Spend enough time in New York City, and you're sure to see some "Frankenbikes". Such machines have been modified to serve some purpose for which they weren't built. So, an old racer becomes someone's "pedal taxi" by changing the dropped bars and clipless pedals to flat versions of both, wider tires and, in some cases, clip-on fenders and lights. Sometimes such bikes, which could have originally had anywhere from 10 to 20 speeds, are converted to single-speed or fixed-gear use.
Old mountain bikes might undergo similar treatment. The difference is that these bikes' tires are often swapped for narrower ones or slicks (rather than the knobbier treads found on mountain bikes).
Other "Frankenbikes" include ones in which one frame is stacked on top of the other, or "parts bin specials", in which a bike is assembled, basically, from whatever is lying around.
Today I spotted an interesting version of the latter kind of bike:
I wish I could have gotten a better angle on it. At first glance, it didn't seem so unusual. However, in passing it, I noticed this:
It's not the first time I've seen side-pull caliper brakes on a bike made, as most mountain bikes were until a few years ago, for cantilever or V-brakes. Still, they look pretty strange (a least to me) on a front fork with suspension. It was then that I realized that 700 C (road diameter) wheels were substituted for the original 26" mountain bike wheels. The brake would not have been long enough to reach the rim of the smaller-diameter mountain bike wheel:
The same thing was done on the rear. As I looked closer, I saw that the crankset had also been changed.
What's interesting is that the crankset and brakes more than likely came from the same bike, most likely a mid-to-upper level Japanese road bike of the late 1970's or early 1980's. The brakes were Gran Compes, which were a Japanese near-copy of Campagnolo's Record brakes. And the crankset was forged by Sakae Ringyo, known in bike circles as SR.
That they ended up on what appears to be a Barracuda A2B from 1995 or thereabouts is a story I'd like to follow. Moreover, they ended up on that bike with a current Quando wheelset, yet the rear derailleur is a Shimano of later vintage than the bike.
Barracuda bikes had a meteoric "career", if you will. Two lifelong friends from Grand Rapids, MI founded the brand in 1992 in the mountain biking hotbed of Durango, CO. After the business and its race team were well-established, manufacturing was moved to Taiwan, as was typical at that time.
The bikes had a loyal "cult" following, like many iconic mountain bike and component makers of the 1990's. But those companies--often started, like Barracuda, by a couple of guys who liked to ride or a twenty-something in California whose father had a lathe and a drill press--often were run on unsound business practices. In an odd way, this story parallels the dot-com boom and bust that followed it by a few years.
Also, some smaller mountain bike and component makers of that time were done in by warranty claims or, in a few cases, litigation when a product was faulty. It only took one or a few such cases to sink some of the smaller manufacturers, especially the ones that were operating out of someone's father's garage.
Late in 1995, in spite of positive reviews of their bikes, Barracuda was hemorrhaging money. At the end of that year, Ross Bicycles bought the company. While they didn't change that year's models considerably, the ones that rolled off the assembly lines in the brand's later years bore almost no resemblance to the ones that had become virtual legends among a small group of mountain bikers. By the end of the decade, Barracuda production had stopped.
Ironically, Ross--which was headquartered in Rockaway Beach, Queens--actually made a bike called the "Barracuda" during the 1960's and 1970's. It was a small-wheeled bike with a stick shifter on the frame, similar in many ways to the Raleigh "Chopper" or the Schwinn "Krate" series. So, one might say that the "Barracuda" I saw today was a Frankenbike even before anybody altered it!
What is your idea of a "city bike"?
Some--including Grant Petersen of Rivendell--think that an old mountain bike with a good rack is, if not ideal, then at least the best possible.
Others, such as hipsters and some messengers would tell you that a fixed-gear bike is the only thing you should ride in the concrete canyons. They would argue for the sheer simplicity of it. A few would even go for a pure track bike with no brakes and a tight wheelbase, which makes them maneuverable.
Then there are those who want a plush bike to ride over sewer grates, potholes and all of the other hazards of the urban landscape. Such riders--particularly those who do no other riding but their commutes--might opt for a hybrid or mountain bike with suspension in the front fork, and even in the rear. Or they might ride cruisers or other fat-tired bikes.
There's also the English three-speed camp. They are probably the most immune to fads: Such riders will clatter along on their vintage Raleighs, Dunelts, Rudges and other machines from Albion. Because they're immune to fads (at least in bikes), they never think of their mounts as "vintage," even if they those bikes were made before they were born.
Cousins, if you will, to the English three-speed crowd are the ones who like Dutch-style city bikes. Some might also argue that these cyclists are variants of the comfort-bike crowd. The difference is that, not only are the Dutch bikes built for comfort and durability, they also come with features that you may have never thought of having on your bike but "might come in handy", such as built-in locks and lighting.
And then there are those who like the speed and nimbleness of the road bike, but want a more upright riding position and a bit more style. They're the ones who ride French-style city bikes and porteurs, which are based wholly or in part by the elegant machines made by constructeurs such as Rene Herse and Alex Singer.
Finally, there are the rat-rodders. In other words, any bike that looks like it's been to hell and back is the right bike for the city. Lots of cyclists here in New York follow that credo, which makes a lot of sense when you have to park your bike in high-theft areas. The rat-rod can be just about any kind of bike; these days, the majority (at least here in New York) seem to be ten- or twelve-speeds from the '70's or '80's, or mountain bikes from the '90's. Think of the guy (Yes, he's almost always a guy.) who delivers your supper from the Chinese restaurant or diner: He probably brought your meal on a "rat-rod."
A variant on the rat-rodder is the urban cyclist who rides a Frankenbike. You've seen them: the Specialized Rockhoppers with Schwinn Varsity rear wheels; the Peugeot ten-speeds with high-rise bars and forks in a color (and style) that clashes with everything else on the bike.
In the nearly three decades in which I've been riding in New York, and through the years I biked the boulevards of Paris---and while biking on trips to other large cities like London, Prague, Amsterdam and San Francisco, I have seen my notions of the "ideal" city bike evolve and change. Sometimes I want comfort; other times, I want a bike that I can leave in urban combat zones as well as those areas--like the neighborhood around St. Mark's Place--to which thieves gravitate. At times, I've craved speed and the ability to slice between parked cars and belching buses; at other times, I've worried about preserving dental work. But I've always thought about what's practical for my errands, commutes and other ride-and-park activities like shopping. And, of course, I've changed, and so has the city in which I live.
What's your ideal city bike? Has your idea of it changed? If so, how?
New York City may well be the "Frankenbike" capital of the world. Even if you live here for a couple of decades, you'll see permutations of bikes you simply won't see anywhere else.
Today I'm going to show you two "Frankenbikes" that were parked near a train station in my neighborhood.
Until I saw the first, I never realized what, exactly, my commuter bikes have always lacked:
They are mountain bike "bar ends," which were very much in vogue during the mid-'90's. I used a pair myself. There was a good reason for them: Mountain bikes, at least as they were configured then, didn't offer a variety of hand positions. That could be very tiring on a ride of an hour or more. So, bar ends like these were made to clamp on the ends of flat bars. Most, like these, used a wraparound clamp; a few had ends that inserted into the handlebar, much like a bar-end shifter or brake lever.
Here, the person mounted them on the middle of the handlebar to get an "aero" position. That's exactly what the owner of that bike needs.
It's a Schwinn Suburban from, I'd guess, the early 1970's or thereabouts. Essentially, it was a Varsity or Continental with upright bars, fenders and a single rather than a double chainring in the front. Like the Varsity or Continental, it's a tank. At least the "aerobars" can help its rider lop a few seconds off his or her commute.
The bike also has a generator lighting system. I wonder whether it works. Lots of people buy or inherit used bikes like that one that have generator lights on them. Often, the person who buys or inherits the used bike never even knows whether or not the lights actually work, for they do no night riding--or, perhaps, even know how to use the light. Or the person riding the bike may well know that the light doesn't work but simply doesn't bother to take it off.
At least the generator and lights are where they're supposed to be. The same can't always be said for any bike you'll see parked here in NYC:
A headlight in a water bottle cage--on the top tube of a women's bike? In some crazy way, it seems ingenious. After all, the light on that bike is in a less prone position than it would be on other parts of the bike. Plus, it could be really useful for checking runs in my stockings or rips in my pants legs.
No kind of bike paint job is more widely detested, justly so, than the '80's fades. (Some of the most unfortunate samples from that genre were found on Klein bicycles of that era.) However, around the same time, there was another kind of paint job that was as almost as bad, and common on European bikes (or bikes for the European market,at any rate). I call it the tricolored Easter egg look:
The owner of this bike, or the person from whom the owner bought or was given this bike, probably brought it in from Italy or someplace in Europe, as I don't think this model was ever inported to the US. In fact, I think that around the time the bike was made, Atala bicycles were no longer being imported to this country. Some of their better models were rather pretty, but I was never particularly impressed with the rides of the ones I tried. Plus, the workmanship was such that we used to joke that its paint and chrome flew off when the bike was operated at too high a speed.
Anyway, even though these two bikes caught my attention, they're hardly the most mutated bikes I've seen here in New York. Unfortunately, I never photographed the crazier bikes I saw. But then again, I'll probably see others that are just as zany.
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