I mentioned in the last sentence of the last post about the roadster. A roadster bicycle and a road bike are different in minor design ways, but these design differences make all the world of difference for the riding experience. On both, roadster and road, the center bar is parallel with the ground. In road bikes, the angle of the rake of the seat pole and the front wheel fork are steeper that in their roadster cousins, making for a more of a hunched, ass in the air ride.
Bikes that used to be called "ladies bikes" are now known as "step-through" frames, and there are two main types. The first type has the center pole at an angle and meeting the seat pole half-way down. This is a popular and comfortable design, but tends to be heavier due to the fact that the design is inherently weaker than the parallel center pole and must be made with thicker steel. The other main step-through type is called a "mixte" frame, and consists of two thin poles leading from the handle bar all the way to the rear axle, connecting with the seat pole along the way.
This is the kind of bike Corrie found:
She's quite lucky to have found this Peugeot Mixte in such good condition, considering it's from 1974. Peugeot, in classic French form, came up with the dual braking system that's so recognizable today. Before it, brakes were either of the back-pedal kind or single pads on each wheel. Corrie's bike has the original brakes, which themselves would cost quite a bundle.
After the stock market crash, bicycle sales came to a near stand still. Seen as a luxury, bikes weren't something regular people spent hard earned money on. Schwinn, trying to start a little something, constructed a children's bike that resembled a motorcycle, fitted it with large balloon tires and the cruiser was born. Cruisers reached their height of popularity in the fifties, and then the English roadsters made their way to America, and their relative lightness and comfort strangled the cruiser's market. (The roadster, being produced in mass quantities in China and India for the African and Asian markets, is considered the most abundant bike in the world today.)
In the seventies, in Marin County, a group of enthusiasts began racing their bikes down the rugged mountain hills. The terrain would occasionally crumble their street bike frames. Eventually these enthusiasts began buying up old cruiser frames at yard sales, outfitting them with hefty wheels and motorcycle brakes, and the basic mountain bike was formed. Today, a characteristic of mountain bikes is the raked center pole and heavy duty wheels, a vestige of their cruiser origins.
"Comfort" bikes and "hybrid" bikes are almost like mountain bike frames that have been de-fitted and dialed back to a kind of road bike style, usually absent of suspension. Poorly made hybrids are bad on your posture and knees, while the best of this kind, comforts, aren't so bad.
When I was in the market for a bike, before doing all of this research, I went to places and rode prospective bikes. Finally, I rode a bike that was affordable, and it was comfortable and smooth, and I bought it:
It's exactly what I originally told myself I didn't want. The company, 3G, is a local cruiser bike designer and manufacturer, which was a draw. The bike is awesome, but heavy.
Here're some badge shots:
Now, we're not quite done with the bike thing...we'd like to have a few more bikes on hand for when we have the rare visitor over. Personally I'm interested in those roadsters. There are some companies that make very nice, very beautiful roadsters: Pashley, from England and Velorbis, from the Netherlands, but their bikes run in the $1200 range. The next step is to purchase a bike from the period of the fifties to the late seventies and either fix it up or have it fixed up.
So, along with researching what cameras we're looking at, I've actually found an old English Raleigh from the seventies that I plan on picking up (on the cheap), and teaching myself how to fix it up. I like the idea of making myself more mechanically advanced.
Here're some parting shots of our bikes:
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