Bicycles with and without top bars

I (male) have never even owned a bicycle with a top bar, not because of the concrete fear of testicle injury, but because I have an uneasy feeling with the top bar between my legs. I somehow feel trapped, as if I can’t get off that bike fast enough in case of an accident.

At least here in Europe, bicycles (not BMX ones) exist that have a split “top” bar that runs about half-height from the steering column backwards to the hub of the rear wheel, forking around the seat tube. There are called “mixte” frames or something similar. I have one of those (two, actually) and I think quite a lot of people (both men and women) use them over here. They are nearly as stable as the top-bar type, you can heave your leg over the pedals, for example if you carry a big load on the back of the bike that you cannot swing your leg over, and you can’t, of course, scramble your eggs on them.

I’m an adult female, over, ummm…40 shall we say. As I recall, during my kid years, the typical girls bike was considered “sissy” and I wanted the top bar on my bike. I was told (don’t remember by who) that the bicycle was originally made for girls without a top bar because a girl could break her hymen if she hit that top bar. If a young lady didn’t have a hymen (regardless of the reason), then she wasn’t a virgin. And of course a man just had to marry a virgin!

A link to the Staff Report is appreciated. Why is there a difference between boys’ and girls’ bikes?

I just wanted to apologize for not getting the word “gonads” into that column. I ran out of space.

  • Jill

Hmmm…you could’ve used “gonads” instead of “huevos,” which means eggs. I guess they are sort of like little eggs though - say, did you crack your eggs on that top bar? :smiley:

Wow, I originally did use “gonads” in that sentence Sycorax, then edited it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a place to use “huevos,” which is my preferred term. Of course there’s always next time… I think this is my third staff report directly or indirectly about testicles.

PS - Yes, “huevos” means “eggs” in Spanish. But here’s a tip… if you’re shopping for eggs in Mexico, it is best to ask the clerk, “Hay huevos?” (Are there eggs?) instead of"Tiene usted huevos?" (Do you have eggs/testicles?)

[Edited by JillGat on 05-28-2001 at 09:52 PM]

Breaking one’s hymen? well, I suppose, but can’t any strenous physical activity do that (playing tennis, horseback, etc) Being hymenicaly challenged myself, I don’t know. I had always boucht the assumption that the lack of straight bars topping girl’s bikes had to do with hymens, but in a much more indirect sense, to wit, having such a bar made it much easier for an errant gust of wind to list a skirt, thus revealing to the world what sort of undergarments the afore mentioned female cyclist might be wearing. Now, with girls riding bikes in dresses being both much less common, and much less modest (that, say, the previous turn of the century), the stronger triangluar frame is now typical. some fat-tired cruiser-style bikes still have a girl’s version, with a drop bar, last time I looked (several years ago). Please excuse the spelling, victim of Phonics and all that…

[hijack]
They call 'em “eggs” here in Germany, too. Eier.
[/hijack]

Quoth JillGat:
But here’s a tip… if you’re shopping for eggs in Mexico, it is best to ask the clerk, “Hay huevos?” (Are there eggs?) instead of"Tiene usted huevos?" (Do you have eggs/testicles?)
[/quote]
It could be worse. My sister once needed to borrow a couple of eggs from the neighbors. The father is Mexican, and although he speaks perfect English, my sister was studying Spanish at the time and needed the practice, so he insisted that she always speak Spanish to him. Well, she couldn’t remember the word for “egg”, so she ended up asking him for “dos pojitos” (sp?): Literally, “Two little chickens”.

Hmmm…learn something new every day - didn’t know huevos also meant testicles; what does cojones mean, then?

anri - I don’t know if the hymen story is based on fact or not – Jill’s response makes more sense, now that I think about it. A girl/woman probably couldn’t even get ON a bike with a top bar wearing the long dresses with petticoats, pantellets, and corset, which a proper lady wore. (I’m a civil war reenactor and I wear all that stuff and more.)

P.S. for anri - when I said I didn’t know if the hymen story was based on fact, I meant I didn’t know if that was the reasoning behind the invention of a girl’s bike. Don’t think a girl could break her hymen that way, but the Victorian’s may have thought so - they were much concerned with such matters. And strenuous physical activity won’t do it either. I ride horses, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can be painful for the nether regions, but break the hymen? No.

“Cojones” also is a slang word for “testicles” in Spanish and seems to have the “balls” connotation we use in English: having “cojones” is having “guts.” Here’s a website with an interesting history for the word “testicles”: http://www.wordwithyou.com/columns/10_21.gif

It’s a skirt thing, not a hymen thing.
http://my.voyager.net/~olderr/bcwebsite/text/w/womens.htm

Only more emphatically – and it is considered vulgar language. (In Puerto Rico we often euphemize that usage with the word “pantalones”[pants]) It does have fun derivatives such as the word “encojonado” which means massively pissed off.

The way I figured out the English slang versions (being a native Spanish speaker) was that “huevos” was analogous to “nuts” while “cojones”–>“balls.”

(And no, no Spanish general ever sent out a telegram reading “¡H-U-E-V-O-S!”)

JRD

People,
The reason for the differance in the bicycles goes back to when they were designed, the Victorian Era. To get on a bicycle with a top bar one must raise their leg up and over. How would a Victorian Lady do that with all the skirts and ruffles? Also, she would have to tell all the men to cover their eyes as she flashed the neighborhood.

Fop