Retro mountain bike step-throughs?

[Tad]

Re:

Just for Tintin, a Trimble!

EDIT: Sorry, you wanted a bike not a canoe.

 

[mk one]

Some nice early Marins coming up on ebay pretty regular at moment.

How tall is she? the thing with xs frames is you loose the reach, if she is taller then she will be cramped.

 

[walkbythesea]

Re: Re:

the trouble with step throughs is the structural rigidity is less than a frame with a crossbar. More of an issue with frames exposed to greater stresses, MTBs, road bikes used for racing etc. So my question would be why ? My Mrs is 5ft so finding suitable frames has been a challenge with stand over height which would go away with a step through but actually she has opted for a very small mtb frame

so my question is why a step through mtb ?

Totally agree structurally! But partially it's a real lack of confidence with cycling generally, she never really learned as a child so getting into it as an adult has been tough for her. She also only had bikes that were why too big for her before we met. She has developed confidence through getting a bike she loved, a baby blue step-through city bike, but it's no good in the forest so part of the baby steps change for her is to find a "mountain" bike that is actually really familiar to the bike she already has, just with fatter tyres and lower gears - this frame really won't be put under any scary stresses, just leisurely gravel rides.

Does it have to be retro?
Does it have to be a top end build?

Orange in XS - P7, O2 evo - the 14” frame (12” c bb to c tt) give you a very low standover height, and are brilliant things. I sold one recently here for 120gb frame, F7 forks, and headset.

And the XS O2 evo went round the corner to a friend’s daughter a couple of weeks ago, as a complete build.

Oh...and the XS C16R in slime green went as a full build to a different household in the village.

They come up reasonably regularly - great things. Later ones have disc mounts. Very light. They make excellent road bikes as well as mtbs.

Modern things with very low standover include the brilliant Ragley Marley. I built a medium for the Grom - 27.5 wheeled thing - HUGE bike. Very low standover. It looks like the top tube is down near his ankles when he is riding. I got the frame (2019 model) for 300 and built it from there - very strong, very light. Lovely thing.

I agree with all of the above, but as I say above, she actually wants something pretty low end but familiar to what she has had until she decides she likes off road riding and gets something better or decides it's not for her. Don't want to spend the cash on a "decent" bike yet.

She originally said she'd only consider a step through but is now open to a very small diamond frame, but I think that will be the bike after this one...

Some nice early Marins coming up on ebay pretty regular at moment.

How tall is she? the thing with xs frames is you loose the reach, if she is taller then she will be cramped.

5'4", a few have come out of the woodwork since I asked the question, one of which is a Marin - waiting for pictures and confirmation that it's actually for sale!

 

[walkbythesea]

Contrary to most MTB riding positions she also needs a very "sit up and beg" riding stance to take pressure off her wrists as she broke them both simultaneously as a child and they give her grief as an adult - most retro MTB step-throughs seem to still promote that position as none of them were "race oriented" due to the structural design problems or excess weight. All she really wants is fat knobbly tyres and low low gears.

 

[walkbythesea]

Picked this up for her today, everything works, it’s not even as heavy as it looks, bargain.

 

[legrandefromage]

That 100GS chainset will weigh more than your i10

 

[walkbythesea]

That 100GS chainset will weigh more than your i10

Ain’t that the truth! Took a 200gs off my skip Muirwoods, feels like it was at least 2/3 of the frame weight