Mike43UK

Myself and my wife have recently bought Electra bikes here in the UK. I have a Townie 21D EQ and my wife has an Electra Cruiser 7. We are in our seventies and have been riding bikes since we were about 7 years old. We both have had road bikes and mountain bikes and ended up with Peugeot Toulouse Dutch style step thrus which we sold a couple of months ago. We have had the step thrus since 2002 but they were getting to be a bit on the lumpy side. As we are getting on a bit it is good to get your feet straight onto the ground when you stop. The ride on my Townie was strange at first but I am getting used to it. I might swap the riser handlebars for either North Road or Cafe handlebars. I like the comfort of North Road handlebars. Where I live near the coast on the Romney Marsh in the UK it is as flat as a pancake which is a bonus. Another bonus is that there is a bike path a few minutes away from our place, and also another very quiet route to the sea which is about 4 miles away. I have always been able to fix my own bikes since I was very young, the case being that when I was a kid going to a bike shop was financially impossible so I taught myself from books. I agree with taz777 it seems to be a long time until the warm weather is with us again, but we still go riding when we feel like it. Good luck to all bike riders. I can't remember where I saw a post regarding the Townie handlebar stem I think it was taz777 asking about the polished embellishment above the head nut. I had a look this morning at the collar on my bike. When you undo the stem allen bolt and lift the bars off the collar comes with it. I checked and it seems it is a shiny cover for the head nut. I used a thin piece of hardboard on edge and tapped this with a small hammer and it just moved. I put the stem back into the bike, tightened the allen bolt up again and tapped the collar back in place again. Hope this helps.