Every year we like to work on a project over the winter and this year we've decided to help a customer build up a bike for his wife. There are a lot of women specific bikes out there today compared to years past where it was simply getting a smaller frame. There are women specific parts and accessories from clothes to saddles to grips so the biking industry has certainly come a long way. While there are a lot of choices from different manufacturers for pre-built bikes, what about standard build kits? From what we can tell, there are no specific women build kits available if someone wanted to buy a frame and a kit separately. The kits are typically Groupo based, so it's either an LX, XT, XTR or SRAM equivalent. There are no women tailored kits available.
So we've decided to work with our customer to come up with a build kit that is suitable for his wife tailored for the female rider in mind. We're going to use a Titus for a lightweight full suspension frame and will pick out parts along the way that are practical, fit well for the rider and offer the performance that she demands. We have some parts in mind already but it'll be changing as we go along until we get to the final build. We've had experience before with Titus before regarding women specific builds and they've been championing the cause long before it became "fashionable" so we're very comfortable with Titus and the frames they offer.
As always, we'll be posting weights of the parts along with lots of pictures along the way as we progress through the process. The goal in the end is to help other female riders pick out parts and an example so to save them time and money when they go looking for a new bike. We strongly feel that a person will ride more and better if they're on a well fitting bike with parts that perform reliably and comfortably.
Update: Frame/fork has been ordered and the parts list is coming along nicely. Will provide updates as parts arrive. We'll provide a final build kit as well as our thoughts during the build
Team Spokewrench
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