Damien,
Bikes are a highly personal passion for me, as I am sure it is for you and other listers. So the advantages and disadvantages of many choices are highly personal, too. Here are my own views on riding Peugeot UO-18 mixtes, the only ones with which I have any experience.
My recently-stolen Peugeot mixte was my mother's for 30 years before she asked me "Do you know anyone who could use this bike? I don't want to ride it any more." (She will be 87 on April 17.) So the first advantage to me was that it was free. (At least until I spent several hundred dollars on new alloy 700C wheels to replace the 27" steel "death-in-the-rain" rims, new brakes, bars, and other components, many of which also came out of my old parts/unused old components stash. Sound familiar?)
But I liked it for other reasons, too:
1) The effective top tube on this 52 cm (c-t-c) frame was 55-56 cm, which fits me perfectly. (Conversely, it is far too long to comfortably fit most women, a design flaw shared with most mass-produced women's bikes that were designed by men.)
2) The mixte frame Peugeots have the same comfortable but "quick and limber" handling of their double-diamond cousins, offering a fun and decidedly non-tanklike-ride, even at the entry level. (Motobecanes and Gitanes should handle similarly well, IMHO.)
3) The mixte frame is safer in traffic for two reasons: a) coming off the saddle quickly during sudden stops is much less hazardous to one's vital anatomy, and b) with upright bars one's visibility and ability to see other traffic is excellent
4) The twin lateral frame tubes make for easy-on and easy-off at Peet's, the Farmer's Market, Pagano's Hardware Mart, and other shopping destinations, or when I ride to City Hall to advocate for better bike facilities or programs at city meetings.
5) The Peugeot UO-18 mixte, like its other European twin-lateral-stay designs (they run all the way from the head tube to the rear dropouts) looks more elegant than many other mixte and women's frame designs. I love that, since it rides as well as it looks. And, according to other list members' reports, this kind of frame is actually a unisex/universal design of long standing in Europe. I like that, too.
Regards,
Jon Spangler Where it's raining again/still in Alameda, CA USA, where we still need the precipitation to end the 3-year drought
On Apr 12, 2010, at 5:35 AM, damien roohr wrote:
> Hi Jon,
> Good luck with the re-build!
> What are the advantages of a mixte frame? For what sort of riding are they best suited? What is about the design that makes them a preference for some riders? One observation is that they seem to have predated the fashionable (last 12 years or so) sloping down tube by several decades! (and yes, I did google advantages bicycle mixte frame but did not find the info particularly insightful.
>
> thanks,
>
> Damien Roohr
> canton, ct
> 78 comp gs
> 82 traveler
>
Jon Spangler
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