Would you park a Gazelle...

[Geonz]

Here's my quandary.
A nice man has asked me to see a show. Obviously the question "What should I WEAR?????" has sprung to me, especially since I am utterly the queen of casual... almost all of my skirts are denim and ankle length, and usually I'm wearing Dockers, though the man in question has mostly seen me in sweats, riding my bike. I am hoping it is in my best interests to display a different side whilst remaining true to myself.
An obvious solution is to dress up and ride that beautiful Gazelle. That woudl mean, however, parking it .... on... campus.... It's a college campus. People have had baskets stolen from their bicycles. Most stuff parked outside is the stuff of Big Box stores. (Yea, I think I'm talking myself out of it... I should have the courage to dress up and not have to have it be silly, eh?) Yet, I'd have a good lock... (and I"m paying $400 fo rthis thing... it's not as if it's a $2000 bike, and most people are not even going to recognize what it is!) I also saw it or its clone parked in exactly that neighborhood on a Friday night couple of years ago (which is when I fell in love with it), and obviously it didn't get ripped off then.
Of course if I don't ride it, I'd ride something else... which woudl mean I couldn't really dress up ... tho' it's also close enough to walk.


... update edit... well, the question still stands hypothetically, but he's picking me up (we have seen a movie but we met in the middle and he had *not* asked me to go; he'd told me I'd love the movie and I asked him, but of course we had to because I was riding my bike and going from work... but, still, hypothetically speaking...

[Dianyla]

At $400 it's still going to be at least 4 times as expensive as the average bike in the rack at any college campus.

Just don't do it. If I didn't have my bike locker at my local uni, I would never ride the precious to school. College campuses (campi?) are Ground Zero for bike thefts.

[withm]

Well I am just back from 2 weeks biking in Belgium and Netherlands, and I can say that an awful lot of Gazelles (and similar style) bikes are parked everywhere.... Mind you most are at least double locked - with a "U-type" lock, and also a cable. Bike theft is a huge problem there. Then there were quite a few "dead" bikes, still locked up, but with taco'd wheels or frames. Go figure.

Here is a parking "garage" for bikes in Amsterdam, and a couple closer in. It's all bikes all the time.

[Geonz]

The built-in lock has a big, thick cable as part of it. The owner said that he has parked it on campus on a regular basis (he works there). I parked it on campus for a little while tonight for singing, but mostly I'll be out at teh community college where there simply aren't as many people, period.
WHen it's parked it looks commonplace unless you look closely, because of the fenders and "clunkiness." It isn't clunky to ride It reminds me of sitting in the back of my third grade teacher's big car and feeling so big and soft and quiet (our family had VW's).
The dynamo light is an engineering marvel, too. I figured it would be frustratingly dim but it's engineered to place light in strategic places so there are 8 swatches of light right inf ront of the bike, and then a wider beam that shows *everything.* No, I wouldn't go 20 mph on it (I think that can burn out the light bulb anyway), but it's sweeeet. Posting pictures in a sec...

[Mimosa]

I wouldn't just rely on a cable, they cut them through over here. So an additional U-lock is a requirement

And the amsterdam bike storage is a great place but where did I park mine? That's why we pimp our bikes and there is also the chance that it will not get stolen since everybody will recognize it

[Geonz]

Oh my, that is precious!!!! How did you do it? All those stripes...