#practical bikes

Revisiting “practical” bikes: A lament.

My Robin Hood path racer project. Maybe not the most “practical” bike, but I like it!

Awhile back Emee and I were walking around downtown Portland, when I spotted a Civia city bike. (Alas, I did not snap a pic.) It was an older model with Dupont handlebars (the same type I had on my Crested Butte), a Sturmey-Archer hub (looked like a two speed kickback), chainguard, fenders, rack, etc. A…

Last week at Coffee Outside in Sellwood, Joel was showing off his new-to-him bike. He had found a KHS Urban Xpress frame and brought it back to life. I had remarked that it had been awhile since I had thought about this particular model, but remembered hearing good things about it back when I started to become a “bike nerd”, especially since it was a lower cost bike that, done up right, could be…

Baltimore Woods, 30 March 2024. Olympus OM-1n, OM Zuiko 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5, Kodak Pro Image 100 It’s a topic I’ve brought up before: There was once a great number of bicycle blogs that concentrated on everyday, urban cycling. When I really got into blogging at the end of 2010 (this blog had been launched five years before, but up until then I posted sporadically and haphazardly), I was motivated…

Revisiting the idea of practical bikes in the year 2022

Tony Hunt in St. Paul, 2016 Last week I was alerted to a new blog, The Complete Bicycle. I’ve known its author, Tony, for several years, meeting up with him in St. Paul when I was there in 2016. He elaborates on “What is a Complete Bicycle?” in this blog post here. For me, a complete bike is one that I can grab and go with minimal to no thought for what I need to accomplish on a given ride…