Oct 9, 2008
The Community Way
Imagine rolling out of bed each morning, actually excited about the commute to work. We think riding a Civia could actually lead to such madness. A young company based in Minnesota, Civia is all about the practical ride – but their version of practicality is far from dry and mundane. The folks at Civia do nothing but design and sell transportational bikes, and they’ve clearly thought out every inch of your commute to make biking it simple, elegant, adaptable, and truly lovely.
The Hyland was their first effort, and includes things many of us are now starting to regard as commuter essentials – disc brakes, fenders, chain guards, your choice of internally-geared hubs. But they’ve also formed a tunnel in the downtube to keep your cables safe and out of the way, a sliding dropout to allow for easy chain tensioning, and a disc brake mount that allows you to put on a rear rack without interference. Plus, it looks like a fun, zippy, rather bomb-proof bike.
And then… and then they did this:
Meet the Loring. We just…we just wanna ride it. Now. Gimme. Civia tells us that the Loring is meant for short trips of five miles or less, but would you ever really want to limit its use to that? We think we’d want to use this bike everywhere, all the time. Though, if you want to carry anything over 50 pounds, or tote around a friend, you might want to look into getting an Xtracycle. We hear they’re also pretty great.
Anyhow, the Loring. The laid-back geometry and sloping top tube look so inviting. And with their use of sustainably-grown and -harvested bamboo (shellacked with marine-grade varnish to ward off the weather) for the fenders, rear rack, and front pallet rack, Civia has managed to build up a bike that looks both endearingly classic and completely modern.
Civia has also started an online bike commuting community called Greenlight. While the number of web bike communities has increased lately, Greenlight seems a bit different than most. Sure, you can chat with other bike commuters and make bike-related posts, but you also get to log your bike commuter miles and even compete against other bikers. Greenlight encourages you to form commuting “teams” to compete with other groups of like-minded folks, appealing to the American competitive spirit and helping to turn what might sometimes seem like a solitary slog to work into a race for glory. Plus, you get to talk smack to your opponents.
