brokenbetty
Über Member
- Location
- London
I'm feeling a gap in my bike shed for something with full size wheels, swept back bars, hub gears, dynamo lighting and a step through frame. It'd be a weekend bike for 2-5 mile trips round North London, so not too heavy to get up hills. Very similar to a Dutch bike really, but with added hill-abilty (We hired bikes in Amsterdam and they were very lovely to ride, but even the bridges over the canals were a bit hard to get up)
My instinct is to get an old mixte or ladies road bike from ebay that takes 700c wheels, a hub + dynamo wheelset from Rose.de and build it up myself. I'd get mostly I want, and I prefer to reuse rather than buy new. The downsides are that would leave me stuck with caliper brakes - not a disaster but the idea of this is to be an easy-riding bike so v-brakes or even discs would be nice. Plus there aren't that many frames small enough for me that take 700c wheels so I'm either going to be paying c£100 in London or trekking out on the train to collect it. And, of course, it's going to be a few weeks at least before I've got it ready to ride.
The other option is to get a new bike via the cycle to work scheme that has everything I want already, but I've done a bit of googling and nothing leaps out. The modern City/comfort bikes don't seem to run to expensive components like hub gears, while the Pashleys and Dawes tend to have 26" wheels. They all look very heavy.
Is anyone aware of any new bikes that would fit the bill? I'm 5"1' so looking for nothing bigger than a 19" frame.
My instinct is to get an old mixte or ladies road bike from ebay that takes 700c wheels, a hub + dynamo wheelset from Rose.de and build it up myself. I'd get mostly I want, and I prefer to reuse rather than buy new. The downsides are that would leave me stuck with caliper brakes - not a disaster but the idea of this is to be an easy-riding bike so v-brakes or even discs would be nice. Plus there aren't that many frames small enough for me that take 700c wheels so I'm either going to be paying c£100 in London or trekking out on the train to collect it. And, of course, it's going to be a few weeks at least before I've got it ready to ride.
The other option is to get a new bike via the cycle to work scheme that has everything I want already, but I've done a bit of googling and nothing leaps out. The modern City/comfort bikes don't seem to run to expensive components like hub gears, while the Pashleys and Dawes tend to have 26" wheels. They all look very heavy.
Is anyone aware of any new bikes that would fit the bill? I'm 5"1' so looking for nothing bigger than a 19" frame.
- your idea of building one up using an older frame sounds much more sensible! 
