The above photo by supertsaar on Flickr reminded me of a conversation I had with Jos Louwman, founder of the well-known Mac Bike bicycle rental company in Amsterdam. Jos rode the same “Pfanntoom 1″ bakfiets to our Oktoberfietsfeest party this past fall and I commented that it reminded me of the casket bakfiets I’d seen recently.

As it turns out there’s quite an interesting story behind the Pfanntoom and the reference to the casket trike was eerily close to the truth. Here’s a rough translation of Jos’ response:

“Funny that you the Phanntoom 1 compare to the casket bakfiets. My friend Henk Pfann (the godfather of the Amsterdam Bakfiets Club) is buried in the box that was originally mounted on the bakfiets. As a memorial we mounted a pontoon from a aquaplane on the chassis.”

It’s also worth noting that the box that was originally on this bakfiets (the one Henk Pfann is now buried in) was in the shape of a book, specifically a bible; Henk and his family were in the book business.

The name Pfanntoom is a word play on the Dutch “fantoom”, the English “phantom” (meaning the same thing) and the name Pfann.

A little more about Henk Pfann on Wikipedia.

The bakfiets chassis under the pontoon appears to be an old Maxwell, a long extinct firm that made some of the best bakfietsen ever. Maxwells often had unusual features including triple main tubes, lovely double chainstays, and a handle built into a rear fender reinforcement. Maxwell was founded in 1914 and continued until 1961 though I’ve never seen a Maxwell bakfiets or transportfiets that looked as if it was built after WWII. The Maxwell name is still in use for a generic line of Dutch city bikes but these don’t have anything to do with the old Maxwell.

Tripping Angels presents “Konijnen Fruit’; a rabbit bakfiets cycling trip through Amsterdam. Unnecessary inside joke: It helps to have seen the classic Paul Verhoeven film Turkish Delight (“Turks Fruit”), which you should see anyway because it’s a great film and has some quintessentially Dutch cycling scenes.

In case you were wondering what people do with a rental bakfiets, here’s an example.

Wobine: Thanks. The next rental is on the house!

Perhaps only in Amsterdam: A jazz band that plays while riding in a bakfiets.

And I just noticed that the video was made in the Palmgracht, right around the corner from WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht shop.

On the Steve Allen show. Very strange to see Zappa at 22 years old and still unknown.

Hong Kong: World's Worst Cycling City

I didn’t know that David Byrne has a blog, but upon finding it I wasn’t surprised to find that it’s interesting, beautifully written, and demonstrates Byrne’s interest in cycling.

In his post “Hong Kong – The Future of No Future” Byrne describes cycling around Hong Kong, with fascinating social commentary along the way. He finally congratulates “…Hong Kong for being the worst city for cyclists that I have encountered in the whole world. That’s saying a lot. Worse than Napoli, worse than Istanbul. Worse than Manila! Hong Kong takes the prize.”

The strangest thing happened the other day: I arrive at WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht to open the shop and I find that our front doors have been graffitied, or rather artfully painted actually… with a skeletons and bikes theme. It’s kinda strange and creepy but heck, it’s funny, bicycle related, eye-catching and far better than the stupid tagging we were getting every week!

It says “Posada” in big letters, I assume a reference to the Mexican artist famous for murals in a similar style. It seems unlikely Posada did this one considering that he died in 1913.

In small letters in the lower right it says “Abner” and “Slacker” which I assume to be this guy: www.abnerpreis.com/

Strange.

Introducing the “Waffle Bike”. Complete with a refrigerator, machete, two shotguns, public announcement system, a chicken coop (to provide eggs) and of course a waffle maker. I can’t believe it – I had exactly the same idea but they made it first!

Is it a picnic table or is it a bike? You decide. Creativity from Boulder, Colorado.

I returned from our New Year’s holiday to find this great drawing in my mailbox. Its from Sjoerd at DoubleDutch in Frauenfeld, Switzerland who sell the interesting combination of dutchtub and Dutch bikes, including WorkCycles.

Anybody who’s spent a New Year’s in Amsterdam understands the significance of the fireworks in the box of the bakfiets: Amsterdam is an wild and crazy war zone of everybody and their grandmother sending off impressively big fireworks in the street, from apartment windows, over the canals, from your bicycle’s carrier, in your mailbox… you get the idea. I’ve done New Year’s in many cities and nothing even comes in the same territory as the random and unorganized violence of Amsterdam’s fireworks.

I’m only curious about the 90 degree placement of the cranks on Sjoerd’s bakfiets. Is this a new system for the mountainous terrain of Switzerland?

Keeping with the international spirit today here’s a beautiful video featuring “Dekochari”, Japanese bikes decorated with enormous amounts of lights and effects, and beautiful music by Bunta Sugawara and Kinya Aikawa. I’m guessing that “deko” stands for “decorated” and “chari” for “chariot” like for “mamachari” which are the women’s bikes with built in baby seats for one or two kids. Kyoko could provide more info here but she’s sleeping.

These bikes have lots in common with the Queens, NY “boom box bikes” I wrote about in 2007.

And there’s also more than a little in common with the crazy, dressed-up Japanese kids bikes of the 70’s, also from about a year ago here.

Thanks to customer Wendy Monroe for the tip!