Espresso is good. Bakfietsen are good. So why not combine them into mobile coffee vending trikes? It’s a business with low barrier to entry, catchy and probably fun too. Great idea and though you write us weekly to build such a beast… you’re actually not the first one to think of it. You might have first seen it on TV.

Around five years ago Paul Sabin from Kent, England bought a couple of our classic bakfietsen, fitted them with a gas-fired espresso machines and the necessary plumbing and called his business “Tradecycle”. It’s kind of like “Workcycles”, except a little different. Paul’s trikes were featured in an episode of “The Apprentice” on BBC1. Somebody’s coffee trikes were also featured on Eastenders, though I’m not sure whether they were Paul’s. Paul bought a couple more bikes over the next couple years but somehow the publicity didn’t jump-start their business. It has, on the other hand, generated an endless stream of potential entrepreneurs writing to WorkCycles to have one of these bikes made. The Tradecycle website is still online but they’re no longer in operation.

Below the original Tradecycle coffee trike. All were built on a WorkCycles chassis but each one was a little different from its predecessor.

Meanwhile mobile coffee vending specialists Coffee Latino from the other end of England took a look at the offerings and decided they could do better. Being the only such vehicle in the world they also begin with a Workcycles classic bakfiets chassis as the basis. They then fit their Fracino LPG-fired espresso machines with gas and water plumbing that meet UK standards. It’s a fair guess that with a few modifications these systems will also meet the regulations of most other countries. These new coffee bakfietsen are sold under the name of On Your Trike. If you want a turn-key coffee trike you needn’t look any further; contact On Your Trike.

So will WorkCycles build you a complete espresso bakfiets / coffee trike? No, that’s just a bit too specialized for us. Thanks for asking but we’ll happily build you the chassis, box, canopy and stabilizer legs. Then the experts can select the most suitable espresso machine and coffee grinder, as well as safely rigging up gas, electricity and water in the same compact and mobile space. Only complicating matters further is that each country and sometimes municipality has its own laws about safety, food hygiene and mobile vending. Mobile coffee vending is thus a great idea but you’ll either have to contact On Your Trike or research and build it yourself.

Another customer, Sven Boerner in Leipzig, Germany did just that; He built his own beautiful espressobakfiets for his coffee vending business. You can check it out on Sven’s own site (in German language): Das Kaffeefahrrad

Meanwhile I was thinking about selling Dutch “peperkoek” (“spice cake”?) from a bakfiets but it doesn’t seem to be catching on.

Last month colleague and friend Jos Louwman (founder of Amsterdam’s famous MacBike) and Fredjan Twigt did just that; They sailed (and pedaled) bicycles from Agadir to Dahkla, about 1100km, in eight days. They carried their camping gear and drank about a gallon of water a day. What a great adventure!

The sail-bike is called a Whike and it’s Fredjan’s brainchild; the result of combining his passions for recumbent bikes and sailing. Of course the basic principle of sailing on land or ice is not new; Ice boats have been used in cold regions for centuries and some race boats can exceed 200km/hr. Yes, it IS possible to travel several times the wind speed with low friction sailing vehicles.

But ultimate speed isn’t the purpose of the Whike. On the Whike site it’s described as a fun, original and comfortable vehicle. At least in the Netherlands it’s legal for use on bicycle paths and public roads. An overview of how the sail power at various wind speeds:

Force 1 to 3: The sail works as a “help motor” and you need to pedal along. You note that you easily ride faster than without the sail.

Force 3-4: You now really feel the power of the wind. You easily ride past other cyclists and with a crosswind you needn’t pedal to continue moving.

Force 4-5: Pedaling is simply no longer necessary to get where you want.

Force 5+: Be careful for gusts and always keep the sheet (the line that trims the sail) in your hand. Depending on your skill and weight maybe fit the (smaller) storm sail.

So what does this have to do with practical cycling? A lot. The bike industry is currently doing their best to push electrically assisted bikes, something WorkCycles is more than a little ambivalent about. Thus far we’ve been highly underwhelmed by their lack of reliability, unnatural feeling, ineffiency, poor serviceability and downright ugliness.

Meanwhile here’s a bicycle with a tiny sail that does approximately the same thing: no batteries for the landfills, controllers to fry, sensors, chips etc etc. It’s a lesson in minimalism. The rigging for a sail of this size is practically indestructible and even if something broke or tore in an accident it’d be easy to repair or jury-rig to continue.

Sure, Whiking through the streets of downtown Paris or Manhattan is not entirely realistic but I bet the concept could be made practical for a far broader range of applications than our technology driven perspectives would allow us to believe.

Innarested? Check out the Whike website.

Photos by Jos Louwman and Fredjan Twigt. Thanks!

I saw this nearly perfect kroket on three wheels a couple years ago while visiting an art exhibition at Museum de Paviloens in Almere with Kyoko. I didn’t realize then it was actually a fully functional croquette (“kroket” in Dutch) frying and vending vehicle. I just figured it was just a humorous art piece. I suppose that’s also the case judging from some of Tilmann’s other projects which include a fake Segway tour of a mental institution, a mall kiosk that made and sold concrete clogs, and a one man university. But we talked with Tilmann at another exhibition last week and he filled me in on the whole scoop. He’s German though and explains it all with a straight face so I’m still not 100% sure about the humor part. I might just be inadvertently insulting an artist here, something I’ve already demonstrated an aptitude for amongst righteous cyclists.

The project’s called “Buurtkroket” (means neighborhood croquette”) and to paraphrase Tilmann’s explanation…
The city council of Almere engages artists to improve the social cohesion in certain town districts. To this end Meyer-Faje developed a snack bar bike for the Stedenwijk Noord neighborhood which has no shops or restaurants. It’s a “bedroom community” which is fairly unusual in the Netherlands. The concept was to introduce mixed development to this monofunctional, planned neighborhood.

From his special bakfiets Tilmann deep-fried and served croquettes made from recipes of the local residents. Croquets are currently regarded as cheap fast food but originally they were “grandmas homemade pride” of the traditional Dutch kitchen. Every oma has (or had) her special kroket recipe.

Here’s an overview of Buurtkroket. And here’s the buurtkroket site where you can find croquette recipes, links, discussion etc.

The kroketbakfiets has spiritual roots in the street vendors’ bakfietsen of the olden days. Until about the 1960’s all kinds of goods were commonly transported and sold from special bakfietsen on the streets of Dutch cities. The milkman had a bakfiets outfitted to carry several steel milk jugs. The bread baker rode an enclosed bakfiets with various drawers and compartments while the cake and pastry baker had a fancier box with glass display windows. The fishmonger had his trike equipped with bins and a work surface for cleaning and cutting the fish. Many of these were standard models that could simply be purchased from various firms such as Huisman, Lely and Maxwell. Even the major bike manufacturers offered bakfietsen though they were sometimes built by other firms such as the Gazelles which were (at least in the 1960’s-70’s) apparently built by Apollo in Aalten. Only one classic bakfiets is still in production… the Huisman that WorkCycles sells. It’s been built continuously since the 1930’s.

The herring man with his bakfiets

Have some ideas for the future of the krokettenbakfiets? Tilmann hinted that it might be for sale, at least for the right buyer and price. You can contact him via his sites above.

I have to admit that I have a lot of bicycles, and I’m referring to bikes that are really just mine and not somehow part of the WorkCycles fleet or inventory. I periodically cull the flock but some have too much sentimental value to sell, even if I almost never ride them. There’s the Daedalus mountain bike from 1990, designed by me and built by Kent Ericksen of Moots in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There were six made of which I still know the whereabouts of four. I don’t think I could ever see my lovely De Rosa go. I bought it a year or two old from a friend in about 1982 and raced and trained on it for years until breaking one of the silly diamond shaped chainstays. My friend Brian Spitz (who built some of the world’s cleanest race frames for a while) repaired it but then I hung it up and forgot about it for 15 years. A couple years ago I decided I wanted to get back on a racing bike, found it still wrapped in paper and built it up again. Now it gets ridden regularly, much closer to it’s birthplace in Italy. There are many others, in order of how long I’ve owned them:

Those are all complete, rideable bikes. I also have a number of bikes in various states of incompleteness and a rather absurdly large collection of (mostly old enough to have no monetary value) parts. The semi-complete bikes include:

At least all of the old transport and city bikes are destined for the WorkCycles museum and a few are already on display. A few bikes including the city bike, Brompton, papa bike and racing bike are ridden regularly. Some of the others will return to service when the time is right. Amsterdam has, for example, a fantastic indoor velodrome and I’ve been itching to get back on the track, though that might have to wait until Pascal is old enough to ride too.

Anyhow this is a long intro to noting that I got another bike. This one is a transportfiets (Dutch delivery bike) from the firm “Yankee” in Hoogeveen (where Azor is now and Union once was). I’d never heard of Yankee but that doesn’t mean much; until the 1960’s there were hundreds of small firms building bikes in the Netherlands. Lugs, tubing and components were bought in from various suppliers and the bikes were built from scratch. The quality was typically excellent but the designs were very conservative. Only experts can tell many of the bikes apart and little changed from the 1920’s through the 1960’s or even 1970’s in some cases. A few of the manufacturers were known for particularly high quality (Empo, Fongers, Gazelle, Simplex) and/or unique design (Fongers, Locomotief, Maxwell, Simplex). Yankee though has somehow disappeared into the gorges of history.

Despite it’s near anonymity my Yankee is a beautiful bike, even after at least 50 years and perhaps even a decade or two more. I purchased it from a neighbor. When he brought it in it wasn’t pretty but it was clearly solid, complete and quite original. He’d originally bought the bike some 15-20 years ago for his catering business but no longer needed it. Since then we’ve mostly stripped it down, thoroughly cleaned and polished everything, straightened the front carrier and handlebars, replaced the tires (with better old ones) and assorted other improvements. Only the pedals, which weren’t original anyway, are “incorrect”.

You might not be familiar with the old Dutch transportfietsen and aside from the lovely brass head badge this one’s as typical as they get. Here’s a rundown of some of it’s features:

Perhaps the most obvious feature of a classic transportfiets is the front carrier, always fixed to the wide, 1″ diameter handlebar, very heavy fork crown and front axle. Thus this giant carrier swings with the wheel making it a handful to ride when loaded. Typically a huge basket or wooden crate was mounted on the carrier to carry bread, meat, milk or whatever else the tradesman (or his son) delivered. The load capacity was huge, both in volume and weight. This carrier was made by the firm “Roelewiel” who made the carriers for many brands of bikes.

The reason these bikes still exist despite their hard lives is the extraordinarily robust construction. This bike weighs almost 40kg. There’s not a single dent in the fenders or frame tubes and the frame was still perfectly straight. The drive chain, chainring and cog are 1/2″ x 3/16″, like on mopeds and small motorcycles. The crank bearings are larger diameter and wider. The cranks are massive chunks of steel.

Bonus for the hardcore nerds who spotted that the left crank is mounted backwards: Yes, I’m aware of it. It’s that way because the crank was apparently bent in an accident and after straightening it still has a little “S” bend so it now fits better backwards.

Before WWII all Dutch transportfietsen had 28″ wheels, generally 28 x 1.75″ like this bike. For those keeping up with current fads and trends that’s the same size known now as a “29′er”. After WWII they were built with either the 28″ wheels or fatter 26″ wheels (for even heavier duty applications). My Yankee has the classic Vredestein “Transport Extra Zwaar” tires. This translates to “transport extra heavy” and they weren’t kidding; these tires weigh some 1500g each and they’re supported by special steel rims that weigh a couple kilos each.

The early transportfietsen were mostly or all fixed gears, meaning they had no means of freewheeling nor did they have brakes. The rider slowed the bike by means of resisting the rotation of the pedals. This was no mean feat on a heavy and heavier loaded bike with the further momentum of such heavy wheels. Of course these bikes were only ridden by professionals, though even they indulged in competitions. During WWII the occupying Nazis banned fixed gear bicycles (really, I’m not making this up) perhaps for a couple reasons:

The Yankee has a coaster brake hub I’ve never seen though. It’s a Bendix like the American hubs I grew up with, except that this one is different. Inside and out it looks much like the German Torpedo but still different, most notably that it has a helical actuator instead of the roller clutch used in the Torpedo. In any case it’s definitely a special, heavy duty model with a 3/16″ cog threaded in place with a locknut.

Am I going to ride it? Nah, probably not for a while. I’m just going to hang it up in our Lijnbaansgracht shop as one more constant reminder of what “quality” means.

Check out this awesome Long John desert rig with 36″ wheels, xtracycle rear end and a cargo bed of at least 150cm. Sort of part WorkCycles Cargobike Extra Long and part Mad Max, all on steroids. Then again I suppose half of the creations at Burning Man have a Mad Max Look… “Speed is only a matter of money. How fast can you afford to go?”

The first bike that caught my eye though was this 1890 “lamplighter’s bike” from New York City. You see a 250cm bike was the perfect way to reach a flame into hundreds of streetlamps each evening. Just ride along and dab the burning stick into each oil lamp as it comes along.

But wait a minute, you object, isn’t this just a “tall bike” like those weird anarchist dudes do their jousting on? Yes, exactly… except that they just reinvented it, uglier and worse, 100 years later. And this is exactly my point: Most of the real “invention” and “development” of the bicycle occurred more than 100 years ago, back when the bicycle was one of the pinnacles of technology, and certainly the highest tech thing an ordinary person could get their hands on. As I recall some of the things that were developed for bicycles: steel tubing, ball bearings, pneumatic tires, the tensioned spoke wheel, the roller chain drive and the list goes on. People often poo-poo of the achievements of the Wright Brothers because they were bike makers by trade, but this completely misses the point that the bicycle techies of that day were amongst the best suited to be experimenting with aerodynamics (which nobody understood yet) and lightweight, efficient structures.

In 1896 Archibald Sharp wrote what is probably still the most comprehensive book on bicycle technology “Bicycles and Tricycles, An Elementary Treatise on Their Design and Construction”. It’s 400 pages of detailed analysis of bicycle design. From the MIT Press site (they reprinted it in 1979 and my copy is one of these):

It begins with a general exposition of mechanical principles: dynamic, static, and straining forces. It then covers successive experiments at bicycle and tricycle design, including several “mechanical monstrosities.”

With the aid of elegant, sometimes humorous drawings, the book examines various designs for their relative stability, steering advantages, gearing and resistance properties. The final selection discusses the design of individual components in detail, including the frame (from the point of view of stress analysis); wheels; bearings; chains and chain gearing; toothed-wheel gearing; the lever-and-crank gear; tires; pedals, cranks and bottom brackets; springs and saddles; and brakes.

Even if you couldn’t read English or simply can’t be bothered to follow the scientific explanations the illustrations would be worth looking at. There are images and often scorching analysis of all sorts of bike and component designs that have been unwittingly (or knowingly?) reinvented in the intervening 120 years: disk wheels, belt drives, suspension frames and forks, shaft drive, two-speed epicyclic cranks and many more examples.

“Bicycles and Tricycles” is again out of print but it should be possible to find a second-hand copy. ISBN-10: 0-262-69066-7, ISBN-13: 978-0-262-69066-9

My point isn’t that the bicycle hasn’t evolved in over 100 years; It certainly has but largely in details. The basics elements have long been well understood, and unfortunately seem to get forgotten regularly. Thus simultaneous with the evolution of brakes, gearing and other details is constant de-evolution and re-invention of the basic design. A few examples of how current bikes are often actually worse than their predecessors:

Here is thus where we focus our efforts at WorkCycles; not attempting to reinvent the wheel, but merely refine it. This can require searching back a few steps to see where things went wrong (city bike ergonomics) or developing our own knowledge where there doesn’t seem to be any useful history to rely on (steering geometry for very heavily loaded bikes). All the while the designs remain timeless, but not for the sake of “retro style”. We’re either maintaining highly developed designs that are still fundamentally sound or creating new ones with the recognition that the products of evolution rarely fall far from the apple tree.

Speaking of houses on bikes I’d forgotten about this fantastic camper bike from Kevin Cyr:

UPDATE: Jason Moore in the first comment below reminds me of another bicycle camper/motorhome, this one traveled with and lived in full-time by Brian Campbell. His bike, which has gone through several iterations is ingenious. Brian’s situation though isn’t one to be envied; I’m under the impression he doesn’t live in his bicycle entirely by choice. You can read about Brian on Bike Portland, and also the sites of many others who’ve met Brian during his travels. Photos by Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland.

But then I begin to google camper bikes further and find that a whole new world has opened to me: bicyclists not content to merely travel by bicycle but who also insist upon sleeping in or on their bicycle. Take these Midget Bicycle Campers from Australia for example:

And then there’s this one by Paul Welkins, as seen on the Design Boom site:

Check out Welkin’s site for an amazing array of self-built, efficient vehicles and other random stuff.

Even the sober “doe maar normaal” Dutch are at it. Check out “Met een bakfiets op vakantie“.

And a family from Zeeland (as in the original Zeeland that New Zealand is the new version of in the same way that New York is the new version of Amsterdam… or something like that) who used to ride their old bakfiets as a camper, kids riding alongside on their own little bikes.

A few years ago there was an Italian firm called “Tasso Italia” that offered (though probably didn’t ever sell) a copy of the Main Street Pedicabs trike with a pop-out camper tent on the bed but they seem to have disappeared into the ether.

Of course that’s all good fun but we shouldn’t ignore the countless rickshaw drivers in Indonesia, India and elsewhere who sleep in their bikes out of necessity and not for kicks. It’s about as easy to forget as the fact that a great number (a majority even?) of transportation cyclists in the US are neither “cycle chic” nor “cycling enthusiast”. In fact they’re people who cannot drive; they’ve either lost their licenses or are too poor to own a car, and their accident statistics are so appalling that they skew US bicycling safety stats markedly toward the danger direction.

All sorts of people ride WorkCycles bikes: Moms, dads, steelworkers, delivery girls, photographers, teachers, IT guys, cops, punk rockers and even royalty. A few weeks ago we received a call from a distinguished sounding gentleman with a +44 country code telephone number. Thank god for caller ID. The conversation went something like this:

Us: “Goedemiddag, WorkCycles. Je spreekt met (insert WorkCycles employee name).”

Caller: “Please excuse me but do you speak English?”

Us: “Ya. Dat can. How can I be of service?”

Caller: “Pardon me. Would you happen to have any Grey Poupon? Ha ha just a little English humour… No, actually I am interested in your WorkCycles F-R-8 bicycle. It looks like a most dignified bicycle yet refreshingly modern and versatile. Would you recommend it for an individual for whom it is important to look, well, dignified?”

Us: “What’s Grey Poupon?”

Caller: “It’s mustard but never mind that. I’m intereste…”

Us: “Mosterd? We have not mosterd here. We make only de bicycles.”

Caller: “Yes, sorry for the confusion. I’m interested in the F-R-8 bicycle.”

Us: “Oh, you mean de WorkCycles Freight bicycle? You speak it out not as F-R-8 but freight. It is a great bike and it can carry very much freight, such as 3 children and groceries or 150kg of tools. What must you carry and where will you ride de bicycle?”

Caller: “Well I’m not really at liberty to discuss the situation in detail but suffice it to say that it must be possible to carry a five year old child in a dignified manner and ummm… a crown.”

Us: “A crown? How do you mean?”

Caller: “Yes, a crown; like with velvet and silver and jewels and well, you know… a crown. I’m sorry but I’m just not at liberty to explain.”

Us: “Dat is OK. English clients have always strange requests. What is de diameter of de crown?”

Caller: “Almost 8 inches”

Us: “Dat is not a problem. We have a strong plastic crate in order to carry de crown. Dere is enough room to put the groceries next de crown. Do you need an elastic to prevent de crown from bouncing out?”

Caller: No I don’t think that will be necessary. The bicycle will only be ridden slowly.”

So to make a long story short the gentleman purchased the Fr8 and requested that it be personally delivered to Buckingham Palace, insisting that no further address info was necessary. The guards would be expecting the delivery but kindly do not disturb them during the changing of the guard. That would be most inconvenient.

Anyhow, being an American I don’t know much about these English things but I googled Buckingham Palace and found that at least part of the Royal Family lives there. By golly; that’s what the guy meant by the crown! But I couldn’t find any information about a five year old child in the English Royal Family. Do I smell a scandal brewing here?

It only seemed fitting to send Alexis, our only English employee to deliver the Royal Fr8. Along the way he stopped in to visit his buddies at London’s uber hip fixie workshop 14 Bike Co.

Even in the midst of so much colorful hipster fixie beauty all eyes were on the Fr8. Customers pointed and exclaimed “I want one like that! Except in bright pink with purple deep V rims and with the brake lever placed where I can’t reach it, and maybe with a top tube welded in so I can put my top tube pad on it.”

This past week Richard and I made our annual mandatory pilgrimage to zeppelin land Friedrichshafen, Germany for the gargantuan European bicycle industry orgy known as Eurobike. It’s probably the thousandth such bike expo I’ve attended thus my lack of enthusiasm and low expectations. I’ve simply come to learn that it’s pretty much all been done before and for the most part all that changes are the fashion materials (titanium is out, boron is nowhere to be found and carbon nanotubes are in) and attempts to cash in on current trends and themes. More about these later. In any case 99.9999999% of the displays focus on racing bikes, mountain bikes BMX bikes and other sporting goods which, while fun to look at, are irrelevant to this blog and to WorkCycles. As expected I’ll show you some stuff you won’t find in the glossy rags.

Upon arriving at the fairground shuttle bus stop we were greeted by a motley pack of WOOF bikes from Amsterdam via China. These one-trick dogs were introduced with massive press attention a few months ago and have already become the scourge of Amsterdam. You can hardly throw a rock with hitting a fashion victim riding one. Sorry but I just fail to see the attraction to this cheaply made bike missing most of what makes a Dutch bike great, and the feeble output of the built-in LED lights doesn’t do much to sweeten the deal.

Cheaply made you say? How’s this for attention to detail?… Coaster brake only combined with forward entry fork ends, no axle/chain tensioners and not even hard serrated washers to hold the axle in place: Good luck keeping that rear wheel in place and better luck stopping when your wheel slips forward dropping the chain. At least you won’t break the headlamp when you crash.

But that wasn’t the last we saw of WOOF. Again and again they reared their ugly headlamps.

And just when we thought it was safe sailing we found that the WOOF had won (or perhaps purchased) a Eurobike award. The nature of the award I didn’t see nor care. We did note though that the bike displayed on the award stand was completely different from the nasty production models.

If you’re going to make something pointless, please at least do it with a sense of humor such as these grips from OGK in Japan. For those unfamiliar with (or too young to remember) OGK, they’ve been around forever. Back in the day when yours truly rode a BMX bike, OGK made lots of BMX grips as well as helmets and other molded plastic goods.

We’ve got Sumo wrestlers, geisha girls, bacteria and German flags.

Of course OGK didn’t only bring grips to Eurobike. They also displayed the basket type child seats found on Japanese “Mama Chari” bikes. These fully enveloping seats for kids up to about three years old sit within a special handlebar, above a small front wheel. The mass of the child is thus low and roughly centered over the steering axis, making these bikes very easy to handle.

OK, they’re not especially sexy but such child seats offer a lot of advantages:

This concept of “moment of inertia” is one that the designers of the latest crop of fashion “townie” and “porteur” bikes with long, fork mounted front carriers would do well to learn; A load that steers with the handlebar and front wheel influences the steering quite seriously and the further the mass gets from the steering axis the worse the effect. With that simple fact of physics in mind let’s have a look at some bikes I saw at Eurobike:

Nice colors. Bad carriers.

Yes, you faithfully copied what you saw at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show last year. Too bad it’ll ride like crap and won’t stand upright with even a moderate load in there. Bike will fall over many times, damaging pretty paint.

I guess this one doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s sort of a mongrel BMX / folding / delivery bike and it’s been said a million times that mongrels make the best dogs. The handlebar integrated basket appeared at numerous stands but this iteration certainly deserves some style points.

Here’s another handlebar / carrier, smaller than granny’s little wicker basket. Even this fake little houseplant feels claustrophobic in there.

In any case carrying stuff on bicycles was generally a 2009 Eurobike theme, even if it was often executed in a somewhat clumsy or clueless manner. Note that actually riding bicycles for transportation and knowing other people who also do so is very helpful for conceiving and designing utility bicycles and accessories. I realize it sounds crazy but it’s true.

This teeeny, one-rollerblade-wheeled trailer actually folded out of a rear carrier with no less than three hinges. I suppose it probably does what it’s supposed to but that still begs the question: Why bother? Isn’t it simpler to just carry that occasional load, as demonstrated in Holland every day:

This great photo by Flickr user “Kraskland” Thanks!

But wait, there’s more… Such as this special mountain bike specifically developed to haul half pies of frozen pizza:

At least the pizza box is carbon fiber to make it easy to clean if the pizza defrosts before it’s delivered. It wasn’t specified whether there were any carbon nanotube molecules used in the construction.

Considerably less conceptual and more stylish were these lovely matched sets of leather saddles, grips and bags from Selle Monte Grappa in Italy.

Only in Italy.

Not your color theme? How about this chromed Italian city bike outfitted with white everything including tires and probably the most adorable panniers I’ve ever seen. Check out the handlebar stem mounted newspaper holder. Rumor has it that the guy who put the grey kiddie seat on there has already been excommunicated from the Roman Cathocyclic Church.

Only in Italy can one ride such a bike without looking like a pretentious wanker.

Speaking of bicycle child seats, there were lots of new ones to be seen at Eurobike. Those familiar with the exciting world of bike child seats knows that the current options can basically be divided into four categories:

But now Dutch child seat giant Bobike is going where no man has gone before with specially themed seats. This first series is apparently the Star Wars series, featuring the Imperial Storm Trooper and the Darth Vader.

The Storm Trooper model has a particularly ingenious built in ash-tray, perhaps in keeping with the recent Dutch obsession with smoking and the “Asbakfiets”

Just outside was the perfect vehicle for Darth Vader, whom I really can’t picture on any regular bike:

This beast has LED lighting in the handlebar ends, a hubless front wheel to avoid catching long robes (fenders are still in the works), and electric drive to avoid undignified pedaling motions. A perfect way to glide around the Death Star.

It even folds compactly to fit into Lord Vader’s X-Wing fighter.

This is apparently the Storm Trooper version which also offers a pedal mode. Speaking of Vader I hope you’ve seen this Lego animation.

I’ll be back with more great Eurobike finds ASAP.

Just the other day I was waxing philosophic about big, old skool, Dutch bakfietsen after a short rant about the theft of the rear wheel of my friend Doede’s bakfiets. Then today this blue beauty came back from Clarijs the “zeilmaker” with her new Bisonyl box cover. They did a great job getting a snug fit over the strange box shape. We’ve saved the pattern and will now offer it as a standard option for the XL Classic Bakfiets.

Why blue? Hey, it was the customer’s choice. We were really skeptical but now that it’s done we see it was a great call. It stands out from the sea of similar bakfietsen on the roads here but is still timeless. Perhaps it’ll help deter scumbag thieves as well.

While I’m writing about bakfietsen again here’s some more info about what makes them tick…

Here’s a peek at the high-tech, formula one style undercarriage. Actually I’ve never looked at the undercarriage of a formula one car but I assume they’re quite similar: carbon steel multi-leaf springs with floating eyes, H profile axle and steering axis with giant sealed bearings. Unlike modern trikes of the Christiania, ‘t Mannetje, Fietsfabriek, Nihola, Bakfiets.nl persuasion these classic trikes just float along like a magic carpet too heavy to get off the ground.

The hubs feature tapered steel axles and sealed bearing the size of a man’s wrist. There is not one gram of aluminium on the entire trike. Of course there is plenty of carbon though: In fact most of the 185 x 85cm mahogany box is carbon.

At the rear is a similarly sophisticated drivetrain. Inside this steel chain cover a motorcycle chain connects the 1:1 fixed gear ratio. Yes, that’s correct folks: These 130kg bikes with 400kg load capacity are fixies. For 100 years hip couriers, contractors and hippies have been riding them in both skinny and baggy trousers, sometimes displaying manly butt crack as befitting the baker, the plumber and the carpenter. Being a fixie and a tricycle it’s even easy to do some “freestyling” on this baby. backwards riding? No problem. My favorite trick is the “parallel park”.

Note also the 26 x 2.5″ transporter tires, fender stay that doubles as a lifting handle and cottered cranks. We’re not quite ready to trust those new fangled square taper crank axles, and besides, nobody makes one that’d fit anyway.

Moving over to the other side we see that motorcycle chain opposite the giant drum brake. In case you’re thinking it doesn’t look so big just consider it relative to the parts around it: 4mm thick spokes, (twice as thick as “HD” 14 gauge spokes), 14mm hub axle, fat tire, moto chain etc. It’s a big drum and it does a fine job of stopping this bike… unless you load the box up with several hundred kg of stuff and point the rig downhill. Then the drum will only stop the wheel, while your puny, girlie man weight will do little to stop the rear tire from merrily skidding along the pavement while momentum inexorably carries you to your… Actually I don’t really want to worry about that so let’s move on to the brake lever between your legs.

You might be surprised to learn that the current crop of fixed gear hipsters are only the latest fixie riders to have brake levers in strange places. There’s no irony to this foot long steel bar between your legs; It’s your one brake lever and please remember that when bearing down on a group of Italian tourists obliviously arguing over an unfolded map about which way the Anne Frank house is. Above the brake arm is a ratcheting parking lock. Just flip it up while riding and down to park. Pressing the brake handle down pulls the brake rod which in turn pulls the brake actuation arm on the drum itself. There isn’t much to go wrong here, aside from forgetting where it is. This probably explains the frequency of damage on the front of our rental bakfietsen, though we’ve fortunately never had to clean blood off.

We even ride these bakfietsen ourselves. Being “truck-free” we move stuff back and forth between the two WorkCycles locations by bakfiets. Here’s a shot of Renzo moving some random junk over to our Lijnbaansgracht location shortly after we opened. Like Doede, mechanic Tom even has his own old bakfiets. He picked it up in the spring second (or maybe fifth) hand, cleaned it up mechanically and lovingly applied at least 20 coats of boat varnish to the wooden box.

So… do you now want one of these babies? They begin at €3000 including the 19% Dutch VAT and you can check them out on the “Professional 3-wheelers” page on the WorkCycles website. You can even rent a big bakfiets for a big job, a picnic, your wedding or just to ride the family around Amsterdam in.