Comments on: Guest Review by Ken Sturrock: Gary Fisher Simple City 8 M

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:56:09 +0000

I have been riding my simple city 8 for 2.5 years–14 mile commute to work (7 each way) with a three mile hill. It works just fine, even with a front basket full of books and tennis equipment. I also go to the farmer’s market and grocery. Yes, filling up the basket makes for sluggish turns, but if you do it three times you have it figured out. Moreover, the point of a bike like this is freedom. You don’t need to mess with extra racks, panniers etc. You remember that you need a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread on the way home, you drop by the store, plop them into the basket and you are off. The point of the bike is that it is “Simple”–get it?

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:15:41 +0000

I’ve been riding my simple city for 3 years now. I have the “girlie” aqua bike. I ride my bike as often as I can because I love it. People at work don’t even think I own a car. It is so smooth, comfortable and easy to ride. It is also very good looking. Many people compliment my bike. I am a fair weather cyclist so I don’t ride in the rain and so I don’t know if the fenders are any good against splattering mud. What is not good is the chain guard. I have ruined about 4 right pant legs in my chain. I take a hair clip/clamp and hold back my pant leg with it. I put a whicker basket on my bike which also looks good because the brown whicker matches the brown seat. I would love to have one of the metal baskets that were built for Simple City bikes but they only come in black. It would be so excellent if they came in aqua like my bike, wouldn’t it?

By: Craft Beer

Craft Beer — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:13:19 +0000

Life is too short for bad beer.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:22:57 +0000

It’s lovely looking, and I hope it gets people out of their cars.
But at best it’s a copy of a proper utility bike, made up with a lot of components that aren’t quite right for what it was designed for.
Raleigh was making utility bikes that were much better than this in the 1930s, and lots are still in daily use.
They turn up all the time on Ebay, and if you can buy the real thing secondhand for less than the price of one of these new, what’s the point in it?

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:40:58 +0000

Thanks for the review. I’ve got the 3M, and having ridden the 8 speed also, I must say I prefer my 3 speed. And yes, this bike is faster than it looks and takes hills just fine.

By: Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:53:40 +0000

Rain…say what? The chainring is a 44T, rear cog is 18T.

I don’t know if you noticed, but that hub is an 8 speed internal. The gear RANGE is 40 inches low, 120 inches high, according to the chart above. Sounds good to me! Plenty of range for pretty much all urban scenarios (although I’d like to tweak the low range down to the mid-30s).

By: Rain Waters

Rain Waters — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:26:41 +0000

This is precisely why its dangerous to be buying stuff anymore.

The engineering of this toy leaves much to be finished. . .

Before moving on to the fancy eyecatcher, the cute rack, 53×12 gearing on a 16lb road bike is 116 inches.

IMHO purchasers of this bike might look at losing a few teeth on the chainring.

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:58:32 +0000

Nice review! It feels as if this bike has been out for a long time, but I’ve never seen one in person or read much of a review.

It’s indeed a looker … as for the basket and handling, it’s too bad they didn’t go with a frame-mounted design. I have one on an Azor Dutch bike and there seems to be no limit to what I can stick in it. I like those Pletscher double kickstands, though, and the Nexus 8 hubs are indeed smooth and lovely, IMO.

But any moves in this more practical direction by a major US bike company are very welcome … I’ll be curious to see if the GF “el ranchero” longtail makes it to market.

By: Ken Sturrock

Ken Sturrock — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:22:03 +0000

Clancy: It would probably handle a decent amount of beer in aluminum cans, but I wouldn’t risk it with glass bottles. Maybe Jack and I can test that for you.

Mike: I trust that your question about bicycle shop employees warning their customers about the load carrying ability of the bicycle was rhetorical. As far as I can tell – this is the first time anybody has tested it and mentioned it. However, I doubt that there’s a conspiracy. In the real world, I suspect that very few people actually care. As you know, most buyers will buy the bicycle because it looks cute. However, you are a more sophisticated buyer.

I feel that the geometry was a compromise of many factors (including cost) and could never please everyone. I also feel that, although on one hand, the geometry may damage GF’s reputation; on the other hand – the shape, size and location of the basket makes it so clearly *not* a porteur that it wouldn’t fool anyone seriously interested in cargo bicycles. Is this a Walmart (and many many many others) tactic? Possibly. Yet, GF has never claimed it was a genuine cargo bicycle – maybe it’s just a bicycle with a big metal basket.

Regardless – you have some really valid points

Schacter: Valid points. Standards vary. Once I got under way with the ten kilo load, I never felt that I was going to lose control of the bicycle, it just handled like crap. Of course, I’ve never ridden a real cargo bicycle so I can’t compare one to how the Simple City rides. Truthfully, I feel that cruisers and mountain bikes handle like crap too (however, they still ride better than the loaded down SC).

By: schacter

schacter — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:50:07 +0000

I ride a Trek Multitrack 7000, with low-rider mounts. I wanted a basket, and simply had a Bridgestone (taken off the bike I rode when I lived in Japan) one bolted to the top of a low-rider, front rack. Works like a charm, and the bike has never been hard to control, even when I have 2 jugs of milk (4 litres — slightly more than a gallon each) snugged in there.

Some might imagine that much weight to be awkward, and truth told, it was. However, with a little practice, I got really good at it, even in the corners. The only thing it won’t do fully loaded, is sudden chicanes, but then again, who cares?

I doubt the GF is truly that hard to control. Heck, I even learned to carry 44 pounds of rice (22 on the back rack, and 22 on my right shoulder) while I steered with only my left hand.

Another time, it was 48 cans of beer, by the same method.

These things *can* be done.

Training, my friends. It’s the solution to *almost* everything.