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So I had heard that women's bikes were designed that way to allow room for riding in a dress. Apparently people still do this: https://letsgorideabike.com/2012

• soylentcola 10y ago
  That's exactly what I've always been told. If you're wearing a skirt/dress, the bar on a guy's bike will push your skirt up and create a scandal :O So "girls' bikes" have a dip in the bar so there's room for a skirt/dress. Still, I wonder if there's a reason they just didn't make all bikes like this to make it cheaper for the manufacturers. I'd imagine the straight bar could offer more rigidity or I guess maybe it costs slightly more to make the curved version with a longer bar and the process of making the curve. If that's the case, I guess margin-shaving bike manufacturers only made as many of the curved model cycles as they had to in order to address the demand from skirt/dress-wearing customers.