Josh Perkins

Considering purchase of one or the other. Have ridden the Ouverture, like the NuVinci hub OK and the appointments are roughly similar on either bike. That said, I can't find any information on the manufacture of the Batavus frame and some of the advance press for that cycle seems to suggest that it's not built for heavy use--more of a weekender. I'm not a weekender. Any advice on this matter?

Thanks,

Josh

NormanF

Look at the Trek Belleville and Electra Ticino for porteur type bikes. Electra offers the Amsterdam as homage to the classic Dutch city bike. Then there Dutch style bicycles by various makers, Pashley, Azor, Gazelle and of course the Chinese in the Flying Pigeon.

inkblot

I'm not sure what "heavy use" would mean, exactly. I read a lot about Dutch upright commuting bikes last spring and summer, talked to a lot of people about them, tried some Breezers, and ended up with an Azor Oma. I used it to commute to work for a while--about twentyish miles roundtrip on mostly flat ground, much of it urban. It was very smooth and high and beautiful and eye-catching but also very heavy (some seventy pounds, with all its racks and hubs and built-in generators and lights and so on), and, riding it, I caught an awful lot of wind. Also it didn't get along with the few slightish hills I did have--it's quite hard to stand on the pedals; the geometry is all wrong for it. Though I was proud of it, it wore me out to take it any significant distance. Perhaps part of it was that I just wasn't in shape for such a bike back then.

But then I began to ride recumbent bikes--first one, then a second (because once I started with them I couldn't stop)--and was unable to make myself go back to the Azor. From the perspective of the aerodynamism and speed and agility of the recumbents, the upright Azor seems a very strange thing: gorgeous, yes, and easy to sit on (you're up above the SUVs), and protected internally from weather (mine even got studded snow tires), but so heavy it's hard to lift over a curb and impossible to change a tube on without the aid of a bike shop and all its tools. (My LBS told me there was no way anybody could remove a wheel on it by the side of the road unless they travelled with a shop's worth of tools and stands. It's not that they said it because they wanted to do the job themselves: they've made it abundantly clear they don't like working on it.) If I got a flat that I couldn't patch on a ride somewhere, I would be in trouble. So I used the heaviest-duty tires I could find and didn't take the bike out of range of the bike shops.

Even while I was still emotionally invested in the bike and trying to use it as much as I could, all this limited its utility.

The Opa isn't an Oma, and Azor isn't Batavus. But this kind of thing may possibly be what the ad copy is alluding to.

I have the Azor still, by the way--it's too beautiful to get rid of, and if I sold it I suspect I would want to duplicate many of its more appealing features. But I keep it for winter riding.




[QUOTE=Josh Perkins;9536307]Considering purchase of one or the other. Have ridden the Ouverture, like the NuVinci hub OK and the appointments are roughly similar on either bike. That said, I can't find any information on the manufacture of the Batavus frame and some of the advance press for that cycle seems to suggest that it's not built for heavy use--more of a weekender. I'm not a weekender. Any advice on this matter?
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