I imagine it came from the idea that in the early years of bicycle development, women often wore dresses or skirts. Trying to mount a bike with the higher middle bar would have been difficult and could have presented safety concerns when riding if you were wearing a dress. Over time, many bikes are becoming more androgynous but women’s bikes still have slightly lower bars.

Dresses and bits.

It’s just styling and marketing now.

So that a woman could mount a bike in a skirt without (potentially) exposing anything.

It‘s not “gender segregation”, they don’t have to be parked in different racks.

And mounting and dismounting while wearing any kind of a skirted thing is easier if the bar is much lower, and it tends to be easier for short people, as well.

The real discrimination these days is between racing bikes (narrow tires, more sophisticated gear shifting mechanism and built for speed) versus mountain bikes (wide tires, normally much deeper treads on the tires, fewer gears).

Both carry people on bicycles, but there is a huge difference in the social milieu of mountain bike riders versus racing bike riders.

@elbanditoroso Not really, I do both frequently and the people are mostly the same. The difference is that the experience of mountain biking and road biking are two different but intersecting worlds.

@Blackwater_Park in the bicycle riders I know (I know some of each) there is definitely dichotomy; each group looks down at the other.

Now that women don’t usually wear dresses when cycling, that “women’s design” top tube isn’t as important anymore. I would contend that nowadays men need more stand-over height than women due to having our naughty bits near the top tube. Certain types of crashes lead to the bits smashing into the top tube.

@elbanditoroso I was like that when I favored mountain biking. Younger riders have that attitude. Most of the people I rode with when I was younger have adopted road biking out of necessity (time constraints) I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do. Sorry I missed out on it all those years.

@RocketGuy I’ve seen your naughty bits. They’re not that big.

Big enough to get caught on the top tube. Why has the top tube never found yours?

All I’ll say is they make guards over the chain and cranks for a good reason.

As a female, I can verify empirically that females have problems ‘smashing’ into the bar too, even on a “girl’s bike”.

@RocketGuy Well played. Point to you. :-)