Flat Bar Road Bikes with Low Step-Over, i.e Mixte

On 4/25/2015 10:14 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 7:18:22 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 9:57:51 PM UTC+1, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 4:26:57 PM UTC-4, Andre Jute wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 7:15:35 PM UTC+1, sms wrote:

The closest thing I could find at an LBS in a non-boutique are is the
Fuji Stagger series at Performance, the only one they actually stock is
the "Fuji Absolute 1.7 Stagger Women's Flat Bar Road Bike - 2014"
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...74_-1___000000

That bike will cost you more to make it habitable than you save on not buying a proper bike in the first instance. Here's an incomplete list of just some of the larger items you will have to buy extra, that you get on a proper bike like a Gazelle, which doesn't cost all that much mo

Mudguards
Rack
Chain guard
Ergonomic handlebars
Front Lamp
Rear Lamp
Wheel with hub dynamo to drive lamps
Pump
Flatproof tyres
Emergency toolkit
Bag for tools

[SOON] New transmission because the Alivio set is pretty bargain basement and won't last long

That thing is an incomplete project, not a bike!

I'd still change to a bar like the Velo Orange Tourist
http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/components/handlebars/vo-tourist-handlebar-22-2-dia.html

That's a North Road Bar by any other name, with a boutique price. It's very likely made for VO by Kalloy, whose North Road bars I have on all my bikes; I buy them cheap when the local LBSs throw them off when they sell total cycling novices buying a bike on a government scheme an unsuitable bike and then persuade them to fit even more unsuitble "sporting" drop bars. Those bikes end up permanently parked in the garden shed within a week or a fortnight. Kalloy bars are cheap enough and very good; they're found on plenty of upmarket bikes from German and Swiss and Dutch baukasten; my Swiss n'lock came optioned up with a Kalloy North Road bar http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/...26347#msg26347 with a cable inside the handlebar that locks into the n'lock, so it is is a bar of high integrity.

Andre Jute

El Toro Poo Poo!

Many of those items are not needed for casual riding in the daytime. Those items include:


Rack
Chain guard
Ergonomic handlebars
Front Lamp
Rear Lamp
Wheel with hub dynamo to drive lamps
Flatproof tyres


Some are nice to have but are not neccesities:

Pump
Emergency toolkit
Bag for tools

Bicycling does not need to cost a fortune.

What's wrong with getting a nice Mixte frame and then building it up with the components you prefer?

Seems like a lot of bicyclists should be building bicycles since there's nothing available to suit them.

Cheers

I think you're several gross short of a full information set, Rideablot. Mrs Scharf commutes to work on that bike, so she needs mudguard and a chainguard so as not to arrive wet, bedraggled and oily. How is she supposed to attacher her briefcase to the bike if there is no rack? How are drivers in cars supposed to see her on winter days if she has no lamps? Etc, etc, point by point.

In any event, I wasn't so much making a shopping list for Scharfie as listing the essential facilities you get as standard fittings with a nice Dutch bike for not very much more money, and that cost a tremendous amount of money if you have to buy them piecemeal in the overpriced aftermarket.

There's nothing wrong with the bike Scharfie showed us, except if you resent being ripped too much money for too little bike. I'm surprised to find you taking the side of the greedbags who rip unsuspecting cyclists.


Andre, it's $350 USD for this: http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...ed_xi_2100.jpg

I agree that it's a little sketchy buying based on a picture (and some specs), but unless its a miniature desk-top model and not a real bike, then he can't go terribly wrong at that price. It will be heavy -- and the parts will not be terribly durable and some may even die an early death, but I'm sure SMS has enough stuff sitting around he house to fix anything that breaks.

BTW, the whole bike-culture thing in PDX drives up prices for old bikes. https://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/bik/4991766444.html $245 for an old Raleigh mixte bike -- 12 speed with idiot brakes. You can get an old U08 mixte boat-anchor for less, but not a lot -- and none have a triple. $350 seems like quite a deal.

Seems to me there's a lot of over-thinking going on here, based on a
dearth of information.

We don't know anything much about Mrs. Scharf's commuting. But we were
told her previous bike was a "Townie" with a suspension fork. Was that
an Electra Townie, or is "townie" used generically? In either case,
that hints that she doesn't need anything close to the ultimate
commuting machine.

There are lots of folks whose commuting is only a couple miles, only in
fair weather, never with a load, etc. Almost any bike can handle that.

Even if that's not Mrs. Scharf's case, ISTM the choice won't be based on
bike capabilities so much as on personal taste and quirks. And in this
case, those will be filtered through the personal taste and quirks of
Mr. Scharf.

Regarding quirks: We all have them. Personally, I enjoy tailoring a
bike to my particular tastes, and I enjoy even more doing the same for
my ladies. I'd have thought most denizens of r.b.tech would feel the
same.

So something like the Motobecane might be wonderful, if Scharf were
willing to devote a few hours to tailoring it. Heck, even switching to
flat bars isn't _that_ hard.

(BTW, I believe that most anti-drop-bar opinions come from using drop
bars set far too low. If they're raised up and have "interrupter"
auxiliary brake levers added, they're as comfortable as flat bars, but
more versatile - as on 50 mile rides with headwinds.)

--
- Frank Krygowski