When I was a kid and got my first bike, I was so overjoyed at the idea of having a bicycle, that I had no clue that parents had pulled a switcheroo to save money and given me a girl's frame spray-painted blue. I proudly rode it up and down my grandparents neighborhood, while all the other redneck kids laughed at me. Finally one of them explained that my bike was a girl frame, and I didn't believe him. To prove his point he pulled out a pocket knife and scraped away a little bit of blue paint from the fork to reveal a pink gloss finish underneath. I was crushed. My bike then sat for a little while, I refused to touch it. My parent's didn't understand or care. Then one of the older kids from the neighborhood offered to fix my bike for me, and he took it, and swapped out my girl frame with an older boy's frame, one of the little stingray styled frames. It was spray painted silver and looked bad ass, my first cruiser! I still have it:
I felt way cooler on that bike, and no one harassed me about the gender of my bike after that. Now I am wondering, as adults, does the bike gender thing make as much of a difference? I see bums and teenagers around town riding obvious girl frames, but are there any serious riders who would to admit to riding a girl's frame? I will. my girlfriend has a 65 Schwinn 3- speed Co-Ed Cruiser that is a lot of fun to cruise around on. So far no one has given me a hard time about it. Your thoughts?