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!

From Design Boom.

This cargo trike in Barcelona is equipped with rather sophisticated electronics is used to draw giant “graffiti” with light on buildings. See a video of the graffiti bike in action here.

More photos of their laser graffiti can be found here on Flicker.

The Dutch are doing “L.A.S.E.R. Tag” too, though in a reversal of roles… from a Hymer camper van.

Wanna get in on the action? Here you can find LASER Tag how-to information and source code.

I guess I’m kinda out of the “bike culture” loop here in Amsterdam where most people just ride bikes without thinking or caring about them. My WorkCycles coworkers and I are definitely exceptions in this regard, even amongst our bicycle industry colleagues who too often just aren’t crazy about cycling. I suppose this explains how I’d missed the Yehuda Moon comic, now even with a story about a Bakfiets Cargobike riding mom. Nice stuff with some good inside digs interspersed. Rick Smith, the artist “gets it”.

Thanks to the Dutch Bike Co. Seattle Blog for the tip!

Veel meer bakfietsen te zien bij Atelier Mara Berkhout.

Coincidence? I don’t think so!

“bicycle tree parking” (second photo) via swissmiss where you’ll find lots of interesting design stuff, some of which is bike related… others just thought provoking or beautiful.

Sometimes we build a special bike, send it off in a hurry without a chance to get photos and then we forget about it. Then sometimes we come across them later in advertising or political campaigns, in stores as props, or just on the street being ridden. This bakfiets has a good story behind it.

Under the motto “every square meter counts” nature defense organization “Natuurmonumenten” devised a campaign in which various famous Dutch folks would ride a bakfiets built into one square meter of nature throughout the Netherlands. Via this metaphor they generated lots of publicity though I doubt anybody ever saw the small WorkCycles logo on the tricycle itself.

This was based on one of our traditional bakfietsen. The timeless, old-world looks (and old-world quality reality) fit the project. We painted and powdercoated it in the right shades of green and those with intimate knowledge of such things handled the the lovely square meter of nature.

Here are a handful of the celebrities who rode one m2 of nature. Don’t worry if the names mean nothing to you; Being a rock-star in a country of 16 million people doesn’t necessarily guarantee worldwide name recognition:

We’ve got many more of these projects around the country so its about time to start collecting images and info. Here are some more images of the bakfiets in all its green glory.

I’ll admit that I don’t usually find the tall-bike scene very interesting and perhaps that statement will have me besieged by an army of black clad squatters armed with padded lances. However this tall bike, dubbed “Skywalker” by Atomic Zombie is not only absurdly tall, its also very thoughtfully designed and and attractively constructed. It must be a helluva trip to ride a bike from 4 meters in the air.

What makes this tallbike unique is that it the rider can climb and dismount it while riding. This isn’t just a circus stunt concept. Its a practical and safety advantage: otherwise the rider would have to find and climb a suitable pole, second story window or truck roof to begin… and then find another to dismount.

Oh, and if you want to be jealous of somebody’s fabrication skills… it was built in one weekend.

There are even do-it-yourself plans for the tall bike on Instructibles. Its not likely you’ll ever see one of these, never mind convince its owner to let you try it out. So if you want to experience riding a 12 foot high bike you’ll just have to collect some bike parts and lots of tubing (electrical conduit actually) and fire up that MIG welder. Have fun!

Check out the video to see the tall bike being ridden:

The Atomic Zombie site is worth checking out too: Lots of photos of, and DIY plans to build all sorts of strange bikes, trikes, robots and stuff.

This site called “Het blijefietsenplan” plays on an inside joke in Dutch. The Dutch love “plans”, especially with regard to bicycles. These “plans” are always something serious: They can be political or have something to do with reducing your taxes.

Back in the idealistic 60′s a highly progressive Amsterdam politician and bicycle promoter by the name of Luud Schimmelpennink proposed the idea of “het witte fietsenplan” (the white bike program) whereby thousands of white bikes without locks would be left in depots around the city for communal, free use. Urban legend has it that the bikes were all stolen within weeks or days, depending on who tells the story. In reality the plan was never put into action. Many other cities are now putting such bicycle loan programs into use but perhaps its just not needed in Dutch cities

More recently the Dutch tax service has allowed the purchase of bicycles with pre-tax salary. Because quality transportation bicycles are expensive and the tax rates are high this translates to considerable savings. Its a straightforward tax rule that every employee can benefit from but that hasn’t stopped businesses from meddling. There are thus a number of “bedrijfs fietsenplannen” (business bicycle programs) that handle this administration for employers. In fact its a totally bogus service; these bicycle programs are actually set up by major bicycle manufacturers such as as a means to extract another revenue stream from their dealers. Nationale Fiets Projecten, the biggest such program has their office at Industrieweg 8 in Heerenveen. The Batavus factory is at Industrieweg 4. That’s my bicycle conspiracy story for today.

While I’m at it I’ll even add that there are a couple bike shops (fietsenmakers) in Amsterdam called “Het Zwarte Fietsenplan”, I guess as a wordplay on both the wittefietsenplan and the bedrijfsfietsenplan. Why they chose to split the words instead of just Zwartefietsenplan like the others I can’t answer.

So anyway Het Blijefietsenplan has nothing to do with such serious topics. Its just a forum for people (mostly women) who like to decorate their bikes with plastic flowers, stickers, colorful brushed-on paint jobs and whatever else does the job. Nothing could be more Dutch bike than this. There are lots of great photos and you can even add your own!