Help with building a bike for my wife - back injury
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Hello everyone,
My favorite bikes are nice steel frame road and mountain bikes, and although a novice (compared to all of you) I've really enjoyed fully stripping down and building up the 4 steel bikes I've got.
I'd like to build up a bike for my wife to ride with me, but she has back problems resulting in difficulties with much of a forward leaning position. Several back surgeries have left her lower back unable to bend, so she'd need a very upright riding position.
On most bikes she has to keep the seat too low to avoid bending her lower back, leading to very inefficient pedaling.
Are there any nice vintage road/mountain bikes with longer seat tubes, but relatively short top tubes that I could put a tall set of bars on? Riding in the drops would be completely out, so I'm thinking maybe an older mountain bike would work well as a starting point. Do you all think it would be best to start with a pretty small size and a long seat post (shorter top tube) or a larger frame with the correct seat tube length and some sort of swept back bars?
I'm open to any suggestions - I'm also not sure how adding taller/more swept back handle bars will effect the handling/steering.
Riding would be mostly on street/gravel roads.
Thank you for any input, it is much appreciated!
My favorite bikes are nice steel frame road and mountain bikes, and although a novice (compared to all of you) I've really enjoyed fully stripping down and building up the 4 steel bikes I've got.
I'd like to build up a bike for my wife to ride with me, but she has back problems resulting in difficulties with much of a forward leaning position. Several back surgeries have left her lower back unable to bend, so she'd need a very upright riding position.
On most bikes she has to keep the seat too low to avoid bending her lower back, leading to very inefficient pedaling.
Are there any nice vintage road/mountain bikes with longer seat tubes, but relatively short top tubes that I could put a tall set of bars on? Riding in the drops would be completely out, so I'm thinking maybe an older mountain bike would work well as a starting point. Do you all think it would be best to start with a pretty small size and a long seat post (shorter top tube) or a larger frame with the correct seat tube length and some sort of swept back bars?
I'm open to any suggestions - I'm also not sure how adding taller/more swept back handle bars will effect the handling/steering.
Riding would be mostly on street/gravel roads.
Thank you for any input, it is much appreciated!