.
just the phrase “tall leggy lady” gets my attention. wow
“just the phrase “tall leggy lady” gets my attention.”
Got mine to until realizing it’s her husband that we’re talking to. 
Lucky guy
.
I’m guessing about a 55ish with 175 cranks.
58cm sounds just a tad big to me unless you find one with a pretty short top tube. I’m 5’9" with 33.5" inseam and I ride a 56cm road bike with a 56cm top tube and a 100mm stem. Another issue your wife may encounter is that once the top tube and stem are fit for the correct reach, she may have knee clearance problems with the handlebars when she stands to climb. One way to alleviate this is to get a bike with a “steep” seat tube angle 73.5 or 74 degrees. This moves he bottom bracket further away from the handlebars giving more clearance for long legs. My bike is 74.
" I figured it would end up here, just not so soon."
Haven’t been here long have ya?
the rough tendency, for road bike sizing, is to drop down to a size smaller if you have real long legs, as it’s much easier to stick out a seatpost and flip up the stem than go to a bad short stem. i, for instance, am 6’4" w/ 37" inseam, but ride a 60 with a 58.5 toptube, but i could go smaller.
in essence, size based on the top tube and head tube - this will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but make sure she is not stretched out. bring her to a good fitter. obviously all the advice on this forum is to be taken as nothing but suggestions, and without seeing her on a bike, nothing here can be said. but make sure that she tries out a smaller bike than she might think, and spends real time with some sort of fitter.
to address your thought, 58 would be much too big. as someone else mentioned, 55 would be closer, maybe 54. sizing for us long legged people is hard.
darrell
I am 5’10" and have relatively long legs/short torso and am on a 54" soloist.
If she is going to get aerobars in the future the problem then becomes not whacking your knees into your elbows or hitting the pads when you stand on a climb. If you get too big of a frame (ie one that matches her inseam) you are going to have to get silly with the stem to bring the bars back where she can reach them.
Not to generalize, but if she isn’t comfy, that bike is going to be in the classifieds soon with very low mileage and you’ll be in trouble for making her try such a stupid sport.
I would go 54-55" road bike.
I am 5’8" (female) with a 33" inseam…I am VERY happy on my 57cm ELITE T-Class…my ELITE road bike is a 55cm but that was custom built. I HIGHLY recommend talking to David Greenfield at Elite and possibly seeing him in person; he generally is at all the big IM races and is super friendly.
same height and inseam as my wife.
She rode a 55 cm QR Private Reserve (55cm tt) ok but much prefers her Yaqui DL with a 54.5cm tt and 10.5 cm stem. Its a compact. Seat tube (center of BB to center of virtual top tube) measures 57cm. The problem in the past was the realtionship between the tt v seat tube v head tube lenght.
She cant say enough good things about the Yaqui, might want to give Ves a shout. He has a starter bike with 105 for $1700 the last time we looked on his site. You are paying for the fit and the workmanship but well worth the trouble. The wife went through two bikes before being happy with this one, happy enought to want another pure road bike from Ves.
"same height and inseam as my wife. "
Pictures?
I have those measurements and have a 54cm frame. I would suggest getting fitted though…
My wife is about 5’10" with an inseam of roughly 34". About how large of a frame should I purchase for her 1st bike. I’m figuring about a 58cm Frame. Thoughts?
U am going to need a photo…to give an accurate size.
Floating Debris,
Sorry to rain on this parade, but this is the perfect recipe for disaster! I’m also not trying to offend you so please don’t take it that way if that is how it comes across. I don’t mean it that way.
Your wife is not a “average” build in terms of leg length and torso length. Many bikes are measured differently such that one manufacturer’s 55 is another manufacturer’s 57, etc.
If you and she don’t really care whether her cycling experience is optimized, i.e., the bike fits great and seems to just disappear beneath her her becoming an extension of her body rather than some she is sitting on like a chair, then continue with your intended plan for the purchase of her bike.
You may consider a professional “fitting” an unnecessary luxury or simply a waste of money. I, however, can assure you that it is the best money you will ever spend and generally the least expensive means, in the long term, of finding a great ride and a fantastic cycling experience. There are countless others on this forum who will agree with me. We all are enjoying great cycling experiences. Unfortunately, this often leads to one falling in love with cycling and wanting to ride as often as possible. In your instance, this may mean your wife might want to ride more than you do! Could be a disaster for your relationship.
Now I know this is extreme, but two SlowTwitchers just flew to Dearborn, Michigan from England for bike fittings. One, Julian, aka jk_allen13, for the purchase of a new bike, and Bryce, aka UK Gear Muncher, for a fitting for a bike he had already purchased. Bryce is a serious recreational cyclist/racer with way above average ability and potential.
For Julian, he maintained he would never purchase a bike without taking such measures to ensure he purchased the proper bike for his build. For Bryce, he discovered he had purchased the wrong size bike in the first place! Was this an error? Could this be an expensive mistake? In Bryce’s case, the fitter went to great lengths to try and make the bike fit the rider, but there were a number of compromises that were not the most desirable. All because the bike frame was one size too large. What does this mean for Bryce? In his case he will make do with a bike that ultimately compromises his performance to some degree. Ask him now if he will ever buy another bike without first getting measured and fit professionally and he will assure you he will never try and pinch pennies like this again!
Alas, the final choice is yours and you will never really know the true value of this service until you give in and subject yourself or your wife to it.
I hope she and you enjoy her new bike and that she truly enjoys her cycling experience.
Oh, by the way, many/most bike fittings don’t cost extra if you purchase the bike from the shop that does the fitting. Even when and if you “prepay” for a fitting, when and if you purchase the bike from them they will discount the cost of the bike by the cost of the fitting. You see, the fitting is actually good insurance for the bike shop that you or your wife ends up with the correct size bike and you or she have a great cycling experience and that when and if you decide its time for another bike, why wouldn’t you desire to repeat such a positive purchase experience?
Then again, you could save even more money by just going to Walmart and getting a really low price on a bike!
disclaimer: I am not employed by any segment of the bicycle industry. I am merely commenting on my own personal bicycle purchase experiences and those of others who I have personal knowledge of. FWIW.
“I figured it would end up here, just not so soon.”
Well even the title of your thread ie tall leggy lady sounds like you were kinda asking for it. So maybe you should have re-worded the title a little if you indeed did not want it to ‘come here.’ Well bike fit is not really a gender thing. A guy with the same inseam measurement would start with the same starting point on frame size so there’s no real need to emphasize the leggy lady bit.
Having cleared that up sounds like a 56 frame should be OK too as it is better to go smaller than bigger. The easiest thing to adjust in bike fit is the leg reach suitability, simply by adjusting the saddle height from the seatpost setting. All of us whether male or female don’t have exactly the same body ergonomics and different brands of bikes with same frame sizes do have different top tube lengths. The trick is to find the most suitable top tube length and then fine tune reach and positioning through stem length and handlebar height adjustment after setting the saddle position for max power transfer. Again it is better to have a slightly shorter top tube to tune out to fit rather than a top tube that’s too long and try to shorten with a ridiculously short steering stem. An oversized frame tends to feel cumbersome.
kdw - “I am 5’10” and have relatively long legs/short torso and am on a 54" soloist."
usagold98 - “I am 5’8” (female) with a 33" inseam…I am VERY happy on my 57cm ELITE T-Class…"
gonzobob - “I’m 5’9” with 33.5" inseam and I ride a 56cm road bike with a 56cm top tube and a 100mm stem."
Above are some examples of postings right here. Notice the big discrepancies and I bet each one reckons they got the best fit. The one I’m a bit confused about is how usagold at 5’8" ends up taking a 57cm frame unless that special custom frame design has a very short top tube to seat tube ratio or unless gold has arms like a chimp.
I’m no expert but here’s some amateur analysing on my part. Firstly as I pointed out above, no one really has matching body ergonomics or proportions. 2 people may be of the same height or even same inseam but their arms could be different lengths. Even if their arms were the same length one person by virtue of his muscle strength or angles in his upper body structure could feel more comfy reaching out further than the other guy. Don’t forget we are talking about differences of a mere cm here or there to make the big diff.
What I reckon is there are general guidelines for frame size for example keeping in mind again different models have different top tube ratios.
For example kdw’s 54cm sounds about right for his 5’10" frame cuz Cervellos tend to have top tubes on the longer side. If he was going with many of the Italian brands a 56cm frame could also be viable though as mentioned a 54cm frame can always be stretched out quite nicely through the steering stem if necessary.
For gonzobob at 5’9" unless he has long arms or feels comfy with a longer than average reach or if his bicycle frame design has a shorter than average top tube …for most bikes he would be better off with a 54cm or even 52cm frame and tuning fit in from there.
Well I’m 5’8", and both bikes I’ve owned before have been 52cm sized frames recommended by separate shops for one Giant and one Cervello. For both bikes despite shortening the steering stem I found that when cruising I find myself positioning my hands an inch before the hoods because if I try riding in the cradle of the hoods for too long I am reaching too far and getting cramps in my forearms and arms. Trouble is holding the handlebars like tat are hard on my wrists and I need to grip harder without hood support which tires my fingers. So when I went to buy my latest Cannondale Cat8, despite what the 3rd shop recommended, 52cm after measuring my inseem again, I measured the top tube which was similar to my previous 2 bikes and opted for a smaller 50cm frame.
Now finally I’ve got a sweet riding position and a bike fit which I can put the power down nicely. The moral of the story? No one knows better the best fit for your bike than you. Problem is it requires a little trial and error to get it right.