Meester Kluver's gold coachlines umbilically connect
André Jute's very modern Utopia Kranich bicycle
to the bestselling Locomotief Super de Luxe
crossframe-mixte unisex bike of 1936 to 1955

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A proper bicycle for a gentleperson
of course has gold coachlining by the original craftsman!

a photo essay by André Jute.
Also available as a PDF (4.2Mb): Andre Jute's Utopia Kranich

All right, we know you've been drooling over the gold coachlines (only a barbarian would call them "pinstripes") on the British Racing Green paintwork of my Utopia Kranich, wondering when I would ever stop rabbiting on about stiffness and other deeply boring engineering matters (sorry!) and get down to what matters, how cool the bike looks.

This is Meester Kluver of Van Raam; he doesn't appear to have a first name (Meester is Dutch for Master, a rank earned the hard way by artists and artisans). Meester Kluver, now 89, connects the Locomotief Super de Luxe -- he won't call it "unisex!" -- crossframe-mixte, which he built as a young craftsman in the 1930s, and the Utopia Kranich, with which he was involved from the beginning in 1986, and my Kranich in particular: Meester Kluver painted the coachlines on my Kranich. Meester Kluver is cycling history personified.

As much as it is mobile cycling history, my Utopia Kranich is a most capable and very pleasing bicycle. See you in the lanes and byways!

More on André's Utopia Kranich:
1. The Drool Factor
2. A Little History of the Crossframe Mixte
Also available as a single PDF (4.2Mb): Andre Jute's Utopia Kranich

•André Jute’s most recent book on aesthetics in action is Grids: the structure of graphic design (Rotovision, Switzerland).

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All text and original photographs Copyright © 2009 Andre Jute.
Photographs of Meester Kluver from Utopia corporate literature.
Information and classic illustrations from two excellent historical bicycle sites:
www.oudefiets.nl and www.rijwiel.net.
Opinions are my own, of course.