I don’t normally expect to find intellectually stimulating material in the pages of Wallpaper magazine, not surprising for a glossy with the byline “International Design, Interiors, Fashion & Travel”. Mostly it just reminds me of my vapid days in industrial design, as do most “designer bikes” such as the Bamboomega and the Triobike.
This image has a little food for thought though. The sculpture by Ai Weiwei, very appropriately made of bicycles, is titled “Forever”. The bikes go ’round and ’round, climbing into a sort of geodesic dome.
A Bike is basically “forever”, just a few kilos of metal, plastic, rubber and leather that, like an ant, carries many times its weight. Beyond its initial manufacture few resources are needed to keep the bicycle running for an absurdly long time in modern terms. Every part, including the frame, is replaceable meaning that a quality, well designed bike really does have a practically endless lifespan.
Is this what Weiwei meant? Probably not but it fits my needs nicely.
Thanks to Frank Kloos for the tip. And while you’re behind that screen check out Frank’s cool new site featuring inspiring photography from around the globe: The Black Snapper.
This is an awesome, practical and yet brilliantly silly restoration and conversion that began as a simple, old folding bike and ended up as a… well, I’ll just let you page through the photos of the construction process here at fixed gear gallery. Hats off to an expert fabricator.
Here in Amsterdam we just ride our Bakfiets Cargobikes, but over in North America it seems to be fashionable to put them on your giant car and drive around with them. Doesn’t seem like nearly as much fun to me, but hey, who am I to complain.
But just in case the guy with the ghetto blacked out Suburban with Cargobike on roof thinks he’s tough, check out this one. It’s a Unimog with the same Cargobike practically disappearing into the bed.
Never heard of a Unimog? Well then check out these videos of Unimogs in action. Suburbans are for pussies!
From the creative minds of famed eco-designer Ross Lovegrove and Biomega bicycles. Aside from being vaguely unique can somebody please explain what the benefit of this exercise is? I mean, I’m sure a complete aluminium frame was cut up to enable laboriously hand-fitting the carefully selected and finished bamboo tubes. I’ll eat my hat if such “hybrid” frames won’t require ten times as much energy to make as the Chinese made all-metal ones they replace. They’ll be heavier, weaker and more maintenance intensive too.
And then all this trouble to make a uncomfortable bike with neither practical amenities (OK, it at least has an enclosed drivetrain) nor sporting potential.
Interesting and structurally sound bamboo bikes have already been made, for example by Craig Calfee. I stick to my opinion that “designer bikes” are almost always pointless at best and bad bicycles at worst… and that’s coming from somebody who left the industrial design field to start a bike company.
Maybe this simultaneously signals the apocalypse of pretentious fixies and uselessly precious and fragile “porteur” bikes, each lifestyle accessories for their own subculture: The leather wrapped fixie/porteur! Who woulda thunk?
“This is a “Porteur bike”, which mix my passions : leather craft, urban style, fashion and luxury…
Entirely handmade with rare, vintage and NOS parts, this bike is unique.”
“In the streets, this bike mixes the agility & the reactivity of the track frame, to the comfort from the big tires or the large front rack.”
“Powerful as much as elegant with the chrome, the copper touches and the color scheme, which is a classic vintage grey with brown leather hand made detailing.”
A couple questions:
1. What happens to the leather seat tube when you move the axle forward from the rear of the rear fork pads?
1b. …or when the axle slips forward. Will that rear wheel really stay in place with those leather axle washers? Methinks not.
2. If you’re going to build a cost-no-object obsessa-bike why use such a crude frame and bottom of the line parts such as the cheap pedals and tires?
3. What does one actually DO with such a bike, besides show it to your friends?
A couple months ago I found an envelope on my desk with US postage, only our address without business name and a return address with no name. I figured it was probably for a neighbor and it was a while before I realized I couldn’t do much more with it than just open it. So I did, and I found the following inside:
A request from Jesse
Since we regard catalogs as some archaic leftover of the paper era we didn’t have any to send to Jesse. After an extensive brainstorm session and heated discussion it was decided to send Jesse not just one, or even two but several WorkCycles foam keychains, as pictured below. No, we didn’t send it COD with an invoice for the postage. Please note that the example keychain below is somewhat deformed as a result of Pascal using it for several months as a teething toy:
For several weeks we waited with baited breath for Jesse’s reply and it finally arrived a few days ago. We weren’t disappointed as it’s just as sweet and polite as the first letter:
Jesse, you’re completely welcome and we’d be happy to discuss your being our U.S.A represitive… in a few years. In the meanwhile we wish you success convincing your parents to get a WorkCycle.
Eventually even tireless White couldn’t take it anymore but his WorkCycles Opafiets wasn’t fazed. (Why would it- It’s just a bike!) But rumor has it the Opafiets even continued on for a rendezvous met a certain desirable Omafiets in his neighborhood, saying something about wanting a Brooks saddle.
On Wednesday, May 13th (2009), hoist that bike onto the roof of your car and drive it to work! Celebrate the joys of bike-driving with your fellow road warriors! Put some miles on that under-used eco-transport! Plus, raise awareness about the hazard that affects bike-lovers everywhere. Low clearance garages.
Actress Famke Jansen rides her WorkCycles Omafiets through the streets of New York
Actually it concerns me less that she’s a semi-famous celebrity type (former Bond-girl etc.) than that it’s just a cool photo of a good looking Dutch woman nonchalantly riding her good looking Dutch bike through Manhattan. Yes, the bike is a WorkCycles-Azor Omafiets, purchased from WorkCycles dealerDutch Bike Seattle.
Whoever the photographer is, he used a seriously high resolution camera. Amongst the photo series are a couple that zoom in on details of Famke I didn’t specifically need to see. Look here if you DO want to see that but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the “adult” content.
Word on the street has it that an anonymous cyclist has put a €50,000 bounty out for anyone who can steal her bike seat and deliver it to his office in a zip lock bag. Famke, keep that bike and saddle well locked!
Some stories have to be told, even when you know in advance you’re going to piss some people off. I’m writing this post much more out of sense of justice and to spare a few people some frustration than to further WorkCycles’ interests.
The topic of the horrible, Chinese made family bakfiets copies has come up here intermittently but I’ve never written anything in depth about them. For those unfamiliar I’m talking about bakfietsen sold under various and constantly changing names, some of which are listed in this post on bakfiets.co.uk. Regular readers already know my conviction that these crude constructions of randomly “designed”, stamped and welded pot metal in the shapes of “bikes” and “trikes” are actually of negative value to their unfortunate purchasers and the world in general. The various fly-by-night firms selling them without warranty promote them as less expensive though somewhat simplified alternatives to similar looking, quality bicycles made by Bakfiets.nl, Christiania, Gazelle, Fietsfabriek and WorkCycles. If this were really the case I’d respect their activities, helpful or detrimental to those of my own.
However they’re just pandering to wishful thinking; Sure, it’d be great to have some inexpensive bakfiets options for families but the laws of physics and economics even apply to bicycles. The quality models simply cost what they have to, given the heavy duty demands, the need for safety and relatively small quantity production. Depending on the format and how deluxe it’s equipped they cost (in the Netherlands) between €1300 and about €2300. Anybody who can come up with a better price-quality-feature ratio will succeed in this competitive market.
The “bak-fakes”, on the other hand, are sold solely to earn a quick profit. They’re designed and made to such low standards that they’re really not useful machines. The customer is not getting a less pretty version of a €1500 bicycle for €600, she’s getting stuck with a flatpack full of ill-fitting, fast rusting steel pieces, paperboard panels and inappropriately chosen bicycle parts sourced from the very lowest level of department store bikes. Even if one pays a professional mechanic to do the assembly and replace the completely unusable pieces a decent riding, safe, semi-acceptably durable family transporter will never emerge. Even if no physical harm results from riding the thing, it’ll deteriorate with amazing rapidity. Oh, and there’s NO warranty. When your bike breaks in half (yes, they do that) you’re just outta luck.
The Dutch seem to have lost patience with the bak-fakes so we’re seeing fewer and fewer of them. Dutch people might be famous for loving a good deal but they do actually ride their bikes, so really crappy bikes tend not to stay on the market very long. Look how Kronan’s success here was so short lived. I guess that explains why the Chinese bak-fake manufacturers are seeking out new markets. Now they’ve just shown up on American shores through a firm called DoubleDutchBikes.
Ian at Bakfiets.co.uk has been following my discussion with Daniel Kok, who’s written a few comments on this blog about the bicycles he’s importing from China to the USA. Judging one’s character just by the comments they leave on blogs and by their website isn’t exactly a reliable science but the picture Ian’s post paints is indeed pretty sketchy looking. Blog comments pretending to be a customer of your own business and roundabout non-answers to questions aren’t good signs.
Daniel initially commented as “dkok” here in this post, though referred to Doubledutchbikes as “they”. Clicking the link he left behind I found on his site that the proprieter seemed to be a certain Daniel Kok. Given the Dutch name and similarity to “dkok” it didn’t seem too great a leap to guess that Daniel was our poster. Returning to the site today I cannot find his name there anymore. Whatever. I understand that the small business owner just needs to get the word out there and who expects the etiquette police to be following like hawks.
On Bakfiets.co.uk Ian shows a bunch of pictures of these bikes with commentary about certain features. Some of the images actually originate from my own Flickr photo set you can see in the slideshow below.
Daniel claims to have made extensive changes to the bike so I suppose the crux of the matter is whether DoubleDutchBikes has really made so many improvements to justify:
A. Selling them at all.
B. A price increase from about $650 (€500 in NL) to $1900.
That would seem a tall order but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen more. Until then CAVEAT EMPTOR, folks… and happy cycling, whatever you choose to ride!
