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Our cities have been ornamented for several seasons now by plucky young fashion gals tootling about on cute second-hand pleasure bikes and retro banana bikes, decked out with baskets and festooned with ribbons and outfits to match. It's a cheap and cheerful environmentally positive statement.

But this summer the stakes have been raised. Meet the Electra, a designer-priced bicycle brand from California (via Europe) that is making serious style points in Canadian cities. First came the celebrity sightings – Jennifer Garner rolled hers onto an appearance on Ellen ; Brad Pitt was snapped topping his with a newsboy hat; even car-nut Jay Leno posed proudly with his two-wheeled prize. Miley Cyrus is Disney-wholesome when she chooses her Electra over shotgun with her older beaus. Agyness Deyn, Britain's indie-cool punky model –the ultimate high-fashion influencer of the moment – is also a devotee.

No surprise, then, that Roots founder Michael Budman has also hopped onto the trend, featuring the bike in a current ad campaign for the fall handbag collection.

The Superdeluxe Cruiser in aqua was featured in Roots ads for its new line of saddlebag purses, which can be clipped to the frame. The bike has a lightweight aluminum frame ! and has been adapted to allow a more upright and ergonomic ride ($809).

“When you ride of one these, life slows down,” says Budman, who became aware of the brand when his son chose an Electra to get around college in Colorado. Then he walked by a dealer with his wife, architect Diane Bald, who had just designed a flat saddlebag purse for Roots. “She decided to make clips and I ordered 75 bikes for our stores,” he says.

Electra, founded in 1993, is a classic long-building “overnight success story,” says Andrew Gomez, the president of Revolution Sports Supply in Calgary, the Canadian distributor.

“We first brought the bikes to Canada in '97, but they didn't move. I kept in touch with the company – which was [two] guys from Europe making handmade bikes in Southern California,” he says. The bike industry has for many years been heavily geared to sport cycling, which means that most of the innovation you see at bike shows – smooth rapid gear shifting, titanium frames, shocks and brakes – is overkill for city commuting.

Electra’s Hellbetty Tandem bike in 3i hot red, $1,529. For retail sources in Canada, visit www.electrabike.com.

“The Electra motto is ‘Bikes for the Rest of Us,'” Gomez says. So a few years ago, he went back to Electra and resumed importing. In 2005 he sold 464 bikes; this year he moved 20 times that.

I am apparently like many people, who find sports bikes intimidating. They are only comfortable when they are slicing wind on a straightaway; most of the time you feel like you are sitting on a fencepost. On my Electra Amsterdam, however, the ride is smooth and I feel balanced. At stop lights, I don't have to rest on my tiptoes.

“The guys at Electra took the concept of the Dutch bikes they grew up with and improved them. First by making them lighter-weight. Traditional Dutch bikes are 50-plus pounds; most of the nine models in Electra's fleet are less than 34 pounds.”

The seat has been moved back so that your legs can still get proper leg-extension peddling, but the seat is lower to the ground. “They had regular people in mind,” Gomez says.

Electra now makes three series of bikes: Besides the Amsterdam, which starts at just over $700, there's the Townie (it starts at about $630), “a modern evolution of the traditional comfort bike,” Gomez says. The Cruiser line is the newest concept, where the team lets the design fly (it ranges from about $400 all the way up to $1,500 for a tandem version). One of the Electra founders, Benno Baenzige, is a graduate of the Berlin School of Design and design junkies can spot references, from Deco to damask.

The Amsterdam Girard ‘Madonna’ bike is part of the line based on old-school Dutch bikes. It features colourful graphics inspired by iconic designer Alexander Girard ($1,059).

Budman says the Roots saddlebags have been hot this summer, and the stores offer neutral leather bike clips to modify your existing purse for $5 a pair. It's a great idea, although I've heard at least one fashion maven wish the clips were colour co-ordinated with the bright array of bags – orange, pink, grape, blueberry and aqua.

After all, if roadways are the new runways, the fashionable rider will settle for nothing but the best outfitting for her toy.