Lowrider bicycle
A lowrider bicycle is a highly customized bicycle with styling inspired by lowrider cars. 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.
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. They were at first stigmatized by mainstream U.S. culture, even as they were a symbol of pride in Chicano communities. They later became accepted and popular elsewhere.
Lowrider Bicycle was a magazine dedicated to the bikes first published in 1993. The bikes are now popular internationally, such as in Japan and Europe. Despite the fact that these bikes originated within the poverty of the barrio, lowrider bikes can be expensive. Some of the bikes are not rideable and exist only for aesthetic purposes.