Originally Posted by MrEss

Oh, wow! Quoting the picture because we can all stand to see that again.

Why, on such a beautiful bike, use a sidepull rear brake? A centerpull brake with extra long wraparound straddle wire is so elegant!

Also, why do most people build mixtes with townie bars? Here's some 'saved from the grave' drop-bar mixte love:

Originally Posted by blaise_f

The mixte with the key to my heart:

Originally Posted by 3speed

Womans or not, I don't really care. I actually don't even care about riding a straight up single top tube womans bike. But why is it that so many people don't think that a mixte is a womans bike? Look at a mens bike, now look at a womans bike, and then look at a mixte. Just because someone says "Oh, see this womans style bike? I know it's designed exactly like a womans bike, but it's somehow not a womans style bike because I said so." doesn't make it not a womans style bike. That's just silly. It would be more appropriate to just say "Hey, I realized that a womans style bike has some benefits and I prefer it sometimes." If anything I think it's more manly to just ride the womans bike and be confident in the fact that you like it and who cares what others think versus trying to deny the fact that it's a womans bike.

EDIT: Just saw Doohickie's post. Did the French have the same womans bikes with dropped top tube that we did?

Originally Posted by irwin7638

Actually the Mixte design we see with the dual sloping tubes which extend to the rear dropouts became really popular in Nazi occupied France. The design created a reinforcement for carrying heavy loads when they needed urban delivery vehicles.
Marc

Originally Posted by Bionicycle

One could just as easily ask, How did we get to this stupid Men's vs Woman's bike idea in the first place. I know that the step through frame was made so that women of modesty could ride a bike in a dress without hiking a leg over a top tube. I also know that the diamond frame was developed because it was (for the time period) the strongest design that used the lightest tubing, (thus good for racing) a male dominated sport.

But, who was the idiot that ever decided that therefore a man can not ride a step through, and a woman can never ride a diamond frame? The woman diamond frame thing has all but died, but this outdated idea that a man can not ride a step through seems to be doggedly hanging on in the American Bicycle Marketing Department.

When the Mixte frame came out, most families could not afford a "Gender Specific" bicycle... Why buy two bikes when one will do just fine. Unisex bikes made a lot of sense around the turn of the 20th century, where the woman and man both needed to ride the bike for travel.

PS... could you imagine if that would have translated to motor vehicles? Men would only be able to drive pickup trucks, and women would only get to drive pink or light blue sedans.

But, to answer the original statement... no one is saying a Mixte is unisex to make it not a woman's frame, we call it unisex, because that is what it was and is, and was designed to be from the start. It's resemblance to a woman's frame is what most likely drove it to be associated as such.

Originally Posted by irwin7638

Actually the Mixte design we see with the dual sloping tubes which extend to the rear dropouts became really popular in Nazi occupied France.
Marc

Originally Posted by triplebutted

That's very cool info! So it ain't "girly" for a guy to ride a mixte huh? Okay, I'm sold!

Originally Posted by blaise_f

It's manly for a guy to ride a mixte.

Originally Posted by blaise_f

It's manly for a guy to ride a mixte.

Originally Posted by Doohickie

I'd ride one if I could come across one that fit me halfway decent. I normally ride a 60 or 63 cm bike.

Originally Posted by Doohickie

I'd ride one if I could come across one that fit me halfway decent. I normally ride a 60 or 63 cm bike.

Originally Posted by blaise_f

I hear you there. Seems to be the main issue with mixtes in the states.

Originally Posted by Bionicycle

I think,that's because in the "States" Mixtes have been chucked into the "Woman's Frame" category and therefore were just never in demand in larger sizes. Add to that the fact, that for most of the late 19th and early 20th century European men were of smaller body size, and those that road Mixtes didn't need large frames. It's only of late that the Mixte is becoming popular (possibly in part due to this web forum), and being recognized for what it was meant to be in the first place (unisex) and so larger frames are starting to be manufactured now.

I'm 5'll" and ride a Mixte (see sig photo) with a 20 inch seat post length, but since mine is set up as a Utility/Cruiser upright seating, and the Fuji Mixte seems to have a very laid back geometry; I don't feel the least bit cramped or confined when I ride it. As a matter of fact, when it had the drop bars on it, it felt every bit as stretched out as the larger frame Schwinn Le Tour diamond frame that I had, that was originally fitted for a person 6'3". I think the laid back position of the seat tube gives the feeling of a longer effective top tube to a great extent. Just my personal experience though.