That's what Corrie said as we stopped at a stoplight, mere minutes after she picked up her new bike. She turned to me with a goofy grin and enthusiastically uttered that phrase. Her bike, while new to her, was not a brand new bicycle.
The first two wheeled contraption was made of wood and steel and powered by a Fred Flintstone-like foot-power. It was French, like many of the subsequent bicycle innovations throughout the years.
A few years later, the first real two wheeled machine with pedals designed for mass production was introduced, and left lots to be desired. It was called then, and still known today as, the "boneshaker". It had a hard wood seat, pedals on the front wheel, and both wheels were made of cast iron, mimicking a train. Imagine how light and fun that would have been to ride.
The real innovation here was the pedals. That moved the motion of propelling to a central position. A hand brake, also designed from a railroad background, made stopping at least an idea.
Those "old timey" bikes that we think of fondly, the penny-farthings, with the very large front wheel and tiny rear wheel, were a welcomed replacement. Again, pedals adorned the front wheel, which had a tire made of hard rubber. These bikes became extremely popular, and were the first things actually called "bicycles". The large front wheel, while silly looking by today's standards, serves a very real purpose: because there were no chains or gears, the larger the power gear--in this case the front wheel--the faster you could go. The large front wheel made greater speeds available. In bikes with gears and chains, the smallest sprocket is the fastest gear because of the ratio of the diameters.
What we consider "bikes" today were originally called "safety bikes", in opposition to the penny-farthings, because riding them reduced the chances of having a header. Riders of retronymed "ordinary bikes" had a propensity for flying over the handle bars and cracking their skulls on the ground, an action that earned the name "header".
Safety bikes got chains, and later gears, again innovations from France.
In 2003, when Corrie was living in Chicago before leaving for SF and then overseas, I bought a Raleigh SC 40. I believe the SC meant Sport Comfort. In any case, the bike had a mildly raked center bar. In road bikes, the center bar is generally parallel to the ground. The bike I bought had a center bar at a slight angle. It was a wonderfully comfortable bike that I used a commuter and my main transportation in San Luis Obispo during my last few years of college and living there. It was worn out (I crashed it pretty bad one time) and needed lots of attention, and I gave it away to a neighbor before leaving for New York (limited space).
Since then, I've been wanting a bicycle. We never made it happen in Brooklyn, or Austin, but we have since we returned to California. I wasn't sure what I wanted, except that I didn't want a heavy, single geared cruiser. I got varying advice from people before doing my own research. I was pretty sure I didn't want real road bike, with my ass in the air and back hunched over. After renting a bike from a company, I figured that I may not really want a hybrid, since it was hell on my knees, and I still wasn't sure what a "hybrid" was. I wasn't sure how much riding through the mountains I'd be doing, and full suspension I wasn't really sure I needed either, especially if I was going to be touring through Long Beach and the other LA beach communities, so that made me go easy on looking at mountain bikes.
What does that leave? I found out that the answer is actually known as a roadster bike, but that's for later.
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