I can’t read Indonesian so I can only hypothesize about this site about pre-WWII Simplex bicycles in Indonesia. Simplex was an Amsterdam bike maker that made some of the best bikes of this period. That’s significant considering that the Dutch bikes of this era were probably the best city bicycles ever built. Seventy years later here are still quite a few of them on the streets of Amsterdam… and apparently also in Indonesia.

So why would there be so many old Dutch bikes in Indonesia? Simple: Because it was a Dutch colony until the 1945 to 1950 Indonesian war of independence. It seems pretty unlikely that all those pre-war Dutch bikes were imported after the war so I’ll assume they were initially brought there by the pre-war Dutch colonists. Regardless of the history its still strange for an Amsterdammer to see all those lovely old Simplex bikes with palm trees in the background and the details described in a text I can’t understand. Well at least I can understand many of the technical terms because they seem to have adopted the Dutch words for many bicycle parts. A couple examples:

priesterrijwiel = priest’s bicycle or cross-frame, since the lower top tube allowed riding in a frock.

kruiseframe = same as above

rem tromol cycloïde = Simplex’s drum brake hub with special “Cycloïde” bearings

lampu = headlamp

Historical trivia:

The cross-frame (“kruisframe” in Dutch) WorkCycles uses is based on a Simplex design you can see on the Indonesian site.

Simplex began in 1887 in Utrecht but moved to Amsterdam in 1896. Their factory was situated on the Overtoom, in the Oud West neighborhood where I live. Our home was built the same year. This was then a new neighborhood in Amsterdam, just past the Jordaan. The Jordaan is now a highly desirable neighborhood of charming old houses, canals and stylish boutiques. Back then it was a mixture of industry, shipping and working class housing.

In 1952 Simplex merged with Locomotief, another of my favorite old bicycle makes. Locomotief also made lovely bikes such as their ladies cross-frame which the WorkCycles Kruisframe step-through is based on.

The 60’s were tough years for the Dutch bicycle industry. After a number of fusions and changes Simplex and Locomotief were taken over by Gazelle who from then on just used the names for cheaper “B-quality” bikes.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 01:12 and is filed under Antique/old bikes and history, Elsewhere in the world..., Uncategorized, Workbike / Transportfiets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.