Yesterday, I wrote an article about utility cycling trends at this year’s Interbike, the annual North American bike industry trade show.
While my thoughts are from a distance as I have to work a day job and can’t fly off to Vegas this week, I enjoyed reading the recent post from ChicagoBikeBlog who is actually there providing us a perspective from the bikes as transportation crowd from the show room floor.
Check it out. It’s a really good read with some interesting insight on where the industry is heading for this market.
on Sep 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Despite the “trendiness” factor, I do find it heartening that bike manufacturers appear to finally be recognizing that the veer into performance-oriented marketing that started in the LeMond years might have, in a very long-term sense, been a bad idea. I’ve noticed more and more utility bikes offered in the last few years. Granted, a lot of them are crap, but there are some nice, affordable bikes out there. I’m not too sure about their build quality, but take a look at the way Schwinn has really gone back to their roots with offerings like the Coffee and Cream, Sid and Nancy, etc.
Also, I just read Marcus’ Amsterdam review. I have one myself, and I agree with the comments about the skirts, they pop off way too easily. If his chain is slapping his chaincase, though, he needs to adjust his rear wheel. The dropouts are horizontal, and it sounds like his wheel has loosened a bit on the dropouts causing his wheel to slide forward, thus putting some slack in the chain.