My Felt Cafe3.
When I originally bought this last July, I had not owned a bicycle for 18 odd years.  I knew I wanted something reasonably austere and reasonably stylish.  What I kept going back to, in my head was an old three speed I had in the early 80s, that was all-about fine. I don’t remember too much about it,  it was probably dead stock, and decidedly old looking by 1985.   I was later gifted a generic 80s steel framed 10-speed of domestic name brand.
But anyway, the Felt. I tried out the Electra Townie at the bike shop and the Amsterdam, but they were a little too ‘comfort’ bike.  I opted for the Felt Cafe3 without a test ride (the shop had to order it)  and to my delight when it arrived, it was a reasonably perfect fit.  So I paid for it, and began my modern era of bicycling. Then I found the webcomic Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery…

It’s a light, surprisingly fast bike. I did not like being leaned over with half my weight on the bars though, and the pinch-stem did not seem to hold the handlebars all that tight. I tried to tighten them, shim them, and eventually just had the stem replaced with a pop-top generic mountain bike stem, and the bars were replaced with some wide Walls-bars. Then I could raise the seat.   Pedals replaced for some skeletonized grippy things.  Then the rear rack, and  Selle An Atomica seat, gewgaws, and finally a Sackville Small bag from Rivendell.

Basically, I have half- Van Sweringen’d the thing. And it gets me around nicely.