Hi Ben,
The west and south side of the UC Berkeley campus are fairly flat, but the campus itself and the north and east sides are hilly. UC Berkeley also has a high rate of bike theft. Locking skewers and U-locks are mandatory. The Peugeot in the San Diego CL ad has steel rims (heavy, poor braking compared to aluminum), cottered steel cranks (heavy, maintenance issue), and it's a single speed (not ideal for hauling groceries and books over hilly terrain).
A Japanese mixte like this Nishiki came with 10-12 gears (not the triple),
aluminum rims and more comfortable upright bars.
http://www.flickr.com/
If she has to navigate stairs with the bike, a lightweight bike becomes more important. There are a number of modern mixte/step-through bikes in both steel and aluminum available today, i.e., PUBLIC Bikes, Soma Buena Vista, Electra Ticino, etc.
Peter Chu
San Francisco
> Dear All,
>
> I'm enquiring for a friend who is looking for a nice campus bike for his
> daughter to take to Berkeley in a couple of weeks - she's been bitten by
> the vintage lugged mixte bug, but all that is for sale around here is what
> appears to be a UE18 in 103 tubing, which is, in fact, probably a little
> small:
>
> http://sandiego.craigslist.org/
>
> I'd really like your advice whether that seems like a decent machine if
> anyone knows about those, but even more, if anyone has something mixtewise
> a little better - preferably in 531 or some such, I'd very much like to
> hear about it. She's a fairly long legged girl - inseam of 33" or so, so
> probably looking for a 54-56 in a frame - full bike even better I think.
>
> Many thanks (and for all the splendid advice and information on this
> list), and happy new year.
>
> regards, (and hopes he's got the format right for his first CR post)
>
> Ben Power
> San Diego, CA
>
> bepoq1@gmail.com
> http://benpower.info
> http://myspace.com/
> http://seannossouthwest.com