# English and American Roadsters- Raleigh and Westfield



## SirMike1983 (Aug 2, 2015)

http://bikeshedva.blogspot.com/2015/08/bits-of-imitation-american-and-english.html


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## Gasbag (Aug 3, 2015)

Good article at your blog. The bicycle as a primary mode of transportation for adults has really only grown some legs in America in the last decade or so. Adults who rode a bicycle as a primary choice were often the targets of derision or viewed as an eccentric oddity. Even now, it is only in some pockets of larger cities that the infrastructure and acceptance of the bicycle as primary transport is beginning to normalize. The American made adult bikes of the late 30's - mid 50's were good bicycles but certainly lacked the refinement that the European builders had simply from decades of prior experience. In my exposure to the early American lightweights I have noticed the trend of the single speed coaster brake bikes to predominate the IGH bikes with fore and aft hand brakes. I have to wonder if production had focused on the IGH bikes, would the adult bicycle trend that was hoped for have gained more traction? Cheap gasoline and readily available cars probably says no.

The cottage industry of American hand built bicycles (boutique bicycles) that has recently emerged, sputtered, died, re-emerged will become the new source of collectable adult bicycles. If the opportunity to get one of the recent hand built bicycles presented itself in a frame of my size I would have to strongly consider it.


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