The 6-Miler

18 December 2007

Breezer Uptown 8 ride report

Posted by todd under: Breezer Uptown 8; My bikes .

I have previously written about why I bought the Breezer Uptown 8, and what I like most about it. Now it’s time to describe how it performs.

Most bike reviews I have seen are written after a single test ride, or after a few rides shortly after the purchase. These are my impressions based on riding the bike several times a week for more than a year:

While standing over the top tube, ready to push off and pedal, the first thing I notice is the position of the handlebars. They bend toward me at a natural angle, easing my wrists into a comfortable position as I put my hands on the handgrips.

The bell sits within reach of my left thumb, and I get to the twist-shifter for the 8-speed internal hub by moving my right hand a couple of inches.

I start pedaling. As I roll the shifter toward me (like a motorcycle throttle) to upshift, it clicks. That’s the only noise from shifting — the 8-speed hub does the rest of the work without a sound. The only noise the bike makes is the light whir of tires on pavement.

There’s nothing to notice about the seat, and that’s good — it gives where it needs to and supports where it needs to.

I can lean forward a bit and reach down, with a quick downward glance, to turn on the switch on my headlight while pedaling. The V-brakes over the months have gotten a bit mushy, and they could use an adjustment, but they do what I need them to do. I can shift into a lower gear while stopped — a particularly nice feature of the internal hub.

Because of the upsloping top tube and the sweep of the handlebars, I maintain a comfortable upright position. There is very little weight on my hands. It’s not aerodynamic, but I’m not racing and I’m not worried about speed; in the wind, or while going uphill, I downshift until it’s easy to pedal. My elbows are slightly bent. It’s easy to keep my head on a swivel to survey the traffic around me.

The position is so good, in fact, that it’s almost possible to forget I’m on a bike. I’ll find myself thinking about something else, then coming back with pleasure to the realization that I am still riding.

It is the feeling you can get only on a bike that is dialed in for you, in a good marriage of utility and design. (Just as with any bike, it takes some adjusting of the seat and stem height to get the Breezer set up just right. The bike comes in four sizes; get the biggest one you can straddle comfortably — in other words, the biggest one you can stand over without hurting yourself, if you take my meaning. When you get the biggest size that you can comfortably stand over, you won’t have to raise the seat or the stem much to get a good riding position.)

The tires and suspension seatpost eat up the bumps, allowing for a smooth ride. The bike is not exactly agile around corners, but it’s not clumsy, either. It’s not “racy.” It’s steady, predictable, but still … fun.

In a comment on one of my earlier posts, Joe M. of Los Alamos, N.M., put it this way:

I don’t know a good way to describe this, but the Breezer is just plain fun to ride. Simple-intuitive, and it really brings back the thrill when I was 9 years old on my banana-seat Schwinn.

In short, this is a great city ride — perfect for keeping your head up in traffic, nice for an unhurried pace (although it’s gone as fast as I’ve needed it to), and ideal for taking the turbulence out of a bad piece of pavement.

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