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!

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.