Features

No bike has more soul than the beach cruiser. While cyclists across all categories make their bikes an extension of their bodies and athletic strengths, cruiser riders want their bikes to be extensions of their personalities.

“If it’s really yours, the cruiser is a love machine you have a relationship with,” said Gregg Bagni, former Schwinn Bicycles marketing director who helped launch the brand’s cruisers in the late 1990s. “You have a name for it and when people stop by your house, you show it to them.”

Schwinn made the original beach cruisers in the 1930s to be sturdy and inexpensive motorcycle lookalikes. After World War II, young Californians made it trendy to navigate suburban oases on customized balloon-tired cruiser bikes. While the cruiser fell out of style for several decades, its sturdy frame was the base of the first mountain bikes bombing down Mount Tamalpais. The modern Schwinn, Electra and Nirve cruisers – that can be seen riding along beach paths and in mountain towns – emerged in the 1990s with an urban application, and were inspired by classic silhouettes and custom-designed bikes.

Electra has helped bring cruiser bikes into the mainstream, partly through star appeal, thanks to such celebrities as Mylie Cyrus, Paris Hilton, Ellen DeGeneres and Jim Carrey. Electra designers Benno Baenziger and Jeano Erforth reinvented the vintage cruiser with modern mechanics and practical riding adjustments, all while preserving its nostalgic look.

Brad Evans, editor of the cruiser bike-specific publication Kickstand Magazine, said it’s the cruiser’s simple design and ode to simpler times that ignites enthusiasm for cycling in general.

“It’s the first bike someone buys if he or she hasn’t been on one in a long time,” Evans said. “For most people that are over 40, it’s a step back into childhood.”

Most of the people that ride in the weekly Denver Cruiser Rides – an event organized by Evans – are 40 years old and younger, eager to customize their bikes and dreaming of going to Burning Man.

From Santa Cruz to the Los Angeles Basin, the beach cruiser symbolizes the Californian dream. Southbay Cruisers in LA is one club keeping the dream a reality – a gathering of cruiser riders with varying degrees of fitness, experience and neon light accessories that cruise through beach communities.

Socializing in a community of like-minded people is a huge draw for cruiser riders. A senior advertising executive in San Francisco known in the bike community as “Rollergirl,” bought her first bike ever about five years ago specifically for Burning Man, and loves attending Sunday rides in Golden Gate Park, riding with Critical Mass and rolling with her rollerblading crowd.

Rollergirl named her hot pink Electra cruiser bike after Pinky Tuscadero, Fonzie’s girlfriend from the TV show “Happy Days.” “She’s kind of a bad girl,” Rollergirl laughed.

Her three-speed bad girl is decked out in hot pink accessories, including two bubble blowers that have helped her pass for an unofficial float in several San Francisco parades.