The People's Bike

Huh? What? The blog thing? Oh yea.

Not much going on really. Oh! I know. I bought my sister a bike. Yep. Her birthday isn't until July so it's an early b-day present. See, she has a really short commute to her job as a teacher (only 3 miles. Damn, I'd love to have a commute like that again. I haven't had one that short since I lived in Somerville over 10 years ago). She hasn't ridden a bike in almost 30 years (and yes, she probably would have beaten me on the 5 Boro Bike ride) and she'd NEVER ridden a bike that had gears before. She knows that I'm a big bike nerd so she had asked me to take her to some bike shops to test some out.

We looked at a few bikes and honestly I just wasn't seeing what I thought would suit her needs. She didn't need something that was too complicated and hard to maintain. She really needed something that would be simple and comfortable to ride and have some equipment that would help her. What does that mean? Well, she needed fenders, a chain guard (to paraphrase Patty, "I don't want to have to have one of those doohickeys to keep my pants from getting greasy") and a rack to carry her stuff. It needed to be utilitarian yet fun. Does that even exist? Sure it does. Check it:

This is the men's version. The one she has has a sloped top bar instead of that straight one.

Since we didn't see anything the day we went to the shop, I decided to do some research online to see if I could find something. I did the usual Craigslist thing hoping that something would come up but for the most part that was a bust. I did some good ol' fashioned Googling and came across some positive reviews of the KHS Manhattan Green. It's a 3 speed bike with a coaster brake in the back with a hand brake in the front (Patty wasn't dealing well with the idea of hand brakes to begin with so having a coaster brake is ideal for her). As you can see in the picture, it has a rack, fenders and fully enclosed chainguard. Plus, it has a Dutch lock and it comes with a bell. Perfect.

The Wiff and I drove over to Patty's place on Friday and gave her her present. She was thrilled! I hope that it serves her well and she gets years of use out of it.