Budget "Dutch bike" from Republic

Having introduced their Aristotle "fixed gear" bikes last year, Urban Outfitters and Republic Bikes now announce that the Plato "Dutch bike" is forthcoming. Like the Aristotle, the Plato is described as a "build your own bike", which means that the customer can choose the colour of the bike and accessories. The bicycle has a fully lugged hi-ten steel frame and crown fork. It is fitted with balloon tires, coaster brake and front Shimano rollerbrake. Fenders, front and rear racks, a dressguard, and a full vinyl chaincase are included. Retail price of $399.

[image from Republic Bikes]

I played around with the Republic Bikes website and "built my own": tusk frame, ivory skirtguard and chaincase, brown saddle and grips, and green tires. The bicycle is available in 47cm frame size only and is recommended for riders 5'2" - 5'11". The tires are 26" x 2.35" and it is not mentioned who manufactures them.

[image from Republic Bikes]

If you are not a fan of the green tires, then this is how it would look in all-cream.

[image from Republic Bikes]

And another colour combination I like in gray and brown. Of course if you prefer flamingo pink, mint green, or candy apple red, there are those options as well.

[image from Republic Bikes]

Given how many readers email me every week asking about inexpensive bikes, I think that news of the Plato will be welcomed by the market. I cannot speak at all about the quality of this bicycle or about the feel of the ride. But the specs make me hopeful that it might actually be ridable - especially if you are on the shorter end of the recommended range. It is especially impressive that a full chaincase and a dressguard have been custom made and included in the price, when even some bicycles in the $1-2,000 price range have not been able to offer this option. Questions of manufacturing locations and practices aside - If one's budget is $400 and this is not negotiable, the Republic Plato may prove to be a good option.

If anybody has already ordered and ridden the Plato, it would be great to get your feedback. I don't think it's possible for me to to test ride this bike, as they are built to order.

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The Way Home

Unlike in Boston, where I work from home/cafes with only occasional meetings, in Vienna I have a proper office and therefore a real "commute". My office is not in a particularly scenic location, but thankfully I also have frequent meetings in attractive parts of town. Here are some pictures from my ride home last night from a meeting in the city center.

Just a regular ride home. Don't mind the beautiful architecture.

On Sunday I made the decision to stop buying public transport passes and see whether I would feel comfortable getting around solely by bike.

Three days of commuting (I work on Sundays too when I am here), and so far so good.

Bike lights at an intersection.

And another intersection. Cyclists are asked to wait for green.

Huge intersection along the Donaukanal. If you look closely, you can see the ferris wheel of the Prater park way in the background, over the bridge.

Pedestrians getting ready to cross, and probably wondering what in God's name I am photographing. And yes, I always have at least two cameras on my person, in case you've noticed the one around my neck.

Last major intersection, and home is just a few blocks away. So there you have it. With commutes like this, I almost want to sing Nice Work if You Can Get It (if only I didn't have to do it for 60 hours a week)!

I will post more on my experiences riding all over Vienna later; so many things to say. For now I am off on a short work trip. Hopefully I will see some noteworthy bicycles there to show you.

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Jacqueline in the Light of Day

Hopefully these daylight pictures of Jacqueline will do her more justice than the blurry ones from the previous night. These were taken yesterday in my courtyard. I rode her around Vienna all day in a state of disbelief. She rides wonderfully and the folding basket-panniers are amazingly functional. It does not matter what I am wearing, what I am carrying, and where I need to go - this bicycle is ready for anything.

As mentioned previously, Jacqueline is a lady's Steyr Waffenrad - which is one of the oldest (if not the oldest?) Austrian bicycle manufacturers. In my previous post someone commented that this is "the Austrian version of a Dutch bike", but while it's true that these are generally referred to as "Hollandrads", I do not think that is really the case. Waffenrad was established in 1895, and was influenced by the British roadster manufacturer BSA rather than by anything from the Netherlands. It later became a generic name used to describe a certain kind of bike, and the most popular manufacturer of these was Steyr. I have been told that at one point Austria had over 180 bicycle manufacturers. Sadly, most are no longer in business.

Jacqueline is a 1980s model, though its components are from a variety of time periods. The frame design is a "swan frame": The downtube curves around the front wheel and the top tube forms a complimentary curve. Put together, they form a "swan's neck" shape.

To my eye, the lugwork on the headtube resembles swan as well, though I may be imagining things.

Lugged connector between the downtube and the toptube.

Is the bicycle equivalent of "hood ornament" a "fender ornament"? This bike has one in the shape of a wing-like art deco "W" - appropriated from a German Wanderer bicycle.

Both the headlight and tail light are dynamo powered. I have never ridden a bike with a bottle dynamo (only hub), and based on what I'd heard about old dynamo bottles I expected it to be pretty bad. In fact it works splendidly. There is a distinct hissing sound of the bottle rubbing the tire, but it does not feel any harder to pedal. To de-activate the light during daytime, simply push the bottle sideways away from the tire. To activate it at night, press the release switch and it pops back into place. Easiest lighting system I've ever used, and the bottle feels extremely durable.

The beautiful tear-drop tail light. I very much want one of these for one of my bikes. You can see the little wire coming out from under the fender and running along the rusty stay, zip tied to it. The winged "W" logo is once again from a Wanderer, though the fender itself is native. Notice the holes that have been drilled into the fender for the original dressguards. You can also see the double kickstand (I prefer this one to the Pletscher) and the rear coaster brake hub. It is not a Sturmey Archer; in fact I saw no markings on it at all.

The coaster brake functions extremely well, but the front (hub) brake is mostly decorative - It works when you're stopped at an intersection and want to prevent the bicycle from rolling forward, but doesn't really make an impact when the bicycle is in motion. The coaster brake is plenty though, and I quickly got into the habit of simply ignoring the front brake lever. The hub gears are operated via the "Torpedo" shifter. The gears are widely spaced, similar to the Sturmey Archer AW hub on my Raleigh. Parts of Vienna are quite hilly and I anticipated using the 1st gear a lot - if not getting off the bike altogether in some areas. But to my surprise, I have mostly been using the 3rd and 2nd gears. I by no means have legs of steel, but old 3-speed hubs seem to be magically versatile.

The handlebars are what people today usually refer to as "Porteur" style, but actually they are similar to the version of North Roads that are put on Raleighs with rod brakes. The bar is mostly flat, with the grip areas curving sharpishly upwards and towards the rider. I prefer these to the classic North Road/Albatross bars, which are curvier and more flared to the sides. The plain grips are also surprisingly comfortable. That stuff in front of the handlebars is a folded-up front rack, with a beefy cable lock hanging off it. It all looks like a tangled mess here, but I find it a very comfortable set-up.

Here is the view from the front, with the rack unfolded. The rack is bolted to the stem and strapped to the handlebars with aged leather belts. It is not supported enough to carry heavy loads, but it is a convenient place for things like extra layers of clothing that might be removed and then put back on during a ride.

The rear basket panniers, on the other hand, can pretty much take anything you want to put in them. My large work bag fits into these perfectly, as do grocery bags (2 in each). The ride quality is hardly effected when the basket panniers are loaded. I think I need to install these on one of my bikes. The tires are 28" cream Schwalbe Delta Cruisers, just like on my Raleigh at home. They roll fabulously and swallow cobblestones without a peep - wonderful.

The one thing I would change about this bicycle is the saddle (just looking at these plush Selle Royals is painful!), but that of course is an easy fix (if only I'd brought one of my vintage Brooks from home!). Ideally, I would also like a full chaincase - but the chainguard here has been effective so far.

Overall, I feel that every part of this beautifully rusty bicycle has been extremely well thought out by its owner Wolfgang. Everything from the puncture resistant tires, to the super-stable kickstand, to the self-sustaining lighting set-up, to the roomy collapsible panniers, has a feel of perfectly functional design to it. I love Jacqueline. How will I give her back?

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Take Me Home Tonight

One thing you can count on in life is that it is full of surprises. And while the idea of the unexpected makes us nervous, it also makes us hopeful - For just as trouble can be waiting around the corner, so can excitement and adventure.

Last night I met Jacqueline... and took her home!

Apologies for the unflattering photo, but it was dark. Jacqueline is a beautiful vintage Waffenrad, which is an Austrian manufacturer no longer in business (more about that once I have some pictures of the bike in daylight). The bicycle is on loan from the collector Wolfgang Höfler, who also runs Vienna Active Tours and is involved in a variety of local bicycle-related projects. He is the one who named her Jacqueline. This bicycle is completely upright and very comfortable, which is why I can ride her despite not having entirely recovered from my injuries yet.

I picked up Jacqueline on Saturday night, and was nervous about riding home across Vienna for the first time. I considered taking the bike on the U-Bahn, but then decided to just go for it and cycle. The foldable basket-panniers even fit my huge laptop bag.

It was a 25 minute ride home, and I had no trouble at all. Figuring out the route was much easier than I anticipated, as was navigating the intersections and other quirks of the bike-path system.

And yes, this was playing in my head as I flew through the night-lit city. It was interesting to notice how much more lighter Vienna is at night than Boston; I never really paid attention to this before. The dynamo headlight and tail light on Jacqueline are dim compared to the set-up I have on my bikes at home, but they are more than sufficient here.

Jacqueline after I dragged her into the hallway of my building. She is tired and delighted.

So am I!

I was worried about cycling after having just recovered from pneumonia, but the Waffenrad requires very little effort to pedal - it just rolls. I wasn't even out of breath when I got home. It is a similar ride to my Raleigh DL-1, but not quite the same. I am not sure yet whether I will use this bicycle for transportation, or just to cycle around a bit in my free time - it depends how I'm feeling. And speaking of that, I suddely feel much, much better.

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Thoughts on Public Transport

While I avoid public transportation in Boston, I love it in Vienna. The Wiener Linien system consists of: the U-Bahn (subway), the Straßenbahn (trams), the Schnellbahn (high speed commuter rail), and the Autobus Linien (bus routes). Together, these options cover virtually every block of greater Vienna - making public transport here as useful for traveling to work, as it is for going to the countryside.

I have given it some thought, and here are some of the factors that make Vienna's Wiener Linien system easier and more pleasant for me to use than Boston's MBTA system:

. Density of coverage: In Vienna there are transit stops everywhere. My old flat was around the corner from an UBahn station. My current flat is 1/2 block from a tram station. In Boston, I have to walk for 15 minutes from my apartment to get to a T-Stop.

. Ease of access: In Vienna, it is the passenger's responsibility to purchase tickets and to keep them on their person, but the passenger does not need to produce the ticket in order to enter a station or to hop onto a tram/bus directly. Random ticket checks with steep financial penalties function as incentives for keeping people honest. The free entry speeds everything up considerably, prevents pushing and fighting to get to the front of a queue, and makes everything feel more easy-going. I simply buy a weekly or monthly ticket, slip it into my wallet, and forget about it.

. Purchasing tickets: Even though my English is better than my German, I find Wiener Linien tickets a million times easier to purchase and use than Boston's Charlie Card.

. Atmosphere: For some reason, I find public transport in Boston more stressful and exhausting than in Vienna. Not sure what accounts for such a difference, but I definitely feel it.

The convenience of Vienna's public transport is one major reason why I seldom cycle here for transportation, and vise versa in Boston. I wonder whether cities conduct research regarding what factors make their residents more or less likely to use public transport.

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The Tides of March

I had thought that once January and February were over, the toughest times would be behind me and frequent cycling would happily resume in the gentle spring warmth. But instead of heralding the start of new adventures, March seems to be intent on breaking my spirit. For the past 3 weeks I've had pneumonia as a complication of my rib injuries, and I have no choice but to continue going to work in this state. Moreover, I've had to postpone my return to the US till the end of the month due to an unexpected project which will require exhausting travel. And to top it all off, the weather here has turned arctic and it has snowed 3 times during the past week.

The act of cycling is beginning to seem like a distant memory or even a figment of my imagination. I actually find myself looking at old entries on this website to reassure myself that it was all real. Oh cycling gods, deliver me from these trials and take me to the March I envisioned - with spring weather and a newly built up Sam Hillborne rolling along the New England countryside!

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Vintage Velo Postergirl

"RadlMax" is a vintage bicycle collector from Styria, Austria, who not only taunts me with beautiful images of his unbelievable bikes (which he restores himself), but makes me even more jealous by posting pictures of his lovely wife Karin riding the bikes though their house. Some girls get all the fun! Check it out:

[image by radlmax]

Here is Karin cruising through the livingroom on a high-wheeler. Lucky girl! She is sitting tall and seems to be pedaling effortlessly in her stockinged feet.

[image by radlmax]

And here is Karin on a Pick Racing Bicycle, Vienna, (c) 1933. So cool! What are those tires made of? And notice her skirt and high-heel boots.

[image by radlmax]

And finally, the piece de resistance: Karin, next to a Puch Graz bicycle named Erika, built in 1933. Karin is wearing a Dirndl, which is a form of Austrian national costume. This is one of my favourite bicycle pictures ever. And the early Puch looks like a predecessor of the Azor Swan, does it not?

Looking forward to more pictures from Max's vintage collection!

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