Originally Posted by catgita

I find the question interesting: what would the all American commuter/utility bike look like? Maybe the question needs to be specific to the individual city, or maybe NYC vs everywhere else.

At one point or another, I have commuted on almost every bike I have owned in the last 10 years. Road, MTB, SS, Rando, recumbent. It needs speed, for our auto centric distances and our notorious American impatience. Tires that can handle bad surfaces. Some carrying capacity, for a change of clothes and computer, but not enough to slow it down much. Reliability, always being ready to go. And lights for poorly lit streets and roads and don't run out. And real fenders, not those undersized, noisy POS decorative ones on every utility bike ever sold in the US.

That pretty much describes a classic allroad rando bike, which is what I commute on 99% of the time. So it turns out, the all American commuter bike may be French.