Did you know the sheer weight of Dutch roadsters used to be a selling point?
Before my time... I've only been into Dutch roadster style bikes since the beginning of this century, first with a Gazelle stadssportief called the Toulouse, then with a Trek pseudo-Dutch commuter, which with the generous assistance of Trek Benelux I reengineered into a proper comfort bike, then with my beloved Utopia Kranich, which is a much-developed 1936 Locomotief Crossframe Deluxe, after the war also a Gazelle model, commonly known as a "priester's rijwiel", a priest's bike, because when they still wore dignified skirts, they preferred the Locomotief, and Gazelle specifically kept it in production for the priesthood, because they could ride it with split coats. I have no doubt that, before Van Raam/Utopia/Columbus spent over twenty years of determined development on the Kranich, it weighted as much as a small freighter. At least. There's a WorkBike version of the frame, possibly made with cheaper tubing, which is said to have a reassuring
heft, though I've repeatedly heard that it rides fabulously on its standard 50mm Big Apples. I believe it.
