As some of you may know, I have a sincere infatuation with European city bikes. While lurking around the Nike Campus Sunday I came across this fine specimen. (the photo is dark because the sun hadn’t even come up yet!).
It was being ridden by a gardener who had no idea why I was so fascinated with his bike. It’s from a Swedish company called Kronan. Kronan got their start by building bikes for the Swedish Army 70 years ago and their bikes are made to last. Here’s another shot of it from a different angle.
It had a rod-driven drivetrain (which means it uses solid rods instead of wire cables to shift the gears and brake) and the tires had a serious injection of reflective rubber in the sidewalls.
Now, if only it had BikePortland.org on the downtube…