With warmer weather approaching, I was thinking of getting a bicycle, and touring around town. I haven't owned a bike in years, but see them on the road all the time.

But what I see is more Lance Armstrong wannabees, in their hardcore race-biking gear, than I see kids, older people, and grandparents tooling around and touring. I know kids ride bikes, it's still a kid thing... but now it's those BMX and trick bikes. Gone are the days of the bananna saddle, sissy bar, playing card in the spokes, and vinyl tassles from the hand grips. Most kids I see are doing more of an Xtreme sport kind of bike riding, instead of what we used to do, which was simply "go ride bikes."

I began to mourn for some of the classic simplicity of old-school cruising bikes, until I started googling and shopping around. A company called Electra Bicycles has bikes that really speak to me designwise. I took one look at their new "Amsterdam" model, and totally fell in love...

Holy crap, a bike with friggin' FULL FENDERS? Mud flaps? A full chain guard? Big, hard rubber pedals instead of mettalic teeth or some other kind of bondage-looking apparatus? A seat and handlebars where you can actually sit up straight and enjoy the scenery? Sign me up.

Brother Yabor will be pleased to note that this bicycle is inspired by those that people use as simple, plain vanilla transportation over in his home country. Something classic for getting around town, appropriate for older riders, or riders that are wearing street clothes (as opposed to specialty lycra bodysuits). The Dutch people all smoke, drink, pound down caffeine like it's going out of style, eat fatty foods... and yet they're all thin. I think it's because they're not afraid, as a culture, to hop on a bike and ride somewhere. Or just to toodle around for the bejeezus of it, as a pleasurable activity.

I think this is something in America that we're missing from days of old. It's too easy to hop in the car to go everywhere now. My grocery store is not even a mile from my house. I could walk, but I usually drive. But maybe if I took that trip on a bike in nice weather, I'd get some decent daily exercise, while ENJOYING the trip. Well, maybe not the trip THERE (there's a big hill), but going home? Wheeeeeeee.

I'm crazy about the design of those Amsterdams. Just because it's "Less is More" but with style. An honest-to-god steel frame cruiser. A creature I thought was dead and buried, except for a few 1950's holdovers locked in garages in coastal tourist communities.

Wonderful detailing, pinstripes, a rack for your shit on the back...headlight and tail-light. It's something a middle aged guy like me could get on and not look like I was trying to enter the Tour de France. I'm sick of bikes being these super feather-light, composite material elite racing, jackass trick, or mountaineering things. I want to go along around town and ring my bell, wave at old people and be a part of Americana again. There goes thalo on his bike, ain't he a nice feller?

With all this new green talk, it's a wonder more people aren't thinking in terms of getting up on two wheels again to run their errands. Or do a little weekend cruising. There's a simply GORGEOUS bike route in my town, that gets some use, but mostly by the hardcore lycra-clad bikers trying to break some kind of personal best. I don't ever see anybody going at Mayberry speeds, whistling a tune and looking around, enjoying their ass.

OK, so it has a coasting brake, which I haven't used since I was 12 years old. The bike has no hand-brakes, and has only three speeds. But holy crap, some of the best bikes I ever owned were three-speeders. Why do we need 24 gears now? Does that make any sense to anybody? Do you honestly think you can tell 18th speed from 19th or 22nd? And most saddles are designed to make men sterile, or maybe wipe their asses, rather than nestle them in comfort... I'm not sure.

The Amsterdam even comes in cool retro colors, black or green. There's a sport version, which doesn't have the coat/skirt guard and the rear rack. But both models look like just good, servicable rides, with a little style thrown in for good measure. I'm gonna get one. Looks like something I can ride into my golden years.

Then I decided to take a look at Schwinn--the old standby--bikes for comparison. Holy crap, they are going retro too. They have a line of cruisers that really look like Pee Wee Herman's bike. Kinda cool, but a bit much, a bit young. Nicer are their "city/commuting" bikes, but those aren't quite Less-is-More enough for me.

I like in particular what you said about not being hunched over and being able to look around at where you are. I had been thinking about getting a mountain bike, but they all hunch you over pretty much. You can get an extender for the handlebars, but clearly the point of these bikes is to be hunched over.

Pretty much ditto to everything you said. And it was an example of good writing which is what I like for its own sake as well. But I couldn’t buy a bike that didn’t have hand brakes. Those coasting breaks are just too convoluted and sometimes dangerous. I thought the Schwinn “Panther” (eyeroll…oops, we’re not talking about OS X) looked good, although it’s a little pricey.

Brother thalo I don't have any money left to buy a bicycle after getting the DSLR.

I think I like the Electra Townie 3 700C best. The full fenders are a must. In the rain it keeps the water from spraying all over your back. It has the "V" type brakes and an internal 3-speed shifter. Chain guard too. Just add on the rack over the rear tire and that puppy is good to go.

The right seat is a must too. They make seats that indent in the middle so your ass cheeks take all the pressure. The old seats made people go impotent. I remember seeing a special on the old bike seats with some young kid in his early twenties in fantastic shape (due to bicycling) that was having problems down there performing. It took a doctor over a year to finally realize the problem was related to the seat on the bike the kid was riding.

I remember riding out into the country for the first time with some friends. Roads that I had always ridden on but only in a car. We turned onto this one stretch that was a couple of miles long. There was a slight incline that was steady but not steep. In a car you never even noticed it. On a bike we about died by the time we got to the end.

LOL, yeah, if I get a bike I might have to put off my DSLR purchase too. Still making up my mind there.

Those Townies are sweet too. I did notice they had the hand brakes, which I must admit I consider more "adult" than the coasting brake. But to be fair, I haven't ridden a bike with a coasting brake since, oh, 1972. Maybe I'll give them another try.

Wiki has a sweet picture of the dutch bike that is the Amsterdam's direct inspiration, the Brosen city bicycle:



Definitely something you could see people riding in WWII. I bet brother yabor has that exact bike for his route. Electra changed the top bar geometry a bit, and gave it a nicer seat and a better paint job, but it's got a similar kick stand, lights, and rack. A wire basket on the back like that is a must. Gotta find one of those.

I'm checking with my local bike shop to see if they can score me an Amsterdam. Otherwise I may be getting a Schwinn. The cruiser movement doesn't seem to have hit my neck of the woods yet.

On the Electra site use the find a dealer locater. You just put in your zip code. I was surprised how many dealers came up.

That bike probably is brother yabor's. The Electra even has a bell.

There is another alternative for you to choose for a camera. Sigma has this great compact they are going to release the DP1. Sigma is using the same APS-C Foveon sensor in it they are using in their SD14 DSLR. It will be the first compact to use an APS-C size sensor. No hint to it's price but it has got to be less than a DSLR.

Then while you are on your Cruiser you can easily take some snaps of all the people gawking at you as you ride by.

Brothers, the "Amsterdam" bike brother thalo is talking about is indeed the kind of bike I use for my paper route. They are pretty much indistructable. Over here they are known as "oma-fietsen" -- grandma-bikes. They are very popular and a prime target for bicycle thiefs. In Holland, many of these bikes are not new but literally people's grandmothers' bikes -- still going strong as if they were newly made.

I've grown up with a grandma bike that actually belonged to my grandmother, bought in the 1950s. It got stolen in the first week that I started my paper route--I left it unattended for 5 minutes. Then I bought another grandma-bike, also an old one from the 1950s, with original white tires. Now I use a lock AND a chain whenever I have to leave it out of my sight.

Brakes. I actually prefer coasting brakes over handbrakes. They never fail, whereas handbrakes can pretty much cease working in heavy rain.

Ceterum censeo Aquam esse delendam.

quote:

And most saddles are designed to make men sterile, or maybe wipe their asses, rather than nestle them in comfort... I'm not sure.

Well, have you considered recumbents?
They may be too special and "weird" for your taste, but to widen your horizon a bit more, here are some links... At least one of the main advantages of a recumbent is comfortable riding.

http://www.hpvelotechnik.com/produkte/index_e.html
http://www.bacchettabikes.com/
http://www.easyracers.com/
etc.etc.
Link collection: http://www.bentrideronline.com/links.html

I'm a bike-user since childhood and never stopped biking. Most of the inner-city traveling i do by bicycle, it's just faster than riding public transport, cheaper, free training. Using a car can be faster but it's more stressful and parking problems are annoying.
I am considering getting a recumbent soon, because i'm sick of upright biking.

Ceterum censeo Aquam esse delendam.

That must be Latin for "Dammit, my feet are in the wrong position to use the coasting brake and I am now headed over the cliff."

quote:

Ceterum censeo Aquam esse delendam

LOL! Way to go, brother Marcus Porcius Cat-bor!

"And therefore I believe that Aqua must be destroyed."

"grandma bikes"... I love it! They do look sturdy and indestructible. I read yesterday that the whole mountain bike movement was started by guys who bought old cruisers and modified them.

Recumbents scare me. That's the other thing I see on my local bike path. But I don't see them being easy to maneuver well in city driving/traffic. I like being upright and seeing everything. I find recumbents harder to see from a car. I had one riding in my blind spot once and if he didn't have a flag that caught my eye, I'd have killed him.

The way I understand it, recumbents were developed for RACING and speed, not responsiveness and maneuverablilty. I'd rather have something that would be at home in urban or suburban streets, boardwalks, bike paths.

I also think recumbents are a bit "young." A super-fit young man or woman looks great on them, but a 46 year old bruiser like me would be a rolling comedy act. A big red face and lily white legs pumping, I shudder to even think.

But on that Amsterdam, maybe a tweed jacket, my lucky fishing fedora... Fly rod tube, waders, vest, and thermos of coffee strapped to the back? Or my paintbox? Or a picnic basket and bottle of wine? That'd be cool. I'd look like friggin' Monet. I'd be a single soccer-mom magnet for sure in my new town (actually I've been here a year next month). They even have cup holders for the Amsterdam (but they're sold out).

I'm thinking the more hardcore bicycles in this country put too much PRESSURE on Americans to treat bike riding as strenuous cardiovascular exercise and suffering, instead of just a nice enjoyable way to get around. The benefits of habituated lighter exercise would be felt all over this nation. If it was play, rather than work, people would do it more. If you took your Amsterdam to McDonalds, instead of the car, you'd help burn off those fast food calories.

I work in front of a computer all day, so I really cherish being able to get outside and do some physical activity. The gym is convenient, it's essential for health when you have a sedentery lifestyle... but it ain't really FUN. Even the iPod makes it only barely tolerable. So for me it's more important to do stuff I enjoy, like fly fishing, hiking. I always loved bike riding, but fell out of it when I got a car. Now I want to add it back.

For kids, I don't think a bike is ever going to be more fun than an Xbox, but I can't imagine a kid without a bike, can you? I lived on my bike when I was a kid. Or walked everywhere. Now it's a very different world. As much as I love to eat and relax, or relax and eat, I can tell it's not good for us to live that way all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by smithz:
I am considering getting a recumbent soon, because i'm sick of upright biking.

For in-city riding? That's suicide. Recumbents are for suburbs or cross county treks.

You'll get some asshole at an intersection taking out your front wheel (and you with it) because they can't see you sitting up high.

quote:

For in-city riding? That's suicide. Recumbents are for suburbs or cross county treks.

Or setting speed records. There's a video of a guy on one of those sites that got his recumbent up to almost 80mph. He had a wind capsule on it, like in the movie "The World's Fastest Indian"... but holy crap, that's an impressive speed for a bike.

Oh man yabor you must have been steaming when your Grandma's Grandma bike was stolen above the fact you now had to walk the rest of your route for that day.

When I was in Germany with a travel soccer(football) team we had to do a lot of walking around Mooseburg. We started using peoples bikes without asking. No one complained and the locals would just show up at our hotel and take them back. Really it was pretty awful of us. Me and one teammate shared a bike that had a rack on the back were I would sit. It also had a Donald Duck bell I would make my teammate ring.

And brother smithz with your addiction to beer you may want to stay away from the Recumbent bikes.

Aqua notwithstanding, fratres, I’m going full speed ahead with my Latin. It’s a lovely language. And thanks to the blessed Internet I can immerge myself in it. Every day I listen to it (the classical pronunciation: c= a hard k, v = w), I try to speak it, I read it.

I think Catullus’s poems alone are worth learning Latin for.

The famous words “ave atque vale” are the last words of one of Catullus’s poems (number 101). It’s about his dead brother.

Catullus died when he was around 30 years old. I am currently learning a good number of his poems by heart (this I think is a good method of learning a language, getting a feel for it, getting comfortable with it--memorizing big chunks of good prose works just as well).

I love these simple lines of Catullus (from poem number 5):

soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.

which means:

suns can set and rise again:
we, when once our brief light has set
must sleep one never-ending night.

a word-by word litteral translation:

suns set and rise can:
for us, when once has set short light,
night is neverending one must-be-slept.

You just can't find discussions like this anywhere on the net. I'm almost motivated to get up off my ass, learn Latin, all while peddling down the lane in recumbent, or non-recumbent, nostalgic and slow-moving glory.

I'm learning Pāḷi at an armchair (or recumbent) level...

Udakaṃ hi nayanti nettikā
usukārā namayanti tejanaṃ
Dāruṃ namayanti tacchakā
attānaṃ damayanti paṇḍitā.

Engineers lead water,
fletchers make arrows,
carpenters form wood,
wise men master themselves.

(actually I'm studying more arduous texts than that, that's just from the fortune-cookie-like Dhammapada)

Oh man yabor you must have been steaming when your Grandma's Grandma bike was stolen above the fact you now had to walk the rest of your route for that day.

Yeah. Especially since I thought those utopian European countries had solved crime. LOL. Just messing with your head, brother Yabor.

quote:

Engineers lead water,
fletchers make arrows,
carpenters form wood,
wise men master themselves.

I had a metallic lime-green banana-seat "stingray" bike
I used to attached playing cards to the spokes with clothes pins
Pee Wee Herman probably would have laughed at the spectacle
I don't think these four lines will put Pāḷi out of business.

quote:

For in-city riding? That's suicide. Recumbents are for suburbs or cross county treks.
You'll get some asshole at an intersection taking out your front wheel (and you with it) because they can't see you sitting up high.

Hm, that depends on type of recumbent. There are some models with very low seat, but also some models which have some kind of chopper-style (like the hp spirit)... I agree, that driving a low-seat racer can be more dangerous in the city.

quote:

And brother smithz with your addiction to beer you may want to stay away from the Recumbent bikes

Well, no! :-D My addiction to beer is bad, but i haven't had a bicycle-crash for years. (crossing fingers) ... My increasing age makes me drive more relaxed and less risky, promise. Therefore i'm looking for a more chopper-esque recumbent, no speedfreak-thing.

ps. apple made me a beer-a-holic, it's a tragedy!

I had that same metallic lime green stingray! Again proof that I am your evil fraternal twin, separated at birth. My banana seat was white. I eventually customized the stingray with a 20" sissy bar, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. At various times I tried tassles in the grips, a Hulk decal on the chainguard, playing card on the spokes. Never had a bell or a light.

Brothers, I just went through the hell of trying to FIND an Electra Amsterdam. The bike shop closest to me is no longer an Electra dealer, and the next nearest dealer was an hour away. And of course they don't have the bike in stock, it had to be special ordered, and will take 4-6 weeks. But I did it. Because to me it's a sweet bike, and all about the retro design and steel frame. I'm all about back to basics, legacy. Video Review of the Amsterdam.

I really think this bike is going to take the country by storm. Or at least I hope it does. It's bikelash for all the goofy hi-tech stupid cycle superabundance out there. The Dutch had it right. They understood Less is More. Now if only I could find the right dutch style saddlebags for it.

I'm also worried about theft. Pro bike theives can defeat most U-locks or cables in minutes. The once-vaunted Kryptonite locks turned out to have a fatal flaw... a plain plastic Bic pen could pick them in seconds. Now Kryptonites use European style flat keys. The top of the line now is called the "Fahgetaboutit"... and can be used in tandem with a nine pound case-hardened chain. It's a lot of friggin' lock to lug around.

I had that same metallic lime green stingray! Again proof that I am your evil fraternal twin, separated at birth. My banana seat was white.

LOL. Yeah. I can believe that. But I'm the evil twin. You're the good twin. Or maybe half and half. I'm trying to rack my brain and remember what color my banana seat was. I know it wasn't white. It may have been yellow. But I'm thinking it was a dark green. Crap. I just don't remember. Oh, and I'm not sure what a sissy bar is, but it reminds me at one time that I had some kind of chrome steel tubular backrest on the seat that may have extended up about 18 inches or so. But I don't know if it was this bike or another one. I wonder if I can find any old pictures of any of that. I doubt it.

Re: Amsterdam, The Movie:

Leather hand grips. I like that.

Cool. You can shift gears while not pedaling.

Congrats on your purchase, thalo. Viefiel kostet? And one reason a bike like that doesn't appeal to me is because the streets where I live aren't very bike-friendly. There's just nowhere to ride unless you stick the bike in the back of the car and go out to the country. But a ten-speed or mountain bike would be better for such environs. There just really isn't the place where I live where its conveniently to peddle anywhere short distance. In Seattle (such as around Green Lake) there are some great places. But unfortunately not where I live. But I might just go ahead and get the most comfortable mountain bike I can find so that I can do some relatively flat trail riding.

I used to have a really big honkin' chain that I carried around with me when I when out on my ten-speed to tour the countryside. Nobody was ever going to break through that thing, especially before tools for cutting heavy chains became much more predominant. It really sucks that you can't just park your bike somewhere and not have fools, punks, and criminals mess with it. I get really pissed off at stuff like that. We don't have to live in such a jungle. And yet we do. Nobody has yet figured out a way to keep people from being dirt bags without enforcing some kind of a Nazi state.

quote:

Oh, and I'm not sure what a sissy bar is, but it reminds me at one time that I had some kind of chrome steel tubular backrest on the seat that may have extended up about 18 inches or so

That's it. The "backrest" is the sissy bar. The metal tubing that holds up the back of the banana seat on the stingray, extended up into the sky. You see them on choppers, too, except attached to the fender rather than seat back.

quote:

Viefiel kostet?

About $500 with sales tax. MSRP is $550. Then I might just have it freighted to me rather than driving to the dealership, so that could cost another hundred, I don't know. It's only an hour or so away.

I'd say SOME of my streets are bike friendly, some not. There's a downtown area that gets kind of hairy, but there's also a bike path and some semi-rural streets not too far from me. The outskirts of town are lovely. And the coast is a fairly short drive (or fairly long bike ride), with touristy beachfront communities and flat stretches of perfect biking roads. The only trouble there is, in the summer it's kind of bike central... you certainly won't be the only one out there toodling around. There's actual bike TRAFFIC.

My favorite place to bike from my childhood years into my early 20's was Long Beach Island in Jersey. I put a lot of bike miles in there every summer, from Barnegat Light to Beach Haven. The main boulevard is like one big long flat straight drag strip, 15 or so miles long.

Oh my god, you don't just lock your bikes these days, you have to double, triple, quadruple lock. You have to use one lock for the rear wheel and frame, one lock for the front wheel... you have to thread cable locks or chains through the seat, any accessories... and STILL your bike will get parts stripped off of it. I'd never buy this bike if I was still in NYC. The bell, the light, the seat, the handlebars, they'd all get stripped.

I was watching a youtube video of a bike thief social experiment (guys stealing their own bike and filming it, seeing if anyone would try to stop them or call the cops)... broad daylight, heart of Manhattan, people walking everywhere, nobody did squat. One guy actually HELPED the thief with advice for the best way to break through a padlock with a hammer. The one thing they didn't try, but I've heard is all the rage now, is using various styles of car jack to snap U-Locks. If you leave too much loose loop in the lock, they jam stuff in there and get purchase on it with a jack, and it's like the jaws of life, they can get through anything.

Pros also use gas powered cutting wheels with diamond blades, which make short work of anything. The thieves pull over to a full bike rack in a van, pull the cord on the cutter, and zip through all the U-locks in seconds, and load the bikes on.