Be“spoke”: the CMU alumna who re-engineered the bicycle for women
Georgena Terry (MechE ’80) built the first custom bikes created specifically for women, leading a new industry, influencing an entire sport, and blazing a trail to the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame.
To fully understand the impact on cycling that Georgena Terry (MechE ’80) has had, it’s important to understand a bit of her philosophy: that is, her philosophy on bikes themselves and the freedom they give the rider.
“The bicycle is an extension of your body. You are not separate from the bike, you are both one, and you help each other,” said Terry. “I treat my bikes like they are human beings. For me, when I get on a bike I’m inserted into nature and we are able to experience and enjoy everything that’s happening together, whether it’s rainy, snowy, sunny, windy, whether the terrain is going up, down, or sideways.”
Terry has been an avid cyclist since her childhood in Montgomery, Alabama. While the famously hilly, winding terrain of Pittsburgh may be confounding to some, Terry found it to be a welcome perk of studying engineering at CMU. For fun, she and her biking pals would challenge each other to climb some of the city’s most grueling hills.
Georgena Terry attending the RAGBRAI cycling event in Iowa, circa 1984
“If you can ride in Pittsburgh, you can ride anywhere,” she said.
While working on her senior project, she picked up a brazing torch for the first time. But it certainly wouldn’t be the last time. “That experience stuck with me, and I think of that every time I pick up a torch,” Terry said. “Looking back, I wish I had been at CMU for longer, my education was enlightening, and I was having such a good time.”
Shortly after graduating from CMU, Terry moved to Rochester, New York to take a job with Xerox. In her spare time, she started applying her mechanical engineering knowledge in an unexpected way—building custom bicycle frames in her basement. Her very first hand-built bike was a duplicate of the Schwinn she was riding at the time. She immediately noticed aspects of the design that she thought she could improve upon, and it wasn’t long before she turned her attention to building bikes full time.
“I was thinking about CMU all the time,” said Terry. “When you’re building something custom, the basic principles of mechanics apply to everything you’re doing. Every customer is different, so every custom bike is different. Each project is like a puzzle you have to solve.”
As word spread locally that Terry was the go-to person for bespoke bicycles, she started to notice something in her clientele: many of them were women who lamented that the bikes on the market simply didn’t fit them. It was the 1980s, and in Terry’s estimation, women (especially smaller women) were an entire market that was being ignored by the cycling industry.
When you’re building something custom, the basic principles of mechanics apply to everything you’re doing.
Georgena Terry, Founder, Terry Cycling, MechE ’80
“I heard from so many women that riding their bike would cause back and neck problems because they were too stretched out on the bike, and they didn’t feel fully in control,” said Terry. That got her thinking that maybe it wasn’t just a matter of making bikes for women smaller; maybe the entire geometry of the bike needed to be reimagined to better suit women on an anatomical level. As it turns out, this was a breakthrough.
Terry started exhibiting her custom-built designs at cycling rallies and her bikes got a lot of attention, from women and men who took them for a test spin. Her company, Terry Precision Bicycles for Women (now Terry Cycling), started to take off.
In fact, demand scaled up so quickly that she could no longer build the bikes herself. Terry partnered with a manufacturer in Japan that would build a size range of bikes to her unique specifications. This arrangement allowed her to continue designing each bike (while also bringing down the cost) as the company continued to grow.
Georgena Terry (center, behind the vehicle) with her senior project team. Her team built a novel pedal-powered vehicle.
In the years that followed, Terry Cycling expanded into other markets including biking saddles, apparel, and other gear. However, the custom work was always closest to Terry’s heart. In 2009, she sold her interest in Terry Cycling to return her focus to one-on-one custom building. She still sweats over every design.
Over the course of her career, Terry and her company’s products have earned many awards and industry accolades, recognizing her many contributions and innovative products that have changed the world of cycling. In October, she will be inducted into the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Chicago.
“It’s an honor and I’m excited to go to the induction and see the other people in my cohort,” said Terry. She added, “It’s really pretty cool! To know that they realized I had been doing something all this time; it’s very fulfilling and felt very special to get that news.”
Fittingly, when Terry’s induction was announced last year, the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame had to create a new award category to properly recognize her pioneering legacy: “Contributor to the Sport in General.” The institution just recently announced three additional inductees for that brand new category—Glenn Curtiss and the Wright Brothers. That pretty much says it all.
Pictured, top: Terry in her workshop with one of her custom bicycle designs