Originally Posted by morganw

I'm thinking about switching back to uprights from an underseat-steering recumbent and wonder if I can get a lightweight "Dutch" bike. I don't need fenders or a chaincase. I'd like a lighter weight cromoly or aluminum frame. I prefer a derailleur to hub gears.

Lovely Bicycle covers the uprightness range nicely.

The Breezer Uptown EX is interesting, but it's more of an English 3-speed geometry. I'm looking to put no weight on my hands. I know it'll slow my (11 mi. each way) commute down with the terrible aerodynamics, but I'm still willing to try it. If it's just too slow, I'll still have a nice bike for neighborhood grocery runs.

A bike with a quill stem could be changed a bit with a super-tall stem like the Nitto Periscopa and I could reverse the seat post to get the pedals closer to the bars, but many of the almost-Dutch bikes use threadless headsets. Threadless extenders don't seem to come long enough to fully Dutch-ify.

Even some of the Dutch bikes only come with the handlebars sky high on the loop frames with the "opas" a little less upright.

I'm 6'3" with a 36 inch inseam, so sky high (elbow hight when standing) handlebars is *really* high.