Lovely times

Last night, I had a bicycle date with Velouria from Lovely Bicycle!, and as she details on her blog, it was lovely indeed.  It was a strange and wonderful experience to see Eustacia (and Velouria!) up close and personal after following the blog for the past months, with the scales tipping over to the 'wonderful' side, naturally.

Photo from Lovely Bicycle!

As you can see, I did take a quick ride on the Pashley.  How could I resist?  It was a very short 60-second spin, at least in part because I felt a little bit less sure of myself on this new-to-me bike.  As Velouria mentioned, the saddle probably could've been a bit higher for me, and her handlebars are set much lower than mine.  Even though I looked quite upright on the Pashley, I felt a distinct forward lean in comparison to my Fryslan.  If you look at the photo from last night compared to one from Monday's Tweed Ride, you can see that on Frida, I'm sitting up completely straight and my arms are bent almost at 90 degrees to my body (especially when compared to the other bikes in that photo!):

From Lovely Bicycle!

From Albert's picasa album

I think my riding position on the Pashley is similar to what I had with my KHS Green, but there too, the position of the handlebars was different: those angled slightly up where Eustacia's are angled noticeably downward.  As my own personal preference, I like/have grown used to the very stately, upright posture of my Fryslan, but the downside is that it's definitely not one that's suited for speed.  I compare cycling on Frida to riding a grand ocean liner-- smooth, stable, and slow-- whereas Eustacia did feel like it could be sportier and nimbler [V: has the Pashley ever been described as sporty or nimble before?  :-)  I guess emphasis is on the "-ER"!].  I think the Fryslan's longer wheelbase and larger wheels also add to the ocean liner handling when compared to the Pashley.

Another contributing factor was that the Pashley's handlebars are simply narrower than the wide, squared-off handlebars of the Dutch Fryslan.  I like the way my wide bars feel 95% of the time, but for those moments when I want to pass between stopped and parked cars to move up to a light, or when I'm trying to maneuver both self and bike through doorways, they can feel a bit oversized.  I like to think of Frida's handlebars as acting like a cat's whiskers, though-- they'll make sure she never enters a space that's too narrow for her!  (Eustacia may just be a skinnier cat, of course.)

Obviously, none of this is to say that one of these bikes is better than the other-- how could anyone make such a choice?!-- but they do feel measurably different, especially with Velouria's particular modifications.  I would be curious to try a Pashley that was set up to fit me a bit better (perhaps even a larger frame size?) to see what a more direct comparison would be like.  I continue to be surprised at how much difference just a few inches or degrees can make in determining a bicycle's comfort for oneself.  The moral is test, test, test!

It was the loveliest of evenings, and I think all four ladies had a very nice time together.