tfahrner

The setback is by means of a pin manufactured by Brompton for their folding bikes: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cleverchimp/1429704016/ . Requires a plain post, and then whatever adaptor is needed to grab the saddle's rails. Brompton dealers should stock the pins (Clever Cycles has 'em. Soon enough we'll sell online, perhaps in kit form with related useful bits).

Cosmoline

Just as a matter of form following function, I find my bikes get more of a "Dutch" look as I use them for utility rides. The handlebars tend to go up more relative to the seat and get swept back. The factory seat is ditched for a nice leather one. Racks and fenders appear, along with platform pedals for easy mounting and dismounting.

Domromer

I really like how it turned out. Do you happen to have a link for the seat post? I think that is just what I need.

donnamb 

Contact these guys. You can use any stovepipe seatpost. It's the other parts that are special.

TurdFerguson2

Reversing the stem can have pretty adverse effects on the handling. It will depend on the fork angle and the length of the stem. I'm not saying it won't work, because it obviously works for cerewa, but I would make sure you test both high and low speed handling before getting yourself into a sketchy situation.

cman

I found one. I like the idea too.
https://www.foldabikes.com/CloseUp/bike/sapMain.html

Sianelle 

North Road bars are just sooooooo lovely to ride with - classic English comfort, - I love them
Seatposts that allow for more set-back were really common on pre-war English and Colonial bicycles. Two of my oldest bicycles have them I think they're a really excellent idea. Beats me why manufacturers stopped fitting them to their bicycles; - no doubt cost-cutting had something to do with it.

jwbnyc

Question: Aren't these new crank forward bikes, the Lime etc., a return to more setback?

Sianelle 

Sorry I don't know anything about Science Fiction, - I only know about bicycles made before 1980.

donnamb 

If you ever felt like posting pictures of those seatposts, I think we'd all appreciate seeing them. Just sayin'.

donnamb 

Yes and no. I think they achieve a similar objective, but not quite in the same way. Behold this nifty diagram shamelessly lifted from tfahrner's blog.

tfahrner

Really, really old bikes (think 1910) often had seatposts with a horizontal pin like this, though most often it faced forward to offer to increase, not decrease the effective seat tube angle, which natively was more laid back than is common today. A saddle forward on its pin was a "scorcher" position. A rear-facing pin serves to convert a typical modern bike (with "scorcher-like" seat tube angle not more than a tick away from 73 degrees) to the more relaxed historical norm.

"Crank forward" bikes do indeed represent a revival of this old thinking, though their manufacturers tend to present it as something they invented or have otherwise somehow tweaked specially. The Lime has a shallow 68-degree seat tube angle, in the neighborhood of old Raleighs, but not as slack as the effective seat tube angle of say the Electra Townies or Giant Suedes.

Steeper seat angles allow for shorter wheelbase (less material so lighter, stiffer, and cheaper to manufacture) and tend also to allow for a better "standing" position as when climbing in a higher gear. Shallow seat angles are all about upright comfort and ease of mounting/dismounting and getting a foot down at stops. Shallow seat angles fell out of favor as bikes came to be understood mainly as sport/recreational equipment instead of as working vehicles (i.e., ones where the comfort of the operator is offered as an important foil to the sometimes rather hard caloric demands of schlepping serious cargo and passengers in hilly country).

jwbnyc

Great blog!

Thanks for the info.

Sianelle 

Shall do. I'll have a rat around in my 'stores' and find a couple of examples that I can take a scan of to show you what they look like.

Bekologist

That must make your Breezer so comfortable, Donna. My most fun bikes to ride have always been the ones with big swept back handlebars. They let you sit totally upright with just a featherlight touch on the handlebars.

Very nice - And your bike's on the Clever Cycles blog!!

Abneycat

Its kind of interesting actually, I never really thought about why my one bicycle is so comfortable on the legs, but after reading that blog and looking back at it, its understandable why - the rails on this bike's particular saddle allow for quite a bit more setback on their own than my other saddles, and even without a system like yours it follows almost exactly the same line down to the bottom bracket.. Hm..
I had it set all the way back without ever really thinking about it, but its a really comfy result.

Now to do this on the rest of the bikes!

Domromer

How has your new setup work for riding short distances? Rides less than 7 miles. I'm thinking of setting up a dutch style bike as my main around town type bike. Also, what was the reason for setting your seat back? Does having the bars so far back make the cockpit feel cramped with the seat at it's normal setting?

tfahrner

Domromer, if all you do is bring the bars closer and higher, yes you cramp the cockpit, but more importantly you reduce the angle between your torso and legs (the red angle in the stick figure graphic here: https://clevercycles.com/?p=193). The resulting posture means you can't make as effective use of the largest muscle group in your body -- the buttocks -- as when you preserve a more acute torso angle. This is the trap of "comfort bikes", cruisers, etc: you'll overwork your quads. Scooching the saddle back at the same time you bring the bars up and in preserves basically the same triangle between bars, saddle, and pedals as before, but it moves all the weight off your hands/arms/shoulders. It opens your chest, puts your head high and balanced.

Sixty Fiver

I ride a Raleigh Superbe 3 speed and have ridden it as far as 50 miles (non stop) and have been very comfortable doing so.

Domromer

Are their any bikes sold in America that are set up like this already? I'm very interested to try one out. I bought a recumbent because riding a regular mt bike was killing my shoulders/neck/back/writs. The recumebent solved all those problems but it's a pain to use a day to day commuter. So i'm looking for something like Donna put together.

donnamb 

Come up north and visit us some Saturday.

Domromer

I guess I'll need to do that.

djkenny

I love what you did with the Breezer. I have been interested in the upright angle bikes. I found a nice apprx 5 yr old Batavus Navajo on a recent trip to the bay area. A couple from Sweden shipped it over to the USA when moving, and recently, decided to let their younger daughter sell it for cash. It was a tight squeeze in the back of a Chevy Sprint from Los altos to San Jose... before getting a bike box and flying it home to Portland... but well worth it.

It isnt the Oma or Opa traditional model, but a more modern version. Pros and Cons.

It is about 1 size too big for me making the dismounting a little less than ideal, not a internal gear model like I have desired (although that might be a OK traight since the trip to Woodstock has the hill on Gladstone to tackle for around 15 blocks)... but, it has the clever wheel lock and upright position with a solid rear rack.

oldfool

I have changed all my bikes or at least the ones I ride often to a more upright position. Any position that puts pressure on my wrist just doesn't work for me. To get the seat back far enough on the bikes that need that adjustment I found a couple of doohickeys on handle bars of an old mountain bike in my parts pile. Apparently they are additions to handle bars to make them usable. Sorry I don't know what they are formally called. There is a picture of one unmodified below and and one installed. I cut the extension where the curve starts which leaves my with a 3 inch extension.This is on a cheap Chinese folder that was just terrible to ride the way it was set up originally. With the seat set back three inches it is now comfortable to ride and I no longer feel like a "bear on a bike" circus act although it has been said that I still look like one (I hear giggling behind my back). I use this bike when I have to take my car, not only as a lifeboat but as a way to get around when I go into town.
Never mind the rusty Huffy saddle. It fits my bottom quite well. It will get painted someday but as a member in good standing of the "International Institute of Not Doing Much"(Resistance is futile) I see no reason to hurry.

graywolf

That is a clever idea. It is a shame that bicycles are now so poorly designed from a transportation point of view that we need to modify them to fit a human body. Of course that kind of moves all you weight over tht rear wheel on that particular bike, must be real easy to do wheelies.