Spokeswoman

Georgena Terry, erstwhile financial analyst, stockbroker, student, and engineer, has finally found a home: making bikes that really are built for women

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There was nothing astonishing about the idea. Two years ago, Georgena Terry, then a 34-year-old M.B.A. whose career path might charitably be described as eclectic, decided to start building bicycles. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, there is a reason.

It wasn't.

Oh, sure, she'd specialize in high-priced women's bikes, carving out a niche just as they taught her at The Wharton School of Business. But the $1.3-billion bicycle industry didn't tremble at the thought of the diminutive Terry picking up a wrench. True, she might have an interesting twist: her bikes would have a shorter top tube and some would have a slightly smaller front wheel that could provide a more comfortable ride to women cyclists who put in 30, 40, or 50 miles at a clip -- but who rides that far? Most folks -- women or otherwise -- just use their bikes to pedal down to the Dairy Queen or tool around the neighborhood on Sunday afternoons. Besides, if it turned out she had something, the industry could always wheel out a knockoff. Her design wasn't patented, and with the exception of the frame, which Terry makes herself, all her components are bought off the shelf.

So when Terry set up shop in a crumbling industrial park in E. Rochester, N.Y., no one noticed. But they are noticing now. In 1985, Terry Precision Bicycles for Women Inc. sold 20 bikes. Last year it shipped 1,300, and this year it should sell 5,000 more, pushing revenues from both sales and licensing to about $1.8 million.

Suddenly, her banker is more friendly, the bicycle magazines are calling to ask what she thinks about this or that, and oh, yes, the folks at Schwinn Bicycle Co. -- the makers of the first bike her parents bought her 25 years ago -- have suggested she stop by whenever she's in town. Says Terry: "It feels just great. It is a wonderful sense of independence."

It took a while to get there. Growing up in Montgomery, Ala., Terry didn't fit in. She loved science, math, and taking things apart -- her parents still have the remains of watches she never did manage to fix -- but a generation ago only boys were encouraged to pursue these things. So she majored in theater arts in college, "although I gravitated toward the technical end -- stage manager, lighting, that sort of thing."

There wasn't much demand for stage managers, so she went on to Wharton, and then ambled off to PPG Industries Inc. as a financial analyst "like I was supposed to. But I hated it. All I did was push numbers around." So she moved over to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith as a stockbroker. That was "boring." Concerned she'd never find a job she liked, Terry took an aptitude test that showed she'd make a terrific engineer. Two years later, she had a science degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and a job at Xerox Corp., in Rochester, N.Y. Two years after that, she was miserable again.

"I finally understood I don't like working for other people," says Terry. "I like to be in control. I hate flying, because someone else is the pilot. On dates, I like to bring my own car."

So she simply stopped working for other people. "I headed off to my basement with my blowtorch and started making bicycle frames."

Excuse us. You went to your basement with what?

Maybe, Terry concedes, a little background would help.

While working at Xerox, she made friends with lots of people who rode bikes. And Terry, who had stopped bicycling once she got her driver's license, found she liked taking long rides with them. Normally, her physical activity is limited. Terry contracted polio as a child and she needs a crutch after walking long distances, but she could ride bikes forever. And she could also take them apart.

She spent a lot of time doing just that, trying to find a comfortable riding position. "The standard bicycle -- even a woman's bike -- is designed for a man. To fit women, who have longer legs and shorter torsos, bike shops shove the seat forward and tilt the handlebars back." That didn't help the five-foot-two, 98-pound Terry. She began wondering if shortening the frame would improve things. So she went down to the basement with the blowtorch -- "a friend showed me how to use it so I wouldn't kill myself" -- and came back up with a bike that had a smaller frame.

Friends saw it, borrowed it, and asked if she'd make frames for them. Terry took a three-month leave from Xerox, and two years later she was still turning out frames and making a living -- sort of.

"Then yuppiedom hit and I got tired of just getting by." It was time to start a company. Bicycling was undergoing a mini-boom and she knew how to make frames, so why not make the whole bike? Seventy percent of all new riders are women, so she'd specialize in women's bikes. She looked at the specifications of the 30 frames she had made for women -- "the data base wasn't all that large, but you have to start somewhere" -- and decided on four sizes.

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