Functional bikes. Not Porn not Anti

Anyone seen one of these salsa in the flesh?

I've not. But you can't beat it's functional credentials:

• Sliding dropouts for single speed or gears and adjustable wheelbase
  
• 3 bottle cages and more mounts than (insert joke about your mother)
  
• 44mm head tube
  
• Downtube shifter bosses
  
• Up to 29×2"
  
• Kickstand if you want one for touring
  
  

etc.

Also have a look at the Light Blue Darwin.

Breezer Radar Cafe - cheap too!

dang i was too slow.. good save ;)

I'd get something that's been designed around a flatbar (i.e. longer) rather than fitting a flatbar to a shorter frame designed around drops...

http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/roadrat#gallery

You're not that slow though :D

They're lacking in mounts on the fork though, otherwise they're excellent. My heavy hauling groceries bike is built around the previous generation roadrat frame and has been excellent; after I swapped the fork.

Pelago Hanko maybe.

saw this today parked at the local Aldi

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Is this allowed here? Have been riding it daily for the past few months and am really starting to love it. It's surprising quick on rolling roads, a bit of a slog on the hills but can already feel the benefit of that on the plastic bike on the weekends.

Need to sort out a luggage solution for the summer. Thinking a bar/saddle bag might be the way to go. Don't fancy a rack on the carbon fork and it's already on the heavy side.

Tubus fly and small Ortlieb. You'll thanks yourself when you have to pick up groceries on the way home ;)

The Swastika wheel decorations were perhaps a bad choice

Why? Nowt wrong with the swastika, unless you're some sort of right wing cunt completely misusing one of the oldest religious symbols known. Many cultures used the swastika, long before Hitler and chums got their filthy mitts on it.

I'm well aware, but it's probably not worth the bother of potentially upsetting someone or causing an argument when you could quite easily just use a different shape

Maybe, but the same could be said of having a skinhead (which I do), or using the George cross flag (due to it's white pride connotations).

Sure. I would just say that a novelty Mad Max bicycle isn't the place to encourage a discussion about censorship and political correctness and whatnot though. Your own head is obviously a bit different

I think the point is that to avoid promoting, or appearing to promote Nazi ideology it’s safest to stick with the Penis Swastika on the forehead and/or bike wheels.

The fact that Frankenbike noticed a Swaztika in those wheels right away is more awkward to me than those wheels itself. ;-)

Fact is someone looking at that bike and not knowing the association will think it's some kind of low-rent panzerwagon which is a bit awk.

A bit like those hideous "Hitler European Tour 1939-1944" tees that fuckwads found amusing a few years ago...

That's my point, reclaiming ideology is to be encouraged. If we don't do it in day to day life, when does the right time/vehicle arise? I'm hoping the owner of the mad Max bike isn't some right wing nut job, whose aim is to piss people off.

Reclaiming ideology is all very well and good so long as you're willing to explain that in the street to a distraught holocaust survivor.

Gladly, there will always be a reason not to do it, the memory/knowledge of the Holocaust will never and should never go away,but that doesn't mean reclaiming ideology shouldn't be done, reclaiming insignia once associated with racist/far right/fascist groups diminishes the link to those groups, ignoring it and leaving it locked away never to be spoken of or displayed only enforces that link.

If we don't do it in day to day life, when does the right time/vehicle arise?

I only thought about it as far as this: the bike is supposed to be fun, and debates about political correctness are never fun, so if you want to have fun don't ever give anyone any opportunity to raise the topic of political correctness because of your bike. Just look at how I've managed to suck the fun straight out of it by raising the Swastika wheels. #buzzkill

Edit: Yikes, full blown neo-Nazis in the comments on that video (88 is their little code word for "I'm a neo-Nazi"), link removed