Personally I myself feel that few bicycles really are properly designed for the real needs of most people, and that while many many bicycles now produced and offered, are lighter, faster, with smoother gear shifters, too many out the door of the shop are simply not fitted out to do what really we need them for.

My first job was as a paperboy, and I used the Sears Bike my parents bought me.

It was of course single speed, no gears and a back brake.

But I had to have it to make money.  I was young and strong.  The bike was red.

I bought baskets for the front, and baskets for the rear, and loaded that bike with 105 papers everyday for years.

I made money with that bike.

Right now I have a bike out on the porch less useful than the bike I had when I was 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.  Sure enough the one on the back porch is a better bike.

It’s got Shimano gears and all like that.

But it simply is not outfitted with hardy practical baskets like I had for the bike I made my living with when I was young.

I get in my car much more often than I should simply because my bicycle is not properly outfitted to carry much of anything.

Many years I did only ride a bicycle to get to work, but still I had to have places to put things, for I did not ride just for fun, but to get to work.

I rode from my home in Greensboro out to the job I had at Atlantic Aero where I worked fueling airplanes every working day.

Then it was ten miles out and ten miles back.

Then I had an Austro Daimlier that was fairly well fitted out, and light.

Took me 45 minutes either way.  Did it rain or shine or snow.

I was reliable and co workers would flag me as if I was the winner of a race for just showing up on time.

That was a great bike.

It got me around, and kept me strong, as you are the engine of the bicycle you ride.

And yeah, I was younger then.

I’d near now love to pick and choose or even design a bicycle system that worked for the newspaper delivery job, but well, that job might be done and over any day now.

Still I’ve sure do this enough to look and ride and say what the machine really needs to be, and have to go with it, to beat a scooter.