It followed me home; please help me give it a name.

[flexagon]

I can't say I'm too surprised... today I walked to that Dutch bicycle store I just posted about, and I talked a bit with a nice man and some other customers, and then I rode home.

My bike is heavy and long. It lets me ride sitting up, with all my weight where it is accustomed to being.

My bike has three gears and five neutral colors: black and brown and white and tan and gray. It has a giant mudflap on the front tire to protect me from ick, and a fully enclosed chain to protect me from chain-nom, and on the back tire there's a skirt guard so that I can ride wearing long flowing skirts if I so choose. (And since I can, maybe I will so choose! Who's to say?)

It is a Dutch grandma-bike with lots of small touches that scream Quality. The basic model has been in continous production since 1880. It is so intensely Euro-frumpy that it goes out clear out the other side of frump, causes a frump-overflow exception and becomes, in my opinion, awesome.



Here it is with its kickstand up, siting stably and waiting to be loaded with groceries from the neighborhood market:



Here's a good article about this exact bike.

To all the Bike People who had reasons I should not get this kind of thing, I can only say that I never wanted a biker's bike. I wanted a bike that would get me around town, pleasantly, both now and twenty years from now. Your words made me agonize, but in the end soong was right: I obviously didn't want the kind of bike that I didn't want, so it was basically one of these or nothing.

And, silentq, I did get a helmet. :-) A skateboard helmet, because it seemed much more old-school. I couldn't see wearing a bright, newfangled aerodynamic helmet with my frump-overflow bike, and I thought this was rather WWII fighter ace:



So, now it just needs a name. I was thinking of Rainbow or Neon because of its plethora of neutral, forgettable, bike-colored colors, but I'm open to suggestions.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

it's so pretty! love that curved crossbar. also you win at getting fast photos up of your new bike (still gotta do that…). and yeah it sounds like this is a perfect bike for your needs.

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

Hey baby...NICE RACK!

The seat looks uncomfortable...but your bike is cool.

I have a similar helmet. I like it.

[flexagon]

I think you can't see how the seat is curved, with the picture from the side like that; it's actually fine to sit on, and also nice leather. (I'd have preferred black to brown, but apparently there's a several-month waiting list for black leather seats. Good grief... whatever!)

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

That's even more adorable than the retro-looking bikes. I LOVE the cute little kickstand!!

[flexagon]

I think it looks kind of sexually suggestive, sitting there with its rear end tilted up. I like it though... not sure what this says about me.

Bike!

[islenskr.livejournal.com]

Yay for European bikes!
I never wanted a 10 speed when I was growing up, so my dad got me a blue 'European touring bike', which looks an awful lot like yours, minus all the guards. (There were a couple of guards, but they fell off...I'll have to get new ones.) I had a basket in the front and a headlight and I loved it. The Northampton area is becoming more and more bike friendly, so I'll have to get mine fixed up for when I move back. :D Thanks for reminding me!

As for a name...erm. I don't know. I'm apt to name it something like 'Fred' or 'Flash'. Hmm. I'll think about it.

Re: Bike!

[flexagon]

Cool, I have company! Any good bike shop should be able to give it a complete tune-up... though getting replacement parts might be slow if the shop isn't specializing in Eurostuff. :-) IMO the chain-guard is the most important guard, though I bet I'll appreciate the hell out of that mud flap one of these days.

[soong.livejournal.com]

Bike name: Mushroom

[miyyu.livejournal.com]

It looks like a Mary Poppins bike! :) Maybe you should name it "Mary" then? I like it - I agree with you about not wanting a hardcore biker's bike. It's just too much.

[flexagon]

Oh my gosh, you're right! (And that reminds me, we should add Mary Poppins to our Netflix queue...)

Mary or Poppy would be really cute.

[miyyu.livejournal.com]

I like Poppy best. It's cute and slightly frumpy-awesome, like the bike.

[flexagon]

Gah! Can't do it because I just found out that niralth is naming her baby Poppy, and now it feels wrong.

Oh well.... :-)

[niralth.livejournal.com]

Amazing timing. I hardly blog anymore, and so hadn't posted about picking a name for my daughter until *last night*, even though we picked it months ago.

I love your bike. I've been wanting to buy an upright European bike for ages, but I just can't bring myself to buy a super heavy bike, what with these San Francisco hills I bike up and down.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

are you getting a basket or panniers for it?

[flexagon]

That is a great question; do you have opinions on what I should do? (what do you have?)

The bike guy said I should ride it around for a while to see what my storage needs really are, but I'm pretty sure I prefer something centered because sometimes my needs will be mostly a laptop, which is a Single Heavy Item that I wouldn't want on just one side.

Thanks for the props on getting pictures up fast. I was kind of excited about it... and nothing is really real until it's documented online, right?

[nevers.livejournal.com]

i had a folding metal wire side-basket for a long time. it was good. my backpack (which i use daily) fit in it perfectly, so i could put it in and not worry about forgetting anything, and not worry that it would fall out or fall off. i also liked that the basked had a flat bottom into which i could put my laptop lunchbox. and flat sides for when i carried massive amounts of zine copies home from work (as opposed to fabric saddlebags). the basket was also a perfect size for groceries.

it was kind of a pain to fold up (it has a little metal hook to hold itself closed, but the basket has to be compressed to max for the hook to make it over the far side).

all this is past tense because i lost the metal hardware it came with for attaching it to your bike when i got my new bike. i tried attaching it with plastic zip ties. on my first day out with it, i tried to squeeze through a too-tight space and the basket got sheared off my bike. the zip ties broke and the basket itself was too mangled to salvage.

that said, i never had a problem with having weight only on one side. my cargo could get pretty heavy (like a full load of groceries) and i would notice but not be thrown off by it. the usual load -- backpack of a change of clothes, lunch, water bottle -- was not even noticeable.

i have put off replacing it cause i'm wondering if there's not a better option. but it did serve me very well. until then, i use a bungee to strap my backpack or a box of groceries to my rack. this works okay but it means EVERYTHING has to fit in my backpack, no throwing in lunch + water bottle + towel + change of clothes separately in the basket, and it makes me perpetually nervous about my cargo falling off.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

you might also wanna check ask.metafilter.
like
http://ask.metafilter.com/94784/How-should-I-tote-my-stuff-including-a-laptop-on-my-bike

[godream.livejournal.com]

Bike! *Love* the seat with the enormous spring, which somehow I missed in the photos from the website.

I hear frump is very in right now...

warning: bike geekery ahead :)

[silentq.livejournal.com]

Yay, helmet! I think that's actually the same style as the one that saved my friend's life. :)
You might like the Boston area blog Chic Cyclist (http://chiccyclist.blogspot.com/). I can totally see handle bar end streamers on your bike. :)
For carrying things, I have an Arkel Tail Rider (http://www.bikebagshop.com/arkel-tail-rider-trunk-bag-p-1110.html) rack trunk when I want to keep things centered on my rack (it expands insanely, I've carried home a frozen turkey in it). But for riding to work, even with my laptop, I use a pair of waterproof panniers from Vaude (Ortlieb also makes similar ones). I usually pop the battery out of the laptop, and store that and the power brick in one side (where I carry my purse), and the laptop in the other (where I put a change of clothes). It balances out. Plus I can slide grocery bags in with no problems.
That looks like a Brooks leather saddle, cris got one and it took a little while to break in (I think he said that after a 125 mile ride it was fine :) ). You can get liner shorts with padding to wear under things if you're finding that it's a bit hard on you when riding through potholes and over bumps. But once it breaks in, it's supposed to be the best saddle ever. :) Saddles are also really easy to swap out if you don't like it.
And most importantly, I hope that you enjoy riding it! :)

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

I like it! "Oma" came to mind for a name, it's german for grandmother.