Since I started blinging out my Xtracycle, I really wanted to get my wife a new setup. One time we were out withe some friends and she commented about feeling dorky on her Trek Hybrid. It’s got great gear range, it’s comfortable, got double and it fantastic for touring, but for city riding, it really lacks panache.
I’d fallen in love with the mixte frame and really wanted to set one up for her. Ideally, I owuld have gotten her one of these Soma Buena Vistas:
Alas, I wasn’t willing top spend that much this time around, so I started hunting eBay and craigslist. I found some great fully built Peugeots on eBay and probably should have been willing to bid higher based on how awesome these bikes looked. As it was, I started getting frustrated at not finding a frame i liked. When i went to check out a Motobecane mixte one night with a friend, i really wanted it to be great so i could stop my hunting. It seemed pretty nice and my shorter friend could judge the way it rode, so I got it. A few days later as I started to really look at it, I realize I probably chose wisely and should have a) chosen a more standard measurement based bike and b) paid less. Motobecanes are notorious for having Swiss threaded bottom brackets and this one also had cottered cranks. Additionally, it has a 22mm handlebar stem, but fortunately the nitto 22.2mm stem i got still fit. There were a bunch of other issues I was not happy with, where as if I had found a cheap peugeot mixte with much newer parts, I would have been happier.
The end result, however, is much to my wife’s liking, and she looks fantastic riding it. We joke that she looks more like the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz with her upright position, but it very stylish. I removed the larger front chainring and front derailler, added a used Brooks saddle, some Nitto all-rounder bars and a basket from REI.
Motobecane Mixte
Wife's new bike
Final build steps are the new Velo Orange fenders, a shiny chrome chain guard and some ReeLights so there’s no fiddling with lights on our date nights.