Am Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:50:03 +0000 schrieb Peter Clinch:
> Andreas Schulze-Bäing wrote:
>
>> Agreed - introducing new legislation would not really help. And for kids
>> mountainbikes with fitted lights might not look sufficiently "cool". Maybe
>> in the context of the cycle-to-work schemes it would be an interesting
>> marketing option for those companies offering the typical commuter bike.
>
> A few do appear. Orbit's City 7 is a very good example: hybrid
> frame/bars with hub dyanmo & lights, 7 speed hub gear, (half) chaincase,
> rack and mudguards all fitted as standard.
Well - the website says model is discontinued... :-/
<http://www.orbit-cycles.co.uk/orion.shtml>
> People do seem to be
> gradually (*very* gradually) moving this way. I think part of the
> problem is the perception that since you can but a dual suspension
> "mountain bike" (aka "bike shaped object") at Tesco then /obviously/ you
> don't have to spend much for a Real Bike.
A friend of mine got one of those bike shape objects as a present about two
years ago. She used to enjoy cycling on a road bike back home in Italy -
but hated cycling on this one. The suspension was pretty useless apart from
taking up all your cycling energy. Plus after two years the rims of the
weel were bent, so that I could not adjust the cheapy back break enough to
make them work again. That's why I advised her to get a new bike - which in
the end was at Halfords a Carrera Subway 1.
> That orbit is £700, so evan
> at ~ £350 with the tax break it's more than a lot of people think you
> should pay.
I'm sure one could produce a simple commuter bike for the mass market with
7-gear hub, simple hub dynamo for less than £200, as long as you make a
compromise regarding the weight.
>
>> That surprised me most when I moved to the UK. I thought that in the rough
>> and wet weathers of this country I would see much more bikes with hub
>> gears, with very low maintenance needs. Instead of that I haven't seen a
>> single hub gear bike over here - apart from one commuter bike in Halfords.
>
> We're back to fashion, and the current trend is coming off the MTB boom
> of the 80s. With /real/ MTBs you really do want derailleurs (unless
> it's a Rohloff, but see above about costs!) so everyone had derailleurs.
> If you don't know better (and many people don't) then /obviously/ more
> gears are better than fewer gears, and people again associate hubs with
> rather grot 3 speed Sturmeys from the 70s, so not much market for hubs
> :-( I can sympathise to some extent: as a kid I couldn't wait for
> "proper" gears (all 5 of them!) on a "racer", and once I had them then
> hubs were strictly for grannies and girls.
To avoid misunderstandings... As much as I enjoyed riding my old dutch bike
with 3-gear Sachs, changing to a 24gear Shimano Deore LX in 1995 was a
massive improvement, especially in more hilly topography. And as a friend
of mine promised me back then buying quality would pay off in the long run
- the LX front and rear derailleurs still run smooth today. As long as you
know and apply some basic maintenance techniques, deraillerus are better
than hub gears. But for the unexperienced amateur a hub gear can be a much
better and hassle-free alternative.
>
>> Well the increasing car dependency and use is not exclusive to the UK. Even
>> in the Netherlands the number of trips made by bikes are constantly
>> decreasing and the importance of the car is increasing.
>
> Be interesting to see how that trend continues now energy prices are
> going up and congestion charges start appearing more. There is an
> increasing awareness that The Great Car Economy is *not* sustainable or
> desirable, and places like NL where there still is a cycling culture
> will find it much easier to lower dependency on them than the UK.
That reminds me of last weeks Newsnight special about road-pricing. Even
the "journalist" from the sun in the discussion round admitted that he
would come into Euston Road by train taking a foldable bike from there to
work.
But - on the other hand the petrol prices have always been consistently
higher in the UK than in many other European countries in recent years.
Therefore the average commuting distance is still comparatively low in the
UK, also because long-distance commuting has never been subsidised to the
same extent in this country. It took bicycle advocats in Germany a long
time to get the same level and recognition of commuting subsidy than the
car commuters.
Andreas
