Civia Bikes

It’s been a while since we posted here and for those who have been holding their breath for our next post, we apologise for your blue faces.

Our hiatus has been down simply to lots of hard work on bringing new products to the fold, and the general busy-ness of an expanding bike business.

That explanation includes Civia Bikes. We first fell in love (no we really did) with these bikes at Interbike 2008 in Las Vegas. Back then they had only one model (the stunningly beautiful Loring). Now Civia have developed a range of unique bikes that we are really really excited to be bringing into Practical Cycles this spring.

What sets Civia aside from ‘all the rest’ is their Practical choice of frames, accessories and gearing.

We will be bringing you the Loring, The Bryant, the Halstead and Kingfield bikes from Civia.

The Loring is a great quality stylish step through bike available in 3 and 9 speed SRAM hub gear versions. It comes complete with front and rear racks with bamboo Accents and full bamboo mudguards. It’s a bike for around town sophistacate, the urban parent, the daily shopping addict and the lazy commuter.

The Bryant and Kingfield are superb bikes that are helping Practical Cycles to break our Cargo Bike mould. The touring and commuting cyclist shares a similar aim to the person with a Cargo Bike – that aim is to ‘carry what I need on my bike today’. The Cargo Bike rider can carry lots but the Touring cyclist or Commuter doesn’t need to carry doors, bags of sand or beer barrels. They just need the important stuff to get them through their working day or round-the-Horn tour.

What we are trying to say here is we are branching out into touring and commuting bikes but in doing so we are keeping true to our roots of loving the liberating feeling of carrying your own stuff, under your own power by bicycle.

The Bryant and Kingfield are Touring and Commuting bikes – with a twist. There’s no derailleurs and there’s also no chains either. That’s because these bikes are hub geared (Alfine for the Bryant and Nexus for the Kingfield). The chain is replaced by a Gates Belt Drive. A belt drive is just as efficient as a chain but not as noisy, not as dirty and it lasts longer!  Both bikes are capable of having front and rear racks fitted so will be great at hauling your worldly goods.

We (and Civia) haven’t forgotten that you like to haul more stuff than other people think healthy on your bike. The Halstead from Civia takes care of this. It’s reminiscent of the old style of delivery bike (remember the Hovis advert on Gold Hill?). A 26″ wheel at the back and a 20″ wheel at the front for strength under the large flat front load platform. It’s a true tough delivery bike that can be used daily for businesses – it even has tabs on the frame to affix the advert for your business. But it’s also an everyday bike for moving the unusual stuff, doing the shopping, taking your child to school, and commuting to work. It comes with a derailleur gear system – to keep it sensibly priced but we will also offer it with hub gear builds too.

Demand for these bikes is going to be high. We should have the first bikes here in March (perhaps sooner). We will shortly be adding more information to our website – sizes, colours, prices – that sort of important stuff. We’ll be taking pre-orders in a couple of weeks, so feel free to contact us to put your name on one – we expect demand to be high!