After spending the summer in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, I fell in love with the ubiquitous Gazelle…read moreand Batavus bikes that gracefully maneuvered the streets. After trying to actually ride one however, I soon realized that with my short little legs, and mediocre biking skills, I was never going to feel comfortable pedaling a tall Dutch Bike up the hills in my home of San Francisco.
Coincidentally, my first stop back in the US was Boston, where I had heard they imported a variety of Dutch Bikes and decided to stop in. Although I was told that they were stepping away from their import business, Dan, the proprietor introduced me to a viable alternative in the Lady Swift Bike produced by DBC. Completely hand built, and custom tailored to your specs in New England (with most parts manufactured stateside), this bike is the perfect mix of great engineering and good design.
As someone with a design and production background, I fully understand that the R&D that went into developing this bike is not easy to come by domestically, but that DBC has really accomplished something wonderful here. Dan was incredibly passionate about his bikes and the people behind it. After test riding, I absolutely knew why. I've spent a lot of time on bikes that weren't right for me, just because they usually aren't built to fit people like me. However, the Lady Swift was the smoothest, most balanced and comfortable ride I have ever had the pleasure of taking. For posterity's sake, my bike saavy boyfriend also test rode the bike and agreed wholeheartedly.
The bikes start at $2500, and include a custom built frame, engineered and painted to your specs, beautiful rust proof components, and internal shifting mechanisms. The full specs can be found on their site, but all I can say is that the final product is one very nice bike, and in my opinion, a downright steal considering the custom fabrication that goes into the bikes. Dan needs $1500 up front to start the work, and has a lifetime guarantee on the bikes. If you aren't happy for whatever reason, send the bike back for your full money back. DBC would rather that you love your bike, than regret your purchase.
Unfortunately I did not have that kind of extra scratch kicking around at the time (quitting your job and traveling for an entire summer kind of does that to you) but Dan has my specs on file and was fully understanding about me holding off until I did have the money to front. However, acquiring one of these fine bikes is at the top of my priorities list.
From a business perspective, DBC is top rate, and my personal interaction with Dan was extremely positive. As a Bostonian, he was a very enthusiastic guy who genuinely loves his product and his city. He even went so far as to suggest places for us to visit while we were in town and gave us his card to call him if we needed any tips on where to eat.
That all said, I can't review the quality of DBC's tune-ups or really ignore the elephant in the living room that is Chris P's review below, but quite frankly, I don't necessarily think that tune-ups would be their forte, nor give a crap why/how/if that incident happened and I don't think it is my, or anyone's business to be the judge of things that happen in a proprietor's personal life here. All I can really say is that I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these jaunty little rides.