#11
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eBike News
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 21:07:53 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/18/2020 8:51 PM, Andre Jute wrote: On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 10:44:58 AM UTC+1, Sepp Ruf wrote: Lou Holtman wrote: Op vrijdag 18 september 2020 om 02:31:59 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie: On 9/16/2020 5:45 PM, jbeattie wrote: I got my wife an eBike for her birthday via my son at Specialized. Box arrived yesterday, and I about herniated myself getting it into the garage. One of these: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...o-vado-reivew/ I had no idea it was a Buycycling Editor's choice, but I'll go with it. Being family, I got employee pricing -- otherwise it would have been a harder choice. Even the bottom of the range is expensive, but it is a nice bike. There were some odd-ball assembly issues, and I still have to update the firmware (which is like a huge thing because you want the latest performance advantages!), but it went together fine. Lots of bells (literally) and whistles. My wife is 5'10" (or used to be), so my son sized her as a large, which is fine for saddle to pedal distance, but the tire height/BB makes the stand-over high, even with a sloping top-tube. The thing is like a mini-motorcycle. She has some neuro/ortho conditions that affect her mobility, but she seems to be fine swinging her leg over the saddle and off the bike. She doesn't complain, which is sometimes a problem. "Oh its fine [followed by catastrophe]." I do worry about the size of the thing, though. On max setting, the bike is super fast with a top speed of 28mph. I'm going to throw on a QR seatpost clamp so I can use it for shopping. You would need a truck to steal it, and it has a kickstand and a really swanky little rack. The future is now! My son is trying to get me interested in the mega-zillion dollar 22lb stealth eBikes -- so I can keep up with him, but I would need a winning lottery ticket, even at employee pricing. In another small bicycle-world twist, my son tells me I'll need a hitch rack tray that my wife can roll the bike onto -- made by Yakima. So I walk down the street and ask my neighbor and best bicycling buddy -- who is head of products for Yakima and happened to be working in his yard, for a rack. Its on the way. Life is good. I was flying around on it last night. The dismount is troubling for my wife. I may see if I can exchange the bike for a step-through. My son is trying to get me to go with a dropper post, but I'm not sold on that, but I'll do some more experimenting to see if that could be a fix. I just don't want my wife getting her leg hung up swinging it over the saddle. My poor wife was a spectacular racer back in the day and a great tandem motor, but she was hit with a neuro-muscular disorder and has wires in her brain to make her stand more upright (DBS for dystonia). She also broke a hip skiing, or it simply broke while skiing -- who knows. Anyway, she is still lean and mean and walks all over the place, but she's held together with screws and wires. The last thing I want is for her to get mugged by her bike. She's tired of hospitals, as is the rest of the family. Between all three of us, we probably have ten pounds of titanium parts. IMHO, the more ebike riders are old, fat, or frail, the better for Real_Cycling. So I should applaud the Turbo Vado choice. But sometimes, I feel compassionate even for coastal lawyer wifes. Who selected that ebike for her? If it was your son, ban him from giving bike advice to old or handicapped people! Or at least have him pay for it. That sloped diamond frame (L is standard with 175mm cranks) sounds wrong for her size and dismounting issues. That is too bad. Do your wife a favor and get her a step through frame. I think that would even for me the way to go when I'm ready for an utility E bike. This is a popular model around here at the moment: https://www.gazelle.nl/ultimate-t10-...07%2C211%2C184 Agreed. (Interesting that the Turbo-Vado sports a longer front fender than a Dutch brand.) Or give in to AJ's Utopia propaganda, go feminine, extravagant, craft frame style, and show battery pride instead of trying to "hide" the electron tank in a blown-up downtube outline. https://www.utopia-velo.de/en/pedelec/sprint-pedelec/ Here's the trick: If she is afraid of looking old because of a step-thru geometry, ask her if this truly awful frame shape makes the model look old: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iwMAA...8HM/s-l800.jpg I wrote a long post identifying each of the problems of that bike that the two counterproductive Beatties (father and son) chose for the wife and mother*. I didn't send it because I saw no point in draining the glee from Jay's day, despite his and Krygowski's constant crap about my supposed clunker -- which has a frame lighter than their best road bikes. If they could afford a bike like mine, I'd have to join the end of the waiting list because they be muscling in rudely. Oh, wait, Jay spent near German baukast money for an entirely unsuitable bike for his wife... I'm starting to think these Americans aren't so much foolish as ignorant. I'm sorry about Mrs Beattie's misfortune. Andre Jute There are low stopover bikes for a reason. European bikes have properly braced racks for a reason. Etc. Etc. Etc. *I didn't think I would ever see a greater mismatch of a bicycle to its intended rider than the Paramount idiocy that the RBT xenophobes wished on me, described at https://groups.google.com/g/rec.bicy...m/I18KpJSsCQAJ but Jay's just taken the prize for that one. Paramount idiocy? Huh? Your link goes to a login screen. Not all Paramounts are idiotic; https://live.staticflickr.com/8727/1...f81425d9_b.jpg But, where do you put the battery :-? -- Cheers, John B. |
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#12
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eBike News
On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 6:52:02 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 10:44:58 AM UTC+1, Sepp Ruf wrote: Lou Holtman wrote: Op vrijdag 18 september 2020 om 02:31:59 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie: On 9/16/2020 5:45 PM, jbeattie wrote: I got my wife an eBike for her birthday via my son at Specialized. Box arrived yesterday, and I about herniated myself getting it into the garage. One of these: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...o-vado-reivew/ I had no idea it was a Buycycling Editor's choice, but I'll go with it. Being family, I got employee pricing -- otherwise it would have been a harder choice. Even the bottom of the range is expensive, but it is a nice bike. There were some odd-ball assembly issues, and I still have to update the firmware (which is like a huge thing because you want the latest performance advantages!), but it went together fine. Lots of bells (literally) and whistles. My wife is 5'10" (or used to be), so my son sized her as a large, which is fine for saddle to pedal distance, but the tire height/BB makes the stand-over high, even with a sloping top-tube. The thing is like a mini-motorcycle. She has some neuro/ortho conditions that affect her mobility, but she seems to be fine swinging her leg over the saddle and off the bike. She doesn't complain, which is sometimes a problem. "Oh its fine [followed by catastrophe]." I do worry about the size of the thing, though. On max setting, the bike is super fast with a top speed of 28mph. I'm going to throw on a QR seatpost clamp so I can use it for shopping. You would need a truck to steal it, and it has a kickstand and a really swanky little rack. The future is now! My son is trying to get me interested in the mega-zillion dollar 22lb stealth eBikes -- so I can keep up with him, but I would need a winning lottery ticket, even at employee pricing. In another small bicycle-world twist, my son tells me I'll need a hitch rack tray that my wife can roll the bike onto -- made by Yakima. So I walk down the street and ask my neighbor and best bicycling buddy -- who is head of products for Yakima and happened to be working in his yard, for a rack. Its on the way. Life is good. I was flying around on it last night. The dismount is troubling for my wife. I may see if I can exchange the bike for a step-through. My son is trying to get me to go with a dropper post, but I'm not sold on that, but I'll do some more experimenting to see if that could be a fix. I just don't want my wife getting her leg hung up swinging it over the saddle. My poor wife was a spectacular racer back in the day and a great tandem motor, but she was hit with a neuro-muscular disorder and has wires in her brain to make her stand more upright (DBS for dystonia). She also broke a hip skiing, or it simply broke while skiing -- who knows. Anyway, she is still lean and mean and walks all over the place, but she's held together with screws and wires. The last thing I want is for her to get mugged by her bike. She's tired of hospitals, as is the rest of the family. Between all three of us, we probably have ten pounds of titanium parts. IMHO, the more ebike riders are old, fat, or frail, the better for Real_Cycling. So I should applaud the Turbo Vado choice. But sometimes, I feel compassionate even for coastal lawyer wifes. Who selected that ebike for her? If it was your son, ban him from giving bike advice to old or handicapped people! Or at least have him pay for it. That sloped diamond frame (L is standard with 175mm cranks) sounds wrong for her size and dismounting issues. That is too bad. Do your wife a favor and get her a step through frame. I think that would even for me the way to go when I'm ready for an utility E bike. This is a popular model around here at the moment: https://www.gazelle.nl/ultimate-t10-...07%2C211%2C184 Agreed. (Interesting that the Turbo-Vado sports a longer front fender than a Dutch brand.) Or give in to AJ's Utopia propaganda, go feminine, extravagant, craft frame style, and show battery pride instead of trying to "hide" the electron tank in a blown-up downtube outline. https://www.utopia-velo.de/en/pedelec/sprint-pedelec/ Here's the trick: If she is afraid of looking old because of a step-thru geometry, ask her if this truly awful frame shape makes the model look old: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iwMAA...8HM/s-l800.jpg I wrote a long post identifying each of the problems of that bike that the two counterproductive Beatties (father and son) chose for the wife and mother*. I didn't send it because I saw no point in draining the glee from Jay's day, despite his and Krygowski's constant crap about my supposed clunker -- which has a frame lighter than their best road bikes. If they could afford a bike like mine, I'd have to join the end of the waiting list because they be muscling in rudely. Oh, wait, Jay spent near German baukast money for an entirely unsuitable bike for his wife... I'm starting to think these Americans aren't so much foolish as ignorant. Americans? Hmmm. My son and I made a choice driven in part by available stock and my wife's past bikes, and if it turns out to be wrong, we'll try other options. It was a gift, and sometimes gifts go back. You spend an inordinate amount of time justifying your Eiffel Tower mixte and prescribing it to others. I'll tell you what, drop by PDX, and we'll do West Hill repeats. You on your Kranich and me on my Emonda. You can judge which is better. Maybe this ride: https://ridewithgps.com/ambassador_r...-ronde?lang=en -- Jay Beattie. |
#13
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eBike News
On Saturday, September 19, 2020 at 3:07:56 AM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/18/2020 8:51 PM, Andre Jute wrote: On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 10:44:58 AM UTC+1, Sepp Ruf wrote: Lou Holtman wrote: Op vrijdag 18 september 2020 om 02:31:59 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie: On 9/16/2020 5:45 PM, jbeattie wrote: I got my wife an eBike for her birthday via my son at Specialized. Box arrived yesterday, and I about herniated myself getting it into the garage. One of these: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...o-vado-reivew/ I had no idea it was a Buycycling Editor's choice, but I'll go with it. Being family, I got employee pricing -- otherwise it would have been a harder choice. Even the bottom of the range is expensive, but it is a nice bike. There were some odd-ball assembly issues, and I still have to update the firmware (which is like a huge thing because you want the latest performance advantages!), but it went together fine. Lots of bells (literally) and whistles. My wife is 5'10" (or used to be), so my son sized her as a large, which is fine for saddle to pedal distance, but the tire height/BB makes the stand-over high, even with a sloping top-tube. The thing is like a mini-motorcycle. She has some neuro/ortho conditions that affect her mobility, but she seems to be fine swinging her leg over the saddle and off the bike. She doesn't complain, which is sometimes a problem. "Oh its fine [followed by catastrophe]." I do worry about the size of the thing, though. On max setting, the bike is super fast with a top speed of 28mph. I'm going to throw on a QR seatpost clamp so I can use it for shopping. You would need a truck to steal it, and it has a kickstand and a really swanky little rack. The future is now! My son is trying to get me interested in the mega-zillion dollar 22lb stealth eBikes -- so I can keep up with him, but I would need a winning lottery ticket, even at employee pricing. In another small bicycle-world twist, my son tells me I'll need a hitch rack tray that my wife can roll the bike onto -- made by Yakima. So I walk down the street and ask my neighbor and best bicycling buddy -- who is head of products for Yakima and happened to be working in his yard, for a rack. Its on the way. Life is good. I was flying around on it last night. The dismount is troubling for my wife. I may see if I can exchange the bike for a step-through. My son is trying to get me to go with a dropper post, but I'm not sold on that, but I'll do some more experimenting to see if that could be a fix. I just don't want my wife getting her leg hung up swinging it over the saddle. My poor wife was a spectacular racer back in the day and a great tandem motor, but she was hit with a neuro-muscular disorder and has wires in her brain to make her stand more upright (DBS for dystonia). She also broke a hip skiing, or it simply broke while skiing -- who knows. Anyway, she is still lean and mean and walks all over the place, but she's held together with screws and wires. The last thing I want is for her to get mugged by her bike. She's tired of hospitals, as is the rest of the family. Between all three of us, we probably have ten pounds of titanium parts. IMHO, the more ebike riders are old, fat, or frail, the better for Real_Cycling. So I should applaud the Turbo Vado choice. But sometimes, I feel compassionate even for coastal lawyer wifes. Who selected that ebike for her? If it was your son, ban him from giving bike advice to old or handicapped people! Or at least have him pay for it. That sloped diamond frame (L is standard with 175mm cranks) sounds wrong for her size and dismounting issues. That is too bad. Do your wife a favor and get her a step through frame. I think that would even for me the way to go when I'm ready for an utility E bike. This is a popular model around here at the moment: https://www.gazelle.nl/ultimate-t10-...07%2C211%2C184 Agreed. (Interesting that the Turbo-Vado sports a longer front fender than a Dutch brand.) Or give in to AJ's Utopia propaganda, go feminine, extravagant, craft frame style, and show battery pride instead of trying to "hide" the electron tank in a blown-up downtube outline. https://www.utopia-velo.de/en/pedelec/sprint-pedelec/ Here's the trick: If she is afraid of looking old because of a step-thru geometry, ask her if this truly awful frame shape makes the model look old: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iwMAA...8HM/s-l800.jpg I wrote a long post identifying each of the problems of that bike that the two counterproductive Beatties (father and son) chose for the wife and mother*. I didn't send it because I saw no point in draining the glee from Jay's day, despite his and Krygowski's constant crap about my supposed clunker -- which has a frame lighter than their best road bikes. If they could afford a bike like mine, I'd have to join the end of the waiting list because they be muscling in rudely. Oh, wait, Jay spent near German baukast money for an entirely unsuitable bike for his wife... I'm starting to think these Americans aren't so much foolish as ignorant. I'm sorry about Mrs Beattie's misfortune. Andre Jute There are low stopover bikes for a reason. European bikes have properly braced racks for a reason. Etc. Etc. Etc. *I didn't think I would ever see a greater mismatch of a bicycle to its intended rider than the Paramount idiocy that the RBT xenophobes wished on me, described at https://groups.google.com/g/rec.bicy...m/I18KpJSsCQAJ but Jay's just taken the prize for that one. Paramount idiocy? Huh? Your link goes to a login screen. Sorry. You need to scroll up to the top of the screen (on my version, traditional Google groups format on Safari on Mac). Or you can search for WHY A WATERFORD BIKE IS A JOKE. I'd give it a miss, if I were you; you've seen it, and it wasn't aimed at you. -- AJ Not all Paramounts are idiotic; https://live.staticflickr.com/8727/1...f81425d9_b.jpg -- Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org/ Open every day since 1 April, 1971 |
#14
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eBike News
On Saturday, September 19, 2020 at 4:56:42 AM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 6:52:02 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote: On Friday, September 18, 2020 at 10:44:58 AM UTC+1, Sepp Ruf wrote: Lou Holtman wrote: Op vrijdag 18 september 2020 om 02:31:59 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie: On 9/16/2020 5:45 PM, jbeattie wrote: I got my wife an eBike for her birthday via my son at Specialized. Box arrived yesterday, and I about herniated myself getting it into the garage. One of these: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...o-vado-reivew/ I had no idea it was a Buycycling Editor's choice, but I'll go with it. Being family, I got employee pricing -- otherwise it would have been a harder choice. Even the bottom of the range is expensive, but it is a nice bike. There were some odd-ball assembly issues, and I still have to update the firmware (which is like a huge thing because you want the latest performance advantages!), but it went together fine. Lots of bells (literally) and whistles. My wife is 5'10" (or used to be), so my son sized her as a large, which is fine for saddle to pedal distance, but the tire height/BB makes the stand-over high, even with a sloping top-tube. The thing is like a mini-motorcycle. She has some neuro/ortho conditions that affect her mobility, but she seems to be fine swinging her leg over the saddle and off the bike. She doesn't complain, which is sometimes a problem. "Oh its fine [followed by catastrophe]." I do worry about the size of the thing, though. On max setting, the bike is super fast with a top speed of 28mph.. I'm going to throw on a QR seatpost clamp so I can use it for shopping. You would need a truck to steal it, and it has a kickstand and a really swanky little rack. The future is now! My son is trying to get me interested in the mega-zillion dollar 22lb stealth eBikes -- so I can keep up with him, but I would need a winning lottery ticket, even at employee pricing. In another small bicycle-world twist, my son tells me I'll need a hitch rack tray that my wife can roll the bike onto -- made by Yakima. So I walk down the street and ask my neighbor and best bicycling buddy -- who is head of products for Yakima and happened to be working in his yard, for a rack. Its on the way. Life is good. I was flying around on it last night. The dismount is troubling for my wife. I may see if I can exchange the bike for a step-through. My son is trying to get me to go with a dropper post, but I'm not sold on that, but I'll do some more experimenting to see if that could be a fix. I just don't want my wife getting her leg hung up swinging it over the saddle. My poor wife was a spectacular racer back in the day and a great tandem motor, but she was hit with a neuro-muscular disorder and has wires in her brain to make her stand more upright (DBS for dystonia). She also broke a hip skiing, or it simply broke while skiing -- who knows. Anyway, she is still lean and mean and walks all over the place, but she's held together with screws and wires. The last thing I want is for her to get mugged by her bike. She's tired of hospitals, as is the rest of the family. Between all three of us, we probably have ten pounds of titanium parts. IMHO, the more ebike riders are old, fat, or frail, the better for Real_Cycling. So I should applaud the Turbo Vado choice. But sometimes, I feel compassionate even for coastal lawyer wifes. Who selected that ebike for her? If it was your son, ban him from giving bike advice to old or handicapped people! Or at least have him pay for it. That sloped diamond frame (L is standard with 175mm cranks) sounds wrong for her size and dismounting issues. That is too bad. Do your wife a favor and get her a step through frame. I think that would even for me the way to go when I'm ready for an utility E bike. This is a popular model around here at the moment: https://www.gazelle.nl/ultimate-t10-...07%2C211%2C184 Agreed. (Interesting that the Turbo-Vado sports a longer front fender than a Dutch brand.) Or give in to AJ's Utopia propaganda, go feminine, extravagant, craft frame style, and show battery pride instead of trying to "hide" the electron tank in a blown-up downtube outline. https://www.utopia-velo.de/en/pedelec/sprint-pedelec/ Here's the trick: If she is afraid of looking old because of a step-thru geometry, ask her if this truly awful frame shape makes the model look old: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iwMAA...8HM/s-l800.jpg I wrote a long post identifying each of the problems of that bike that the two counterproductive Beatties (father and son) chose for the wife and mother*. I didn't send it because I saw no point in draining the glee from Jay's day, despite his and Krygowski's constant crap about my supposed clunker -- which has a frame lighter than their best road bikes. If they could afford a bike like mine, I'd have to join the end of the waiting list because they be muscling in rudely. Oh, wait, Jay spent near German baukast money for an entirely unsuitable bike for his wife... I'm starting to think these Americans aren't so much foolish as ignorant. Americans? Hmmm. My son and I made a choice driven in part by available stock and my wife's past bikes, and if it turns out to be wrong, we'll try other options. It was a gift, and sometimes gifts go back. Now you're talking sense. You spend an inordinate amount of time justifying your Eiffel Tower mixte and prescribing it to others. Nope. Put a paralegal on counting your remarks about your bikes and you'll discover you've made a magnitude more remarks about your bikes than I have about mine. The other difference is that I write memorably and persuasively, so my contribution looks larger. But in the post that you're specifically objecting to in this instance, I didn't even mention my bike's name. In any event, if the resident idiots call it an "Eiffel Tower" and worse, as they can't resist doing, they have no right to whine when I straighten them out. |
#15
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eBike News
Andre Jute wrote:
Op vrijdag 18 september 2020 om 02:31:59 UTC+2 schreef jbeattie: On 9/16/2020 5:45 PM, jbeattie wrote: I got my wife an eBike for her birthday via my son at Specialized. Box arrived yesterday, and I about herniated myself getting it into the garage. One of these: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...o-vado-reivew/ I was flying around on it last night. The dismount is troubling for my wife. I may see if I can exchange the bike for a step-through. My son is trying to get me to go with a dropper post, but I'm not sold on that, but I'll do some more experimenting to see if that could be a fix. I just don't want my wife getting her leg hung up swinging it over the saddle. I trust that now everyone has given you a few tips, you'll eventually find a bike to suit your wife's circumstances. Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents! -- It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 |
#16
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eBike News
Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents!
You may be old enough to be grateful to sit down on a recumbent, but if you're on RBT it is almost guaranteed that you aren't young enough to stand up again from a recumbent. It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 Not bad for a bike first designed in 1935, first sold to the public in 1936. Andre Jute No fashion victims here |
#17
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eBike News
Andre Jute wrote:
Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents! You may be old enough to be grateful to sit down on a recumbent, but if you're on RBT it is almost guaranteed that you aren't young enough to stand up again from a recumbent. Almost. It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 Not bad for a bike first designed in 1935, first sold to the public in 1936. Andre Jute No fashion victims here Below is another mid-late 1990's build, probably in even better shape. Add the guy's Grundig radio on top, get a pair of non-petrified brake pads, pay 500 euros, and even a fashion victim like Beattie junior could receive selfie requests from shy Mormon cheerleader girls and nods of approval from white-haired Lohas Portlanders -- until he spectacularly falls off the bike because he forgot there's coaster brake. https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-fahrrad-moewe-7-gang-nabenschaltung-28-/1475927220-217-1556 |
#18
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eBike News
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 6:35:38 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote:
Andre Jute wrote: Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents! You may be old enough to be grateful to sit down on a recumbent, but if you're on RBT it is almost guaranteed that you aren't young enough to stand up again from a recumbent. Almost. It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 Not bad for a bike first designed in 1935, first sold to the public in 1936. Andre Jute No fashion victims here Below is another mid-late 1990's build, probably in even better shape. Add the guy's Grundig radio on top, get a pair of non-petrified brake pads, pay 500 euros, and even a fashion victim like Beattie junior could receive selfie requests from shy Mormon cheerleader girls and nods of approval from white-haired Lohas Portlanders -- until he spectacularly falls off the bike because he forgot there's coaster brake. https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-fahrrad-moewe-7-gang-nabenschaltung-28-/1475927220-217-1556 I had to look up Lohas. My son had a coaster brake bike once. Trek Mountain Cub. http://forsale.ztitan.com/albums/use..._trek_bike.jpg It was bitchin. He had this wascally wabbit speech impediment in kindergarten, and giving him a Utopia Kranich would have subjected him to ridicule. "Hewe is my Utopia Kwanich." "Mountain Cub" is much more assertive and affirming. -- Jay Beattie. |
#19
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eBike News
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2:35:38 PM UTC+1, Sepp Ruf wrote:
Andre Jute wrote: Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents! You may be old enough to be grateful to sit down on a recumbent, but if you're on RBT it is almost guaranteed that you aren't young enough to stand up again from a recumbent. Almost. It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 Not bad for a bike first designed in 1935, first sold to the public in 1936. Andre Jute No fashion victims here Below is another mid-late 1990's build, probably in even better shape. Add the guy's Grundig radio on top, get a pair of non-petrified brake pads, pay 500 euros, and even a fashion victim like Beattie junior could receive selfie requests from shy Mormon cheerleader girls and nods of approval from white-haired Lohas Portlanders -- until he spectacularly falls off the bike because he forgot there's coaster brake. https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-fahrrad-moewe-7-gang-nabenschaltung-28-/1475927220-217-1556 "Shy Mormon cheerleader girls" forward enough to ask the opposite sex for selfies, that's surely that rare creature, a double oxymoron. The bike in the ad is not a Kranich but a ladies' version of the Moewe. One of the small snobberies of being a Utopia owner is distinguishing bikes with pretty much the same profile and, in this case, plan too. The main difference is that the Mowe was built with near-off-the-shelf Columbus tubes, while the modern Kranich is built with custom-drawn tubes. I have no idea whether it makes a difference. Maybe in like for like bikes it might save a few ounces, but the modern Kranich frame and fittings are so much wider that I'm sure the weight gain is lost again in the various crosswise pieces which are now longer. It is enough that one has a bike built by obsessives who do nothing without a reason, and when they have a reason do not ask irrelevant accounting questions but just do it regardless. I'm such a person too, so I'm in perfect sympathy with my bike and its makers -- I've kept my Kranich for ten years now, while none of my other bikes lasted longer than two years. I'll tell you what else is weirder than the "bicycle" the Beatties, pere et fils, decided was right for their wife and mother, and even older in provenance than my Kranich: the Pedersen of 1893, still in production and with the largest producer recently taken over by Utopia, and of course further developed. I considered a Pedersen seriously in the time of the previous German manufacturer, Kalle Kalkhoff, who was himself no slacker in the punctilio department, but each time I looked at it, I was stumped by the leg-over problem. The Locomotief designer who created the Unisex de Luxe back in 1935 was clearly influenced by the ladies version of the Pedersen. Some Pedersens in America: http://pedersenbicycles.com/gallery.htm and on this page the last of the Kalkhoff Pedersens at pretty good prices with Shimano seven and eight speed boxes, including at least one suitable for tall people, with a two-year Utopia warranty -- their own bikes are warranted ten years, so arrive at your own conclusion -- : https://www.pedersen-velo.de/vertrie...-sonderpreise/ Of course, for ninety-nine per cent of cyclists "innovation" means a garish paint job on a deadly dull diamond frame. And the dumb, the perennially unlucky, the mathematically challenged, and the poor are right to stick to diamond frames. It's difficult for a designer to go wrong with a diamond frame, though it does happen. The harshest bike I ever had was a steel diamond-framed Peugeot Paris; it killed my back and bought my physio a big new BMW; the designer got the tube sizes and weights wrong. Andre Jute "Pay attention or tomorrow you won't remember what I said." -- a great-uncle, a retired professor of history, who ****ed me off, but that now I wish I had listened to about wood-carving. |
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eBike News
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 4:17:23 PM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 6:35:38 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote: Andre Jute wrote: Wait, something's amiss: Nobody mentioned recumbents! You may be old enough to be grateful to sit down on a recumbent, but if you're on RBT it is almost guaranteed that you aren't young enough to stand up again from a recumbent. Almost. It's a steel! https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-kranich-damenrad-retro-sammlerstueck-raritaet-28-zoll/1494211544-217-4350 Not bad for a bike first designed in 1935, first sold to the public in 1936. Andre Jute No fashion victims here Below is another mid-late 1990's build, probably in even better shape. Add the guy's Grundig radio on top, get a pair of non-petrified brake pads, pay 500 euros, and even a fashion victim like Beattie junior could receive selfie requests from shy Mormon cheerleader girls and nods of approval from white-haired Lohas Portlanders -- until he spectacularly falls off the bike because he forgot there's coaster brake. https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/utopia-fahrrad-moewe-7-gang-nabenschaltung-28-/1475927220-217-1556 I had to look up Lohas. My son had a coaster brake bike once. Trek Mountain Cub. http://forsale.ztitan.com/albums/use..._trek_bike.jpg It was bitchin. He had this wascally wabbit speech impediment in kindergarten, and giving him a Utopia Kranich would have subjected him to ridicule. "Hewe is my Utopia Kwanich." "Mountain Cub" is much more assertive and affirming.. -- Jay Beattie. I hope you know what you're confessing to on behalf of your son, Jay, and of yourself too. -- AJ |
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