Back in action!

After selling my first wave of bikes, I realized I was doing it wrong. There were a few types of work I couldn't do on my own, and didn't feel okay about doing at Bike Pirates, and pretty much had to do in order to guarantee the relative safety of the bikes I was selling. So I put my bike business on hold, while I got the tools and extra education to be able to do a complete and proper build. I also realized that there's no way I can just build up a bike and sell it right away. It's something that I need to do while riding the bike here and there, so that I do a build over a longer period of time, and all the bugs get worked out. I kept having to do follow-up maintenance after my sales, and it was the kind of stupid things that now I plan to catch during my extended builds. So now I plan to take a month or two to get a bike up to scratch, and then I can sell them with the knowledge that they won't need maintenance for a reasonable amount of time. This gives my customers a big value advantage over other bikes. Even brand-new bikes aren't ridden around between being built and being sold, so they usually require maintenance almost right away. Bike vendors even offer follow-up maintenance in their sales agreements, and I think that's an admission of failure. They should be able to sell each and every customer a product that doesn't need maintenance for at least six months, and the goal should be a year and a half. So that's my goal with my bikes. I even plan to lend them to friends so that they can be tested and tuned up over the period of a whole commuting season.

How can you tell whether it's a men's or women's bike?

Check the gender of the person riding it.

The only gender-specific item you'll find on a bike is the very rare men's or women's -specific seat, designed to protect the reproductive organs, but even those are mostly interchangeable because those vulnerable organs are in the same place on both men and women. The bicycles I build and use have "cruiser-style" seats and promote an erect posture, so the weight is safely on the butt bones.

The confusion is about the two most common frame shapes: step-through and diamond. Step-through frames were built to allow both men and women to commute to work without spoiling their dress pants, skirts or dresses. The design also makes the bike easier to get on and off, and to offers some flexibility in the frame for a bit of natural suspension. It's a city commuting design. Diamond-shaped frames are less flexible, so they're faster on smooth roads, and more durable on offroad terrain. With a bit of suspension, step-through frames offer better speed on urban terrain. Each frame shape has the same effect on male and female users, so everybody should have one of each. They're for different purposes, not different bodies.

Men and women have the same physical needs when cycling. All the little details that have been masculinized or feminized are based on stereotypes that fit one's intentions for a specific trip much better than one's gender. So everyone should have a "man's" bike and a "women's" bike, if they want to talk about it that way.

So what most people think is a ladies bike is actually a formal-wear friendly city bike, and what people think of as a man's bike is actually a sports/highway bike. It's just that people don't think of bikes as highway vehicles anymore, and every product we use has had gender assigned to it as a marketing gimmick.

So that's the full explanation of why I've been "cross-cycling" for years. Not everything is a french noun. Bikes are genderless.

Blue Raleigh Space Rider 1-speed backpedal-braking small step-through cruiser

This gorgeous Raleigh Space Rider was rescued on its way to the dump by my good friend Stan the Man! It's a lovely 1-speed, backpedal-braked, tiny step-through cruiser that a long guy like me can even ride like a BMX... and it's light as a feather! I fixed it up and sold it at a garage sale for $75. If I were to sell the same bike now, being more patient about it, the price would be closer to $150. Maybe $130.

Get Good Gloves!

I hate getting my hands dirty. Hate it! And I also hate getting steel wool and bits of cabling stuck in my skin - what a pain! So I nabbed these babies from the hardware shop down the street - just over $3! They work nicely, but they do get dirty, so it's a good thing they're very washable. But I also recommend gardening gloves for heavier work.