I recently purchased a used Electra Townie 3i for my first bike. I don't know the exact age, but I'm guessing it was manufactured sometime between 2012 and 2017. I was looking at Electra's current lineup, and the Townie fit my needs perfectly. Finding this old girl in the shop seemed like a bit of serendipity that I couldn't pass up. The old 3i has coaster brakes that work fine, but I want to make this bike work for me as my needs change. The first thing I noticed was the inconvenience of the coaster brakes for getting the pedals in position to start riding. If I change out the rear wheel to a freewheel hub, I'm going to lose half of my brake system, but I can't seem to find any brackets for mounting either a rim brake or disc brakes on the rear fork.
Has anyone run into this problem on older cruiser bikes (particularly old Townies), and what was the remedy? If the answer is buy a new bike, I'll eat that cost when it happens, but I'd rather upgrade my current bike if I'm able.