On Friday, October 26, 2018 at 4:03:53 PM UTC+1, Emanuel Berg wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:

which led me to look into other fat tyres but
there's nothing quite like the Big Apple for
comfort and, surprisingly, speed and control
at speed, so I just fitted the same again.

There seems to be Big Apples in different
sizes... [1]

Yes. Most of my bikes are Dutch commuter types with some kind extra edge, called "vakansiefietse", luxurious holiday bikes. But one is a very well developed modern copy of the 1936 Locomotive Unisex Crossframe Deluxe, which was kept in production by Gazelle until 1963 as the "priester rijwiel" (priest's bicycle, for priests who typically wore long coats with a division front and rear so they could ride a bicycle). The development by Utopia of Germany with the Dutch firm Van Raam as their technical partner was intended to turn it into the world's most capable loaded tourer, in which they succeeded. But the price of the bike, and its features, were such that solid citizens bought it as an everyday bike, a utility bike, a bike to speed down Alpine passes with confidence, a shopping bike. The keys are that the redevelopment centred around the biggest Big Apple, 60x622, for which the bike was designed from the ground up, and the very stiff three-dimensional cross frame it inherited from the Locomotief bestseller for which the tubes and lugs for the modernized version were specially developed and drawn by Columbus of Italy whose main business is chasses for Ferrari. The result is an awesomely competent bike. Mine has coachlines painted by Meister Kluwer in his 89th year; he worked with the designer of the Locomotive Unisex Crossframe Deluxe in 1935 and the next year when the bike was put into series production worked on the line; Volkswagen a couple of years ago made a big search for the best European craftsman, and chose Meister Kluwer.

The late Herr Kalkhoff of Hannover, who put the Pedersen back into modern production, used to say that the 50mm Big Apple is almost as good as the 60mm, but the last photo of him I saw showed that he took the mudguards off his personal Pedersen to be able to fit 60mm Big Apples.

I have Maxxis Ikon 57-622 (or 29x2.20") and the
comfort and speed is amazing. Now that MTBs are
so fast I think the common guy should get
a MTB, rather than a road bike, if [s]he is
only getting one bike. It is more adventurous,
much better suited as a utility, and also more
creative, as you can put on lots of extra stuff
without having to really worry about making the
bike too heavy. It is more versatile, and fun.
Expensive road bikes will be for the cycling
elite is my prediction, that is with the whole
lycra and helmet gear, cycling almost
exclusively for the sake of cycling...

That's already the case in nations in Europe where cycling is the norm rather than the exception. All my Dutch commuter bikes have frames that can double as mountain bikes, and I go offroad on them when they're fitted with Schwalbe's Marathon Plus tyres, and my Trek Smover (from the Benelux Trek Design Office, not the American one) with electronic automatic gears and active suspension, designed as an ultra-luxe tourer for the finicky Dutch, is built on a frame that also did duty under their more expensive mountain bikes; it works well.

I don't have any lycra; I have rippling muscles instead, and in summer I tie a silk shirt made without any buttons under my navel. Generally speaking, I just cycle in what I'm wearing, which could be khakis or a pinstripe suit or an artist's leather smock which is great when it is cold and the wind hunches the lycra fashion queens over on their bikes with pained expressions on their faces. I developed my bike thoroughly for minimum service and zero cleaning, so it doesn't matter what I wear as it won't get dirty.

But I wear a helmet on all rides, first of all because the visor has saved my face on several occasions (I had plastic surgery in Switzerland after a motor racing incident many years ago in which I was burned, and I'm not planning on having any more), and secondly because I'm so fair-skinned that without a hat of some kind I burn even in the mild sun of Ireland; oddly enough, the easiest hat to control on a bicycle is a cycling helmet.

Andre Jute
Can't stand the clowns who think it essential for a cyclist to suffer, and to show he's suffering