Sweet Bikes
I’ve always been different from other girls…
So perhaps I have a different perspective. I’m planning to replace my everyday commuter bike this year and I’ve been test riding several bikes to feel out my options. However some of them seem to be marketed to some other audience…
Yet sales people seem eager to push me in this direction as if there’s no doubt this is what I’m looking for. After all, I’m a girl, right?
I like cupcakes, but I don’t intend to ride one around the city. However, if I could somehow get a bike with this personality:
Now that would be a sweet bike.
And that’s how I became a framebuilder. The desire to own a very specific bike.
Dan, I’m not a framebuilder (yet!), but I can totally relate to that sentiment!
As much as I love the comedy of the drawings (cause let’s face it, they’re awesome!) I will never get the idea of using a road-bike for inner city commuting. It seems so wrong. ‘Sex kitten posture’ gives you a much better view over the traffic, and lets you keep an eye out for the traffic, rather than being curled up in your own little world of your bike.
Which tyres survives the ever ongoing and horrifically annoying potholes the best – The thin tyres of a road bike or the fat tyres of a dutch styled bike?
And then I’ll cite Michael from Copenhagenize – “Dress for the destination, not the ride”. To me it seems like the only sensible way to get around within the city, no distance within the city (London, in my case) will be long enough to have to put on special cycling gear. I get it if you have to travel 15 km or more for your daily commute, but anything less than that could easily be done in a dress and heels (if you’re more of a jeans and tshirt type of girl, that actually works out very well also – who knew!) – if your bike allows for that sort of action. And with the poor infrastructure of most cities located anywhere away from Denmark or the Netherlands, the speed by which you can actually drive on your bike within the city will never really peak enough for you to get sweatty – the constant traffic jams, cars parked on the bike lanes, red lights, etc. will keep you at a speed where a pretty little dress will do you just as good.
Personally I wouldn’t know how to survive without my dutch style bike with its big wicker baskets and easy rideability. It get’s me from A to B on my daily commute much easier than any other bike I’ve ever owned. Only downside will be the weight when carrying up the stairs to my flat, but people could choose a more lightweight edition than my 25 kg green monster, that’s for sure!
Before I moved to London I would have two bikes, one road bike and an urban dutch style bike, because if you do travel more than 50 km in a day, it gets a little heavy on a dutch style bike, I must agree on that. Although the other day I did a big bunch of errands on my dutch styled bike, which ended up at a total of more than a 100 km in a day, but because it was still city cycling it was actually great.
That be said, all of the above could apply to men as well – I know nothing better than seeing a dapper man in tweed cruising next to me on this green retro Pashley. Oh, se THAT get’s my heat pumping 🙂 A man all dressed up in cycling gear with a brand new carbon bike makes cycling look hard, unachievable and expensive – nothing I would wish to portray cycling as 🙂
http://www.sweetpeabicycles.com/
They are way on the other side of the country. But their gallery contains what I think you are looking for, and their blogs describe what they were solving for. Select the ones closest to your desire, and take it to a local frame builder – you have so many to choose from in Boston! – like RH Cycles, or call Sweetpea.
Epic Wheels in Portland makes awesome wheels, and if you get a complete bike from Portland, you should spec out her wheels.
I gave my sweetie the Sweetpea “A-Line” for her birthday a couple years back, and now she’s my fiance’e!
She really likes the mixte frame for all her stylish outfits, but she’s a steel-willed biking gal if ever there was one. The bike has a nice balance of upright posture, but lightweight and ready to roll.
(Myself, I ride the family station Xtracycle to work most days. Great for bringing home the kitty litter.)
I’m a big fan of the crank forward upright posture also. That is the way Blue is set up, with a pair of 40 pound capacity kitty litter buckets bolted to the rack for cargo capacity. Also a set of huge polished stainless steel fenders to keep the muck off my legs. I was able to quit shaving my legs when shorts weather came because I quit having to treat all those little cuts in my legs from trash that was picked up and thrown from the front tire. Of course all this hanging off the bike and the upright posture means I have a cruise speed of barely 15 MPH on a good day, and I plan trips based on a 10 MPH average speed with stops.
As always, great illustrations, and I love the characterizations of the different bikes! As far as I’m concerned, anything by Surly is a solid bet for a bike that is practical, well built, and intended to be used on a regular basis. Give them a try—plus, since most of their stuff is sold as frames only, you can build it up however you’d like.