Just got back from a weekend in Frankfurt, Germany. The weekly flea market is famous for "vintage" clothes but the bicycle aspect of it is just as amazing. There are hundreds and hundreds of complete bikes - many, like the clothes, vintage! Most are fit to ride away. You can test-ride before you buy. You can rummage through boxes and boxes and boxes of spare parts. People cycle to the market to search for parts they need, then buy them and fit them to their bikes right then and there. Amazing!

And about 1 in 20 bikes was a mixte. And of those, I'd say about 40% were "loop-frame" aka "swoopy" mixtes.

I was, as the English say, gob-smacked for the first 5 minutes... then as delirious as a puppy with two tails not knowing which to wag first. I must have trawled through that market, top to bottom and side to side, three times in each direction. Wow!

Some photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...2&l=e64e497556