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Soma Buena Vista mixte, by Tim Kinney

Some of the finest commercial frames being made are from Soma IMHO

http://www.somafab.com/

They are one of several companies who are bringing back the Mixte frame, which was popular with European bicycle campers back in the 70's and 80's.

Their mixte frame is the Buena Vista and I've wanted one ever since I saw it in a magazine ad. The price was a little bit above my threashold of pain until Niles got one in Recycled Bikes. It was for a customer project which fell thru, and Niles gave me a good deal on it. I built it up as a City Bike:

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Permalink Reply by Michael Levin on November 18, 2012 at 6:32am

Wow, now that is a beautiful bike, Tim. The mixte is a vastly underappreciated frame style, in my opinion. According to Rivendell,

"The benefits to this style frame:

1. You don't have to swing a leg high over it to get on.
2. It's also if you have a child or big load of groceries on the back. Same if you have a bad hip; it's a low step-over.

3. It's even easier to fit it since the height of the top tube is never going to be a problem on the Go."

I was walking out of Books, Inc here in Gainesville one day and saw a beautiful example. Fortunately, the owner enjoyed the idea of it becoming bike of the day. While I look for the photos and hang on to this meandering train of thought, here's another mixte I saw, this one a Motobecane at the Univ of Oregon campus in Eugene:

The bars had a pure leather wrap that was so new and supple I smelled it before I noticed the wrap itself.

This is the bike I originally referred to: a Leopard. It's got such nice features, like the well-worn Ideale saddle. In fact, I posted the photo of the Ideale saddle and someone contacted me because he was an Ideale aficionado and started a special interest group about them!

You can click on the photo and go to a set I took that day.