planning out a mixte…
so it seems that i have a mixte build-up in the works, someday i’ll get back to the pre-war schwinn i swear!
anyhow, back to the subject at hand, a mixte build, what’s a mixte you ask? well the late Sheldon Brown explains it as such,
A style of lady’s frame in which the “top tube” consists of a pair of small diameter tubes running more-or-less straight from the upper head lug, past the seat tube, and on to the rear fork ends. A mixte frame thus has 3 sets of rear stays, instead of the usual two. A variant on the mixte uses a single, full sized top tube running from the upper head tube to the seat tube, but retains the middle set of stays. A lady’s type bike that lacks the middle pair of stays is not a mixte.
Mixte frames are stronger than conventional lady’s frames, particularly in resisting the tendency of the seat tube to get pushed backward in the middle when ridden by a heavy rider.
In French, “mixte” is pronounced “MEExt”, but normal U.S. bicycle industry pronunciation is “MIX-ty”.
so basically i’m building a really nice city girls bike 😉
this is how a simplified version of the parts list is shaping up:
frame
components/wheelset
then there’s going to be a bunch of Velo Orange Parts, of course, Nitto, Racks, Dia Compe, Pletscher, Thomson, Brooks, and it will again be on 650b VO rims like the Univega build.
this is going to be a long termer like the Schwinn, going to have it done by Spring of 2014 though, at least thats the plan 🙂
-peter
