A Tisket, A Tasket, There's Disappointment in my Basket.

As much as I adore my 'Pashley Princess Sovereign in Buckingham Black', today I finally had to admit to myself that it has a problem. And I don't refer to the notoriously unstable kickstand - We all know about that. This problem might be unique to my Pashley (a bike shop problem) or it could be widespread (a manufacturing problem), I have no real way of knowing. A Google image search of fellow Pashley Princesses shows mixed results. My problem is this:

Can you see it? Perhaps if I put this here. Can you spot the difference?

Image from http://pashley.pl

 It's the damned basket. Look at the gaping chasm between original basket and basket rest, even with the straps extended to full length:

"You think you're cool with this but it's like bamboo under your fingernails! HAHAHA!" - The Pashley

As the shop where I bought the Pashley only offered one frame size I do not know whether the basket sizes up with each frame (but I have a medium, anyway - not a small!) or of this is an export thing or a cost cutting measure. All I know is that the basket is barely large enough to carry a modest handbag and that's part of the reason why I swapped it for a beefy Bontrager clip-on. It's the gap I find most annoying. It's such a pretty bicycle, so well proportioned and carefully accessorised until you get to the inadequate basket. A basket so puny, it looks like an after-thought.

I'd love to buy a properly giant, leather strapped basket to replace it. Unfortunately there is no way to source that locally and it's sort of hard to find web sites that will list the dimensions of any wicker baskets they might be selling. It's even harder to find a 'D' shaped basket like the Pashley original. One day I hope to remedy this problem but for now I'll keep hauling in the Bontrager, which despite being a handlebar mounted clip-on comes so close to touching the basket support that it gives the illusion of correct 'basketude'. Until then I'll put my disappointment and the original basket on a shelf.