Almost everybody loves the look of a twin top-tube mixte frame. I own two. (You're going to hear about them very soon.) They are practical and stylish, and in the days when Reynolds, Columbus, Ishiwata and other tube manufacturers made the skinny top tubes, could be made with the same quality as the best diamond-frame bikes.
They can be a lot of fun, too:
I have to admit: At first glance, I thought it was one of the stranger-looking mixtes I've seen. But I love it! I think if there were no limit (due to space limitations and finances) to the number of bikes I could own, I'd want it!
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula (played by Nia Vardalos) falls in love with a non-Greek American, Ian Miller (played by John Corbett). When he has dinner with her family, he mentions that he's a vegetarian. The entire family stops and gasps. Toula's Aunt Voula says, "That's OK. I make lamb."
A former co-worker of mine told me that was pretty much the definition of "vegetarian", a term of derision or approbation in her hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. She insisted she wasn't joking when she told me that Jell-O with mini-marshmallows and Reddi-whip is considered a "salad" in "cheeseland."
She also affirmed another stereotype: People in her native city live for football (the American version). As it happens, Green Bay is the smallest city in North America with a major-league sports team. (Between 1972 and 1995, that distinction belonged to Quebec City, where the Nordiques of the World Hockey Association and, later, the National Hockey League played.) The object of Green Bay denizens' affection is, of course, the National Football League team known as the Packers.
Interestingly, the Green Bay Packers hold another distinction: They are the only North American major league sports team that is publicly owned. As I understand it, the Packers are, in this sense, no different from a public utility like an electric or water company.
Or the city's newest public enterprise: The Green Bay Bicycle Collective's new Community Bicycle Shop, which has just opened in a city-owned garage at 418 4th Street. This shop will hold bicycle maintenance classes and allow people to come in and work on their bikes for free. "If the garage door's open, anyone can come in," explains Heather Gentry, the Collective's president. She says the Collective also plans to launch an "earn a bike" program, in which students and other young people can learn volunteer at the shop in exchange for a bike, in the spring.
Rebecca Nyberg of Brown County Public Health describes this new venture as one more piece of her organization's effort, begun in 2004, to get more people, especially students and the young, to cycle and walk for transportation as well as recreation. Part of the effort, she says, has involved making bicycles more readily available and easier to access, and cycling safer and more practical. "We realized that if we don't make the right thing easier to do, we won't get anywhere with people," she explained.
And so her organization and the Collective have worked together to create a public good in a city that has a surprisingly (at least, to those who aren't familiar with it) rich history of communal effort and community ownership.
One of my favorite bloggers, "The Retrogrouch", has written a few posts about bicycles made for folks who have more money than interest in actually riding a bicycle. The bikes he mentions in those posts usually have, at minimum, five-figure price tags and features for which there is little, if any, earthly reason. Some of those bikes really seem to be intended as wall installations or fashion accessories--or simply status symbols. A few are even made to match the owners' cars with six-figure price tags.
The Retrogrouch has written eloquently, with just the right amount of cynicism, about such bikes. There is nothing I can add to what he's said, so I try not to write about those machines.
Today, though, I will write about a bike that might seem like a subject of his scorn. Yes, it's a bike that matches an expensive sports car. But, to be fair, it seems to be designed with actual cycling in mind. And its price tag is more or less in line with other high-quality bicycles of its type. It's not a bike I'd necessarily buy for myself, but I could understand a real, live cyclist wanting the bike I'm about to mention.
If you have a BMW M5, it's the bike you simply must have. It's painted in Marina Blue--of course--to match the car. I rather like the color myself. It comes with Continental Cruise Contact tires. They're not the model I ride, but I ride other Continental tires. And the design is something I might choose if I were in the market for an all-arounder or "gravel" bike.
The deal-breakers for me, though, are the carbon fiber frame and disc brakes. Then again, this bike is not made with someone like me or Retrogrouch in mind: Someone who's buying an M5 or some other car in that price category probably wants the "newest and latest" tech gadgets. So, it makes sense the bike is so designed.
If you want the bike, however, you have to act quickly: Only 500 are being made. And you can only get it from a BMW dealer--for 1400 Euros (about 1650 dollars at today's exchange rate). That's about a tenth of what Audi charges for its e-bike.
