ELITE

This U.S. bike manufacturer owns characteristics unique to it. First, it's one of the few custom bike makers who'll make you a 650c bike in tri geometry. Second, it's quite adept and experienced at that. And finally, its basic stock geometries from which its customs flow are very short and, while it's an open question what women want, short cockpits are what women need, if said woman is short and cycling is what she does.

What Elite does not do is offer the lowest configuration. Certainly its bikes go low enough for the vast majority of riders, even short riders. But, if you're really short, or if you need to be really low in front, there are a half-dozen bikes with front ends slightly lower, and part of that is due to Elite's use of external headsets (Elite is not the only company that feels this is the best way to make a bike).

This company also makes bikes custom. The question is, do you need custom? To put this another way, you can only make the bike so small, and then that's it. If you're 5'2", let's say, you're going to probably need the bike to be made as short and as low as it can be made with 650c wheels, unless you're a disproportionate 5'2". So, if you are 5'2", and you're making the bike with, say, a 78 degree seat angle, and a 48cm top tube, and an 8cm head tube, what is the variance from this you'll want from your custom geometry? How much will this vary from Cervelo's, QR's, Felt's, production geometries?

Typically, when one sees a custom that varies overmuch from the best small-bike tri geometries, frankly speaking it derives from a fit session run amok. It's hard to make a production tri geometry for a 5'3" rider that's better than Cervelo's 48cm, and customs that stray very far from this are generally worse than the production version, regardless of how strange or oblong the customer (and irrespective of the protestations of the fitter whose bright idea generated this weird geometry).

All that established, Elite does make custom bikes, it does understand the processes, and you can get a fully outfitted custom, with custom paint, complete, for as low as the mid-$2000s. Probably the bike is going to cost you double that, if you want something really special. Its Razor Carbon is the top of the line, and bears much in common with Cannondale's top of the line aero carbon tubed, aluminum lugged, Ironman Slice Six 13 si ridden by Faris Al Sultan.

Elite's tri bikes here.