In an earlier message Bill Bryant said:
<<
Also, there has been an interesting series of posts recently by Jan
Heine about the styles of French framebuilding (frame alone versus the
whole bike with fenders, racks, lights, etc). I surveyed dozens magazine
articles about, and advertisements for French bike firms in the 1970s &
'80s (including Singer and Herse) and found they all referred to this
type of bike as a "randonneuse", again because a bicycle is feminine.
"Le velo" is masculine, but that is like saying "bike" in English. These
are "bicycle" companies, not "bike" companies, thus the use of the
feminine article. However, in the mountain bike era of the 90s and 00s,
the French cycling industry seems to be wanting to be seen as more
"sporty" or "with it", so perhaps "bike" rather than "bicycle" is
getting more play, and perhaps these types of machines will be described
as "randonneurs" in the future?
>>
I can't add much to this but I remembered a brief exposition by a Dutch(?) rider on the Touring list:
Yvonne wrote: << Also, while it is correct to say that a male cyclist doing a brevet is a randonneur and a female cyclist a randonneuse, this doesn't hold true in exactly the same manner for their bicycles.
Yes, there are bikes called randonneur & randonneuse as well, but it isn't what you may think.
We might think of a bicycle for a woman to have sloping top-tubes and hence
call it a woman's bike but it shouldn't be called a randonneuse. A randonneur
is a road bike that has been put to use for loaded cycle-touring, hence it has
a stiff frame and is a tad heavy... just like my dear Griffon. A randonneuse
is a road bike that is only used for very lightweight touring, thus for riding
those brevets with a bar bag and/or a saddlebag/rackpack. The bikes need to
be a bit more comfortable than a regular roadbike and a tad heavier, but not
much..
>>
Ken Stagg
Tacoma, Washington