Lowrider bicycle

Family photo with lowrider bicycles at the Chicago SuperShow (2010)

A lowrider bicycle is a highly customized bicycle with styling inspired by lowrider cars.[1] These bikes often feature a long, curved banana seat with a sissy bar and very tall upward-swept ape hanger handlebars. A lot of chrome, velvet, and overspoked wheels are common accessories to these custom bicycles.[1]

Man on a lowrider bicycle in Houston, Texas (2007)

The bikes are typically a highly individualized creation. Early modified bikes have been crafted as a part of lowrider culture by Chicano youth since the 1960s.[2][3] They were at first stigmatized by mainstream U.S. culture, even as they were a symbol of pride in Chicano communities.[4] They later became accepted and popular elsewhere.[5]

Lowrider Bicycle was a magazine dedicated to the bikes first published in 1993.[5] The bikes are now popular internationally, such as in Japan and Europe.[5] Despite the fact that these bikes originated within the poverty of the barrio, lowrider bikes can be expensive.[6] Some of the bikes are not rideable and exist only for aesthetic purposes.[7]

  1. ^ a b Brown, Sheldon. "Lowrider". Sheldon Brown. Retrieved 2010-06-30. Lowrider bicycles are a fad design of bicycles, inspired by the wheelie bikes of the 1960s with very long wheelbases.
  2. ^ Bicycle justice and urban transformation : biking for all? (eBook). Aaron Golub, Melody L. Hoffmann, Adonia E. Lugo, Gerardo Sandoval. London. 2016. ISBN 978-1-315-66884-0. OCLC 953692180.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. ^ Guillemard, Kenneth Bachor, Jeoffrey (3 December 2022). "Why These Mexican Bike Enthusiasts Are Fighting Local Gang Culture". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2023-01-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Dwell. Dwell LLC. 2004. p. 150.
  5. ^ a b c Tatum, Charles M. (2011). Lowriders in Chicano culture : from low to slow to show. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-313-38150-8. OCLC 745865742.
  6. ^ "Lowrider Bikes History".
  7. ^ Golub, Aaron; Hoffmann, Melody L.; Lugo, Adonia E.; Sandoval, Gerardo F. (2016-07-15). Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation: Biking for all?. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-36232-6. the introduction of the 1963 Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycle, which continues to be extremely popular among urban Chicano youth