Lowrider bicycle

A lowrider bicycle is a highly customized bicycle with styling inspired by lowrider cars.^[1] These bikes often feature a long, curved banana seat with a sissy bar and very tall upward-swept ape hanger handlebars. A lot of chrome, velvet, and overspoked wheels are common accessories to these custom bicycles.^[1]

The bikes are typically a highly individualized creation. Early modified bikes have been crafted as a part of lowrider culture by Chicano youth since the 1960s.^[2][3] They were at first stigmatized by mainstream U.S. culture, even as they were a symbol of pride in Chicano communities.^[4] They later became accepted and popular elsewhere.^[5]

Lowrider Bicycle was a magazine dedicated to the bikes first published in 1993.^[5] The bikes are now popular internationally, such as in Japan and Europe.^[5] Despite the fact that these bikes originated within the poverty of the barrio, lowrider bikes can be expensive.^[6] Some of the bikes are not rideable and exist only for aesthetic purposes.^[7]