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Posted: 6 Oct 2008, 6:27pm
by Dee Jay
bikely-challenged wrote:
DeeJay, I have no idea if lowered top tubes are voguish or not. The last time I was in fashion was 1983.


Sorry, B-C ... badly phrased ... I meant the idea of women still needing/wanting a lowered crossbar as a 'dignity aid'?

Posted: 6 Oct 2008, 7:04pm
by thirdcrank
bikely-challenged wrote:Is this a mixte?

http://www.marin.co.uk/2009/pdf/3911-2F.PDF


No. That's what was once called a ladies bike and I think we now call an open frame. It's a style of frame once intended to allow women to ride in a skirt and now finding a new lease of life providing for people who cannot easily get on a bike with a diamond frame. (once known as a men's bike.)

This is a mixte, and a very nice-looking one too.

Posted: 6 Oct 2008, 7:45pm
by jan19
[.)

[This [/url] is a mixte, and a very nice-looking one too.[/quote]

thank you! I shall have a better idea of what to look for.

Jan

Posted: 6 Oct 2008, 7:52pm
by thirdcrank
I'm surprised Mick F hasn't latched on to this bit of the thread. He restored a mixte frame into a bike he calls Barbarella

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=5191&highlight=barbarella

Posted: 6 Oct 2008, 9:32pm
by meic
I think the Raleigh one was called a Whisper. I saw one for sale for £15 at a charity shop. I decided it was nowhere near the quality of my Claud Butler and left it there. I must be a bit of a bike snob. Even though I do most of my miles on a Raleigh.
I would not expect to find a Mixte frame at any bike shop as they are probably all at least 20 years old. You could try a request on the forum's wanted section.

Ladies on wheels

Posted: 8 Oct 2008, 12:47pm
by Firebird
How to get ladies cycling?

Find a willing dishy gentleman to cycle before her with a bar of chocolate in his panniers!

She will do Lands End to John O' Groats as long as she gets the Dairy Milk at the end of it!

Posted: 9 Oct 2008, 11:14am
by meic
Wheras Firebird is joking,

In my case it is true that cycling does allow me to enjoy chocolate with impunity. Without the cycling the chocolate would see me wearing the 8 stone that she just lost.
In the last 2 weeks I have gained over 2kgs because I am cycling less in the bad weather.

Posted: 9 Oct 2008, 11:30am
by kwackers
meic wrote:Wheras Firebird is joking,

In my case it is true that cycling does allow me to enjoy chocolate with impunity. Without the cycling the chocolate would see me wearing the 8 stone that she just lost.
In the last 2 weeks I have gained over 2kgs because I am cycling less in the bad weather.


Calories in the bank...

I do a lot of running and during the long distance season I have to eat like a pig. In general I find I need an extra 1000 calories a day.
During the summer when short races are more in vogue I have to cut back on my scoffing by a fair amount.
My commute is fairly short and consistent so I've no idea what its worth in calorie terms.

Posted: 11 Oct 2008, 7:44pm
by Cunobelin
We are off to see Josie Dew giving a talk in Stubbington on Tuesday - now there is an example of a female who cycles and doesn't let her gender stop her!


From the Guardian September 4th:


Two Wheels:

Why don't more parents cycle with their babies or toddlers on the back of their bikes? I live in the overpopulated south of England and although I ride for two or three hours a day with my two-year-old daughter Molly strapped to her seat on my rear rack, months go by without me passing anyone else with a similar load. Were I in the Netherlands or Germany or Denmark I would be one of thousands sweeping along on two wheels with accompanying offspring. No one would bat an eyelid. But here I am treated like a rare species - the cause of much head-turning, pointing and smirking.

For Molly and I, travelling by bike is a normal, wonderful experience. Ever since she could hold her head up she has been planted in prime position on the back of my bike. During the early months, motorists might have been a little confused with our intended direction: Molly indicated right when we were turning left, or vice versa, more times than is healthy. But we always stayed upright.

So why don't more people do something that is easy, fun and costs so little? Judging from other parents' responses to me, it's because they don't have the confidence - they find the roads too dangerous and don't want to risk their child's safety - they don't have time, or they worry about their child getting wet and cold.

Wet and cold is good for a child - it makes them hardy. Pile on those layers and a pair of good waterproofs and sally forth in all weathers. Molly has been through freezing temperatures, torrential rain, hail, snow, buffeting winds and is yet to be ill. Nor have social services been on to me, so what I'm doing can't be that cruel.

There are, of course, those parents who would like to cycle with their small bundles of semaphoring joy but aren't confident enough riders to get the wheels turning. Confidence is all-important before you think about bunging a baby on board. I've cycled every day since I was 10, and have plenty of experience of how drivers react to cyclists and a good understanding of the rules of the road. Once you have attained that degree of trust in your ability, you can plant a baby on the bike. If you're worried about instability (in my experience, children do anything but keep still), practise cycling with a 15 kilo sack of potatoes - or better still a live cow.

The advantage of having a child attached directly on to your bike is that they are close to you: you can touch them, talk to them, show them things as you cycle along. And once they are a certain size (bigger than toddler, smaller than teenage) they can sit on a small seat in front of you on the top tube, cocooned in the relative safety zone of your arms and legs. This method is very popular in Japan and Holland and clear-screened farings are available that attach to the handlebars to keep off the worst of the wind and rain.

Another alternative is to tow a trailer. I have recently acquired a Molly-mobile - a sort of tent on wheels that even includes a boot to stash a lorryload of shopping. I have retained the child seat on the back so Molly now has a choice of seating area.

Naturally, being an articulated vehicle of considerable weight, we have slight haulage problems, in that we travel even slower than we used to. Luckily, along with taking delight in the painful slowness of the ascents, Molly also relishes the speed of the descents - top speed achieved so far is an eye-watering 36mph.

Rocketing downhill on a bike with a whooping infant is probably not the sort of advice you find in your average childcare manual - which is partly why it is so enjoyable. And when I reach the bottom of the hill it is sometimes quite a relief to find Molly still attached to her seat and not lost to the wind a mile back up the road. But for both of us, there is no better way to travel.



Posted: 11 Oct 2008, 9:38pm
by meic
The question posed in this topic is an old one which I first heard when I did teacher training for Design and Technology. Well 16 years later there is still no answer and still no change.
It works both ways very few male primary school teachers and only one male nursery teacher under 25 years of age in England or UK not sure which.
Regardless of the morals, nurture or nature, right or wrong, the fact is that even fewer women are INTERESTED in cycling than men are.
Now you could see this as a problem if you have a view that equality is homogeneosity or you could say "viva le difference!"

Every week I take my daughter to the village coffee morning, I am the only man there. Over the past few months it has turned into a knitting club anyone who could not knit was given help and teaching by the others. The only person who has not bothered to learn is me, the man. Why, because I am just not interested by knitting, I fully appreciate the value and benefits of knitting but I am just not inspired to do it. The group have done all they should, it is not their "fault". Any man who wanted to would have learnt and be knitting with the best of them.

Posted: 11 Oct 2008, 9:45pm
by thirdcrank
Just received from UK Handknitting Association press office, request for suggestions 'What can we do to encourage men to take up knitting'

http://www.bhkc.co.uk/

Apparently research tends to suggest that men are concerned about risk of getting a handbagging

Posted: 11 Oct 2008, 9:51pm
by meic
You got me for a second :D

However be careful they take their knitting as seriously as we do our cycling. Always wear a thimble.

Posted: 13 Oct 2008, 1:17pm
by Dee Jay
Some of the world most famous knitters are blokes:

http://www.shanewaltener.com/installati ... eport.html

(There's another one whose name I cannot remember - he has published loads of books - Google doesn't seem to be my friend at the minute ...)

I'm not interested in knitting, although I can knit ...

Posted: 13 Oct 2008, 5:15pm
by meic
snap

Some of the worlds most famous cyclists are women (and WELSH :D )

Posted: 13 Oct 2008, 8:01pm
by thirdcrank
I can knit or I could when I last tried. I don't claim to be particularly good. My biggest achievement was a fisherman's jersey (probably so-called because you would probably only wear it at night on a deep sea trawler, well beyongd the 200 mile limit.

When I was at school there used to be some sort of scheme to knit squares with odds and ends of wool which were sewn into blankets for Oxfam or a similar charity. I've sometimes wondered since what the starving people in different parts of Africa must have made of all those patchwork blankets.