[CR]Lightweights, Middleweights, and Heavyweights ...

(Example: Production Builders:Cinelli:Laser)

To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:49:53 -0800 (PST)
From: donald gillies <gillies@ece.ubc.ca>
Subject: [CR]Lightweights, Middleweights, and Heavyweights ...

I saw these definitions on a Craigslist posting recently, and wanted to share it with the CR list. I guess I haven't read enough books to have seen these official definitions. I wanted to post this information to the CR list for verification and/or comment.

An old style bike with 2.125 tires is known as a heavyweight, and is also called a cruiser. An old style bike with 1.75 tires is known as a middleweight, and is also called a cruiser. (Middleweights were introduced in the mid-1950s by American manufacturers in response to the influx of imported lightweight 3 speed bikes such as Raleigh. Middleweights used somewhat narrower and higher pressure tires than the balloon tire bikes of the day, and although not as fast as a 3 speed, middleweights were more durable.) Cruisers are usually defined as bikes having curved frame tubes, and these will often (but not always) be one speed coaster brake bikes.

A bike with narrower 1 x 3/8 tires or 1 x 1 1/4 tires (often 3, 5, or 10 speed bikes) and straight frame tubing is known as a lightweight. These bikes are not all that light by today's standards, but in the 1970s these were light and fast compared to single speed fat tire cruisers.

These bikes with straight frame tubing and relatively skinny wheels are not cruisers. Call them "town bikes", call them "jammers", but please do not call them cruisers. Heck, you can call them 3-speeds, because that's what most of them are.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA