Originally Posted by
dynaryder
Another point I should've made;from what I understand,the Dutch keep their streets pretty clean. I've had several Euro bikes come into my clinic needing flat repair or rear tire replacement. Not fun when removing your rear wheel takes multiple tools and requires you to keep track of parts. One that's been into my clinic a couple times even required me to remove part of the chain guard to get a good enough look at the Nexus hub to adjust the shifting. Guess they'd never heard of inspection windows. Flats are rare for me,but no way I'd want a simple flat repair to turn into a project.
The traditional soft chaincase on my Gazelle has a snap secured window, can be opened further in a few seconds by unlacing a wire, and totally removable in about a minute. It does take an extra 10-15 minutes to swap out a tire, but the trade off is that that drive line maintenance is reduced to a biannual task, and besides, my last flat like most was repairable without removing the wheel.
The metal chaincases on my Robin Hood, and Flying Pigeon are a little less convenient,
Originally Posted by
dynaryder
FYI,the bike manufacturers make what sells. I've noticed numerous folks here who like the Euro-style bikes tend to complain about new stuff and hold onto their old stuff forever. Meanwhile,the roadies and MTBikers are getting new rides as soon as the latest-and-greatest comes out. If you owned a business,which group would you play to?
I understand why retailers carry what sells best, I was simply lamenting the fact that we're the oddball market where there is less readily available variety.