No one’s tall enough for these bikes

February 3, 6:55 PMDenver Cycling ExaminerGary Koenig

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Courtesy fabsugar.com

Last summer in my home town in northeast Iowa, I was having a few margaritas with family and friends in the local taco shop when I noticed a dreadfully cool guy holding court at a nearby table. He was young with ultra fashionable long hair and Vandyke beard. Wearing a bleach-white muscle shirt, smoking an unfiltered cigarette, drinking a Corona and proclaiming expertise on pretty much everything, he exuded the ultimate in hipness.

Much later that evening, as I drove back to my overnight accommodations, I was shocked to see what appeared to be a circus bike come blasting out of a dark side street to enter the flow of traffic just in front of me. The rider was not a professional clown, but rather the young hipster who had been indirectly regaling me for much of my earlier evening. What was so shocking about the bike was its size. I’m not talking a 66, 68 or 70 cm frame, but rather a cycle with such an elevated geometry as to be truly entertaining just to look at. The fact that this bike could be ridden at all, much less in a pretty spritely fashion, was amazing to me. I only followed my friend for a few blocks, but I greatly enjoyed watching the mechanics of bike and rider while wondering how in the world my buddy mounted and dismounted the thing not to mention what he would do if he had to stop suddenly. And thus were my eyes opened to the world of seriously tall bicycles.

I’m not sure exactly what the site fabsugar.com is all about, but they are offering an incredibly cool slide show on truly tall bikes. Lennard Zinn, technical writer for VeloNews and a custom bike maker, is a tall guy who has catered to big and tall riders for years. But the tallest bike he has ever built has nothing on the ones you’ll see in the Towering Tall Bikes photo spread.

Some of the photos give evidence as to mounting techniques, but I’m still wondering how the pilots stop and get off these things. Do they always have to find a light pole or building wall to pull up next to so they can steady themselves while clambering down? Unlike the young tall-bike rider in my home town (whose mount was about the size of the bike shown in photo 13), I’m guessing that owners of most of the rigs shown in the slide show ride only in parades or under ultra controlled circumstances.

I’m not ready to take up the hobby just yet, but when I get older and I don’t have much sense of balance left anyway, I just might give it a try.

Comments welcome. Thanks for reading.