Ok, I'll date myself here. When I was a kid, if a bike had straight tubes, it was an 'English' or better yet, an 'English Racer'. Everything else was just a bike. I remember the first drop-barred 'English' I ever saw. I was 6 and this man (he was probably in the 9th or 10th grade) rode up to my friend Bobby and me asking how to get back to the local ritzy prep school he was attending. He was 2 blocks 'out of bounds' and was desperately trying to get back before he got caught. He had a gold Philips 10 speed (I think it was). We just thought that was the ugliest bike ;-) and asked him why his bars were upside down! About 5 years later, my older brother bought the exact same bike used and I thought he was the coolest kid on the block....

Jim