Originally Posted by
cudak888
The state of the old Dahons that invariably get chucked by the boat owners at our local marina has made it clear that the ideal boat bike must be as simple as possible.
Ideally, you'll want some combination - or all - of this:
-Kurt
Although some of your suggestions are very good , I have to disagree with a few, taken from being an active cyclist that lived on a sailboat for near 15 years. After my wife’s SS Kabuki Submariner got stolen in the early eighties , we couldn’t find another one in our area so we bought her a Raleigh Touring 14 , the burgundy one that came with bar end shifters. After changing the spokes on my Diamond Formula and having it repainted once a year my bike never failed me. The SunTour derailleurs held up very well as did the DiaCompe brakes. Her Raleigh came with SS spokes IIRC . The cables needed replacing maybe once a year , bike maintenance was easy as I had a buddy with a bike shop near the harbor . He built custom frames and raced and I would do tool grinding in exchange for him working on our bikes occasionally, actually not as often as one would think. He taught me how to do my own maintenance, so I bought a few tools and started doing my own. We did end up buying a VW van after a few years of bike only. I could then put the bikes in the van when we went sailing(frequently) out to the islands for a few days. Before that we would leave them at the yacht club. Living aboard and riding the bikes daily helped because the bikes rarely sat for over 24 hours without being ridden. When it rained we would cover them with tarps and hitch a ride with coworkers, occasionally we would put on our foul weather gear on and ride anyway to get to work. I worked at a large aerospace company and my wife worked at a bank. It was a good life and we were young , no kids, and very active.