Originally Posted by
indyfabz
They make look Freddy, but some of them will drop you like a hot potato. While doing an organized metric in Berks and Lancaster Counties in PA (Floyd Landis country. Remember him?) I rode for a while with a Mennonite teen. He had on those stiff, back jeans some of them wear and a long sleeve, plaid shirt. But he also wore cycling shoes with clipless pedals. He was very strong. During another even out that way I drafted for a bit behind a Mennonite teen girl wearing a dress and bonnet riding a Raleigh road bike. She had a milk crate on the rear rack, mirrors on both sides and, dig this, a rear Campy disc wheel.
Spot on. There's a couple of Mennonite families round here who routinely spend a day or so a week on our MUP system during the summer. They ride together as families on cruiser bikes and although they are always careful/considerate of other path users, it is quite clear that they are all -- moms, dads, sons, daughters -- very fit and very strong.
Safe to say they could shame our many local poseurs/pathletes were they of a mind to -- using the bikes they have.
To my mind, these folks are true Freds/Dorises: they just ride their bikes, unselfconsciously, very well.