Smaller Size Woman's Bike Question

It's pretty normal for any size bike in my experience.  On my tri, road, and pretty sure my moutain bike if my feet are incorrectly placed when making a very tight turn the wheel will indeed hit my foot.

trav

Yes, that is likely normal for very sharp turns. Like in the driveway or tight u-turn. It's more common on smaller frames than larger ones. My toes can touch the wheel on my 58 road bike.

There is plenty of room when she's turning with any sort of speed, right?

Yep, very tight turns, as in U-turns, as previous poster mentioned outside foot should be at six o'clock.  If she ever does a race where the bike portion is an out and back it may be an issue at the turn around.  She just needs to be aware of her foot placement.

trav

Yes, it's not out of the ordinary, apparently.

My wife and I have been researching road bike options for our 10-year old daughter (we don't want to spend a ton, but also want something that will work well for more than a season), and came across this very useful article on the different compromises that come with the design of smaller bikes. It includes the foot overlap issue that you describe.

http://www.rodbikes.com/blog/?p=355

Depends on the geometry of her bike and her fit on the bike.

I have 5 bikes (all are 51 or 52s) and no toe overlap on 4 of them just on my cyclocross bike not my road or tri bikes.

When I corner with speed my outside foot is down at 6 o'clock and my inside foot is at 12 o'clock during the turn portion of the corner which would be impossible in that position to have toe overlap.

On my cross bike when riding on paths and doing slow riding with often 90+ degree turns I instinctively learned to back pedal around corners I need to pedal so my foot doesn't come in contact with my front tire.

I would suggest you play around and figure out at what type of turn will her shoe touch wheel, by clipping in her shoes and turning the handlebars and seeing the clearance and when it is lost.

One of the big advantages for 650 wheels on smaller bike frames is this plus more that there is no toe overlap and wheels don't force geometry to be a certain way for larger wheels.

Yep - I have a 43 road bike and a 46 tri bike, both with 650 wheels, and have never had this issue.

Kathy is right on.

Funny story. My track bike has a lot of toe overlap. It's custom built, but we didn't really worry about the toe overlap because I am not doing any sharp turns on the track.

Most track races begin with the riders riding up to the rail and hanging on, then letting go and riding down the track on start. I rode up the track and my wheel was turned funny. I can't remember exactly what I did. Then the race started, my toe had overlapped my wheel and it is impossible to turn the wheel back without unclipping. I didn't figure this out before I let going of the rail and I tumbled all the way down. At least it was low speed. I managed not to hit anyone on my way down.