Ladies Bikes - What are you riding?

Those bicycle are perfect on the flat, the ride position of the english roadster give great view of the road, easy to get on/off, chainguard completely covered the chain, etc. they appeal to the sort of person who simply need a transport to get from A to B without the need of helmet, day-glo vest, glove, rucksack (basket replace that), trouser/cycling short etc. and to lock outside their building enduring the harsh winter, it's simply a bike that you can get on and cycle off to the shop.

I can defintely understand the appeal of such bicycle to them (as well as to the blokes), especially after riding in Amsterdam.

Unfortuantely, the keys different is Amsterdam, it's flat, small, straightforward whose only major hill that every cyclists in Amsterdam have to attack are merely bridge, whether in London the average commuter cycle a much further distance than the average commuter in Amsterdam (despite the huge number of cyclists in Amsterdam compare to London), as well as having hill that'd be a struggle to go up and down.

The other problem is that those kind of bicycles are almost design to never set foot indoor in it's lifetime, not a great idea given the current rate of bicycle thieves in London at the moment.

Also certain company like Pashley somehow decided that their bicycle are perfect and see no need to improved it as technology goes by, they still stand by their flexy heavy steel bicycle with steel wheels, and even with the 3 speeds hubs, it's sometime not quite enough for London's famous London, fine in the 1950's, but not so much in 2010.

There are excellent alternative than Pashley for example, like the Azor Ameland which is a million time better than Pashley in term of design, feature and technology, it got the obvious much needed change like an alu frame over the steel that not only provide the reduction in weight but the additional stiffness for instance;

Not just Azor, but Koga Miyata, Fahrrad Manufaktur, Retrovelo, Workcycles, etc.