The Perfect Bicycle for Personal Transportation
It seems to me that we Californians have suffered from never having bicycles that are appropriate and efficient for daily transportation. Here's my evidence:
1) Cruiser bikes. Overweight toys rather than transportation.
2) 10-speed bikes of the 70's. Cheap imitations of racing bikes. Poor ergonomics.
3) Mountain bikes. The ones I see being used for serious transportation are poorly designed heavy and inefficient dual suspension models sold by discount chain (haha) stores.
Now this is a bike I'd buy for riding to work:
The Trek SoHo is a modern update of the bicycle I rode to school. I rode a Raleigh with 3-speed Archer internal gears, full mud guards, chain guard, upright riding position, and a rack on the back for my books. It served me well, and never ate the cuffs of my school uniform pants during my 5 years of high school (yes, I was in the upper 6th Form).
The SoHo has improved on the old design with an aluminium frame, 8-speed hub, roller drum-brakes, and braze-ons for the rack. And Trek chose to use belt-drive to keep it clean. $990.
Update 9/7/2008:
Be sure to read Mark Stosberg's excellent article on Recreation vs Transportation Bikes from his Bikes as Transportation Blog.
Thanks Gizmodo
Categories:Cars
2 comments:
Plus it's a belt drive bike. Very cool stuff that's ninja quite, no grease and super-long life.
My ideal bike would add a generator in the front wheel to power front and rear lights and a built-in lock-and-key system, and possibly a more upright riding position, all somewhat common on European commuting bikes. More here:
http://mark.stosberg.com/bike/2007/10/recreation-vs-transportation-bikes-quiz-and-photos.html
The belt drive I'll wait-and-see" about. Perhaps it rarely ever breaks and has a long life, but I can't see my local bike shop stocking replacement belts if I needed one in a pinch. (I suppose I could keep a spare in my bike shed myself... )
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