Had an interesting conversation with the manger at my LBS the other day. I was looking at a bike for mom and talked about the article with him as I looked, as she falls into the category of riders the coasting concept was aiming at.

Her and I had discussed getting her a new bike, she has a cruiser type el cheapo singlespeed. It is too taxing for her to ride much and she wanted something she could use to tow the grandkids around in a trailer I bought for them. Kids love the trailer, their parents, my sister and her spouse, just don't use it enough. We talked about what she needed, what she wanted and what she didn't like. She wanted an upright riding position, doesn't like the "pedal forward" semi recumbent styles, and seemed to me overly concerned about shifting and braking, she said it was "too confusing" which I didn't understand, but agreed we would try and avoid the confusion factor.

My criteria for her bike was that she be comfortable to ride it, it be dependable since I will be maintaining it, it have some gears because she wants to pull the kids, no front der to cut down on her confusion, I would prefer something with internal gearing for ease of maintenance and she must be able to pick the bike up easily to load it to go see the grandkids.

Her budget? $300-$400.....ouch

So I talked to the LBS about the Trek Lime, a little over budget but I figured i could talk her into it. He didn't have any, had bought three and said he practically had to give them away to get rid of them. I had thought the bike overpriced for the target market and he agreed. He stated the coasting group didn't really appeal to people but the Giant Suede had been a big hit for him, same concept executed with normal components and no front der, it was available with the coasting group but he didn't carry it. Comes in a three speed internal that he could get to me at mom's pricepoint or the 7speed a little cheaper. It is forward pedal a little but I will get her on it next weekend and see what she thinks.

In conclusion to a bit of a rambling post, I think Shimano overengineered an answer to what people want, a decent easy to ride bike that performs better than a cruiser that they don't have to think about, just get on and ride.

In other words it's not about the bike, it's about the ride itself.