Trek make a wide range of women’s specific bikes, and they’re proud of the effort they put into making sure they’re genuine. We spoke to Trek’s own ‘Media Maven’, Chris Garrison: 

Observations

“Trek has been making bikes for women for over 15 years, and it all started with some observation on lunch time rides in Wisconsin, where product managers saw the women on the ride having a different experience on bikes in terms of comfort. This lead to research during which we learned that the pelvic structural differences between women and men play a pivotal role in bike fit.

“In short, as we evolved, the shape and position of the female pelvis had to adapt to be able to support weight during pregnancy while walking on two feet. This change also lead to more flexibility in the lower spine (known as lordosis) It was due to this anatomical difference that Trek first started making bikes with Women’s Specific Design.

“Later, we went on to design mountain bikes with a different leverage ratio to improve the suspension performance for lighter riders. It was never about the myth of longer legs and shorter torsos, which we found no evidence to substantiate. It was always about centre of gravity placement, lumbar spine flexibility, and performance expectations of women who ride. This has been the primary ethos that we’ve been teaching women and retailers for the last 15 years.

“We still feel that for many, WSD geometry (or MTB tech features) makes the most sense because it means that out of the box, there are less changes required to make a bike fit a rider. But we also know that as more women get into racing, and technical mountain riding, that they have different requirements for how those bikes work for them, and how they want to achieve confidence when they ride.

So, now we make changes that matter for the way women want to ride, as well as how easily they achieve comfort. Pro women might not ride bikes with WSD geometry, for example, but that in no way means that how they fit on their bikes doesn’t matter. It absolutely does.

“Ultimately, it comes down to making sure the bike fits a riders’ natural alignment, rather than forcing the anatomy to adapt to the bike. And from there, it’s about making sure the bike matches the performance requirements for each and every woman.”

Trek Don’t “DO” Marketing Hype

Garrison is keen to explain that though some brands do just create a women’s bike to meet marketing needs – Trek aren’t one of them. She said:

A blanket statement that ‘it’s all just marketing hype’ is not only incredulous, it also discounts the huge effort that many manufacturers make to produce high quality bikes that meet the requirements of women of any rider type.

“For Trek, it costs thousands and thousands of pounds to develop one bike model. Particularly for something like a carbon bike. We make all of our own carbon tooling for bikes manufactured in Wisconsin. Each mold can cost up to $50k (sometimes more), just to make one particular part of a bike. That’s just for ONE tool used to manufacture ONE size of ONE model. As you can imagine, there are economies of scale that go from that point that include the R&D process, testing phase, production, making noise about it in the media and to the public, and global shipping.”