Rant about women's bikes (advice needed)

[benb]

Last night I went with my girlfriend to look at road bikes and find out about getting a fitting... we went to a place that sells Trek, Lemond, Specialized, Cannondale, etc.. as well as selling Serottas and I believe they sell Sevens too.

We were mostly looking at scheduling a fitting session. The shop did not want to do one at all for her, they wanted her to just pick a few bikes out on her own and test ride them. We were a little angry about this. It sounded more like, "You gotta pay your dues and figure it out yourself, if you have to buy 3-4 bikes in the process, we're here to sell them." There almost seemed like there was a dose of "Women don't want road bikes" too.

Here is the thing. She is 5'9". I suspect her inseam is longer then mine. (I'm 6'1".)

The "WSD" bikes we looked at the geometry for appear to top out as 53cm or 54cm frames, maybe one of the companies had a 56cm women's frame... based on her inseam these all seem like they are going to be way too small and we won't get the bars in the right place. Given that her torso is so much smaller then a mans I'm worried about someone throwing her on a men's bike without taking great care.

What should we look for assuming we're not trying to break the bank, would like to avoid custom for now, etc... Any brands we should look for that will have a better range of sizes? Custom stuff is well into the "sticker shock" range for her since she's never even had a road bike. I'd pick up the slack but she doesn't want me to help her out there... there is another expensive gift she wants me saving that money for.

I still gotta go talk to my LBS... see what they say, we'd happily buy the bike there even though it's kind of inconvenient for her as I'd do her maintenance anyway so she wouldn't be having to drive out of her way for basic stuff.