Originally Posted by
unterhausen
I'm trying to figure out what the point of this thread is. Framebuilders generally don't build hybrids, that's primarily a mass-produced kind of bike. In general, hybrids have 700c tires and will not fit a full-blown off-road tire. But the first mountain bikes were re-purposed cruisers, so it's not like there are hard and fast rules.
Mr. Unterhausen, I do believe you've just reiterated my exact same conclusion.
So in general, my quest was all about being able to properly assess or categorize a bicycle, simply by observing some salient feature about it. I mean, when we see a road bike, it's usually pretty clear and quite obvious that it's a road bike. We can't help but to notice the skinny tires, the drop handlebar, and the almost perfectly aligned horizontal top tube.
If you're able to install a rack and some fenders on that road bike, we could call it a utility bike, based upon its ability to carry portables. If we continue to dress that road bike with a North Road handlebar, a chainguard, a skirt guard, and reduce its speeds, we're constructing a european influenced, city bike, roadster, or "stadsfiet".
Then there's the cruiser with the paralleled, angled, double top tubes, and the wider tires. Have you seen Trek's MTB, called the Sawyer? Next, enters the MTB into the arena. The top tube is typically sloped or angled. It usually comes with wide tires, or at least the capacity to install the widest of tires. Here lately, MTN bikes stereotypically have a suspended fork, if it's a hardtail. They are considered to be fully suspended, if they have both a suspended fork and a suspended rear.
It would be nice, if we could stop right there, because then, we could nicely place the overwhelming majority of bicycles into neat little categories. However, that seems to be a virtual impossibility, because now, we have the hybrid. The hybrid messes the bicycle nomenclature up!
So what's a MTB bike with a rigid fork?....What's the difference between a Surly Troll and the Surly Ogre, besides frame and tire size?..Are they MTN bikes?...Are they hybrids?...And please don't tell me that the Schwinn Sporterra Comp is a hybrid with a suspended fork!...And what are the defining lines between a comfort bike and a hybrid, or a city bike?
It appears to me that many bike categories are morphing or blending. There's some type of design transition taking place where traditional categories are fading through assimilation. I fear that we're getting to the point where it will be too difficult to properly categorize many bicycles via nomenclature due to hyper-assimilation.
OTOH..It might just be me!
Most Respectfully,
- Slim
