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Skinny bike

Buy a skinny bike in Amsterdam

Skinny bike. One speed, thin rubber, often black. This is the Amsterdam type — not a road bike.

Message about this skinny

Thin rubber, often one speed

Skinny is Amsterdam: thin tyres, often one speed, bars low or bullhorn, frame black or chrome. You see them on every canal. It is not a Gazelle and it is not a Canyon. It is a city bike pretending to be a racer — and on bricks your sit bones notice.

Fixie or freewheel

Fixie (fixed gear, no freewheel) or single-speed with a coast. Say which. A real fixie in the rain on Magere Brug is a choice, not a bargain. We do not push it.

What Amsterdam skinny steel survives

What we check: cracks at the stay, a hub that does not run true, a stem that has already snapped once. Unknown ‘Amsterdam steel’ is fine if the welds hold. Marktplaats junk without a bottom bracket is not.

Lock: a ring lock often does not fit

A ring lock rarely fits a skinny frame. Chain or U-lock through the rear wheel, around a pole. Thieves lift a skinny as readily as an e-bike — it is light.

Not a road bike, not an omafiets

A road bike has drop bars and a derailleur. An omafiets has a chain case. A skinny has neither. Tap the right page, or we talk past each other.

Colour is beside the point

WhatsApp: skinny, fixie or freewheel, size, budget. A photo of what you ride now helps.

Brands we look for, among others

  • State
  • Fuji
  • unknown Dutch steel
  • refurbished fixie
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