Last Saturday morning two masked men ran into our Veemarkt shop, put a gun to my head, waved a knife in my face, and moments later ran off with a few hundred euro in cash. I was alone since Wesley had just ridden a bakfiets full of trash off to the recycling center down the road. There wasn’t much I could do aside from stand still and subtly try to stay away from the knife the punk repeatedly threatened to slash me with without provoking him to actually do so. Several times he screamed at me “Where’s the cash?! Where’s the register?!” but it was obvious that his pistol wielding buddy had already cased the joint. He ran right upstairs to the correct drawer in the correct desk before I said a word.

It took me a moment to even realize what was going on. Is this a joke? Is a guy in a ski mask really pointing a pistol at my forehead? After a few seconds the neurons connected. Yes, that gun looks real enough. The big kitchen knife is certainly real. No I don’t have any prankster buddies with Moroccan-Amsterdam accents. And they’re yelling at me that it’s a robbery.

I’ve never been threatened so directly and dangerously before but I can easily imagine that different people could react in many ways. One might just be paralyzed from the fear. Or spurred into risky hero-action by the rush of adrenaline. I managed to keep it together. I just stood there quietly and tried to catalog as many characteristics of the two men as I could remember. I have a very good visual memory. I don’t mean to imply it’s easy under such stressful circumstances but I managed to get the following down:

Robber 1

Robber 2

Since customers don’t normally go upstairs Tom immediately recalled a suspicious incident a month or two ago: A young guy came in asking for change. Despite firmly telling him to stay downstairs he followed the employee upstairs, apparently to see where the cash is kept. When you run a couple retail shops all sorts of strange things happen but this one caught Tom’s attention for several reasons:

After last week’s robbery our descriptions of this character matched well, obviously given the limitations of what one can identify on a man wearing a woolen ski mask, a heavy sweatshirt with the hood over his head and baggy jeans.

When the men ran out (pistol guy falling and bumping down the stairs on his ass) I scrambled to find a phone and dial 1-1-2 as quickly as possible. I was running as soon as their backs were turned. Of course I later realized that one of the phones was actually sitting on the workbench within arm’s reach of where I’d been cornered. Oops, a ten second delay in calling the police. Phone in hand I ran outside hoping to see which direction they went. They were no longer visible but that in itself is an answer since there’s only one direction one could run and be out of sight within about 15 seconds. I assume they had a vehicle waiting around the corner and my vehicle prejudice says it was probably a scooter, but I didn’t actually hear or see anything to confirm that.

Reaching the police through the emergency line was frustrating though in retrospect it probably took less than a minute. The dispatcher couldn’t seem to understand why I wanted the police to come to the Veemarkt while another address (the billing address for the phone) was shown on her screen. But once they had the right address the police were there within a couple minutes. A better part of the day was then spent talking to the police, waiting for the forensics team to collect fingerprints and other samples, and then viewing a suspect through a one-way mirror. It was all pretty much like we see in movies and on TV except the criminals weren’t so polished and there was no dramatic music to make it more exciting.

This isn’t Workcycles’ first criminal incident this year. In fact it’s at least our third in just the last few months and it’s getting rather annoying to say the least:

A couple months ago and actually the last time I spent a Saturday at our Veemarkt shop a rather normal looking, well-dressed woman talked to an employee about Cargobikes, rode off on a test ride and never came back. Upon inspection we discovered that the wallet she’d left behind was filled with nothing but fake cards and small change.

We’ve also recently had two incidents at the Lijnbaansgracht shop that we can only guess were botched or failed robbery attempts. One unfortunately resulted in a fight between an employee and one of the perps, apparently instigated as a diversion.

So it’s clearly time for some changes to make it safer for everybody except the criminals. In the grand scheme the material losses are annoying but minimal. The risk of an employee, customer, family member (my kids are often in the shops) or bystander getting hurt has to be minimized.

Change number one: Eliminate cash from Workcycles’ stores.
In the Netherlands this is not so difficult. The locals already pay for most things with debit cards instead of cash. Tourists almost always have credit cards. The only significant challenge is the rentals, for which we’ve always taken a cash deposit. That’s always been an annoyance but neither the debit card nor the Dutch credit card system allow reserving deposits or making refunds. We now have an alternative credit card system that we can employ for deposits but many Dutch simply don’t have credit cards. Whatever. We’ll figure it out and then make sure that even semi-literate cretins can see that there’s no cash to take here. It’ll make our bookkeeping a good deal simpler too.

Change number two: Surveillance cameras in our shops.
I’ve always been opposed to such things but it’s both a good deterrent and would have helped the police in each of the cases above. Of course I mean REAL cameras and recording systems, not the ubiquitous fake cameras with red LED light one buys for a few euro on the Internet. Then we’ll somehow make it very clear that there are cameras. Yuck, but we need it.

Change number three: Silent alarms.
After last Saturday’s robbery I thought through the incident about 75,000 times finally coming to the conclusion that, under the circumstances, I couldn’t have done anything much differently or significantly better. I wish I could have remembered even more, noted the perp’s shoes for example but that doesn’t make much difference anyway. What I really missed was a way to silently alert the police that I was in danger, and in most of the incidents we’ve had the criminals were around longer than it took the police to reach us. I tinkered unsuccessfully with my iPhone to find a way to make an emergency call from my back pocket. That would be handy but does such an app exist? Even if it does we can’t count on every employee always having a certain type of mobile phone in their pocket. No, much better would be “panic buttons” discretely located in various places. Considering that one push of the button brings the police some care would have to be taken to ensure that they don’t get touched accidentally.

Meanwhile the police are apparently working on the case and have two potential suspects. I’ve complained about the Amsterdam police in these pages before but it’s clear that they do take the matter very seriously when weapons are involved. I’m OK and relieved not only of several hundred euro, but also that nobody was hurt.

It’s our seventh annual, world-famous WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest* (“october bike, beer and BBQ party”). As usual we’ll have live music, yummy food, plentiful drink, balloon animal making, absurdly generous lottery/raffle, child friendliness, and a general relaxed atmosphere. Yep, we missed last year but we promise to make up for it this time!

*”Oktoberfietsfeest” translates approximately to “Traditional, Bavarian inspired, beer and wine soaked, sausage devouring, autumnal bicycle party”. We take full credit for inventing it and imitators will be mercilessly ridiculed for their lack of creativity.

The important questions:

Speaking of winning bikes… Sign up for another chance to win a (different) Workcycles bike by voting for Workcycles as “Best Bike Shop in Amsterdam” for the 2nd year in a row. Maybe it seems arrogant but we really believe that we’re the best of the 250 choices in Amsterdam and do our best every day to keep improving. VOTE HERE (question #48) and just skip the other 49 if you don’t care which is the best canine friendly, organic coffeeshop in A’dam.

Check out some previous Oktoberfietsfeesten:
WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest 2008: Photo journal
A shiny day for Workcycles Oktoberfietsfeest

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

- Henry and the Workcycles crew

[Show as slideshow]

Wow, I see it’s been almost three months since my last post here at BEM. I guess time just flies when you’ve two little kids running around, not to mention 15 employees, a few dozen suppliers, several thousand customers and a fleet of your own bikes begging for regular exercise. Somehow my blogging hobby just gets pushed to the back burner. I can’t even blame good weather and fun outdoor activities for my lack of writing activity, since the sun has mostly hidden behind a cold shield of clouds and rain since May. Heck, we had to go to the south of France for three weeks to find some decent weather!

But yes, we did make the annual pilgrimage to Eurobike in the famous Zeppelin City of Friedrichshafen, Germany again. And being approximately my gazillionth trade show visit I wasn’t surprised by much. Finding some cool stuff in the first few trade shows one visits is no great trick. That is, of course, assuming you’re actually at an expo for a topic you care about rather than, say, me going to the Office Furniture Expo. But that would be silly because I’m a bike nerd and not an office furniture geek, and though I have ideas for other businesses none of them have anything to do with office furniture aside from needing a place to sit and put my stuff.

But I digress. We went to Eurobike and despite searching quite thoroughly we didn’t find much that seemed “newsworthy”. In all fairness making headlines isn’t the primary goal of our visit. We go there because suppliers, dealers and other industry insiders from all over the world are also there. You get a better understanding of the people you do business with when you talk face to face. We explained to the owner of the Italian centerstand company that all of their new stands broke and he showed us improvements and asked to get some examples back. We exchanged business cards and then he ignored my emails. Over at Sun Race / Sturmey Archer we politely told them how a certain new shifter they’re selling is absolutely horrible, which we’ve since been in regular contact about and exchanging samples and vintage parts for inspiration. And sometimes your friend at A-Bikes connects you to somebody he knows at B-Bikes who knows a guy at C-Bikes who might be good to make the left-hand threaded, eleven speed spokes you need.

Actually we still haven’t found those special spokes but we did find these new Michelin Protek Max inner tubes:

They even won one of the prestigious but apparently affordable Eurobike Awards. As evident from the name this is one of those ingenious multifunction products you wish you’d thought up yourself. On the one hand it’s a perfectly good, if somewhat heavy, inner tube to keep compressed air inside your bike’s tires. But cut it open and tie off one end and it’s also a condom long enough for the best endowed men on earth. Ribbed for his and her pleasure! So if you’re riding along and just happen to meet Miss or Mr. Right Now you’ll be prepared.

I’m sure our astute readers can think up some other handy, dual purpose bike parts: Seat post pumps, rear dropout beer bottle openers, tire lever quick release levers, handlebar U locks…?

We did of course see a few things we weren’t really expecting, though their contribution to society might be questionable. Below a few examples spearheaded by the carbon fiber Italian city bike. The combination of crabon fiber and cast iron fork crown and componentry might well have been the most novel idea in the 17 halls of bike goodness. By the way you can click each photo to see it in higher resolution and often to see more examples not shown here. Just a hint.

Actually the Italians had their fancy, quasi-traditional city bikes out in force. This one only had carbon fiber in the many leather accessories but at least it was also gold plated. I guess there’s no crime in Italy since such a bling-bling “City” bike would get ripped off within milliseconds in Amsterdam, Paris, New York or any other city I’ve spent bike time in. Or maybe these bikes are intended for those Italian men whom mere thieves steer a wide berth around, lest they find themselves part of the Meadowlands stadium foundation.

Usually we see a clear theme or two at each expo. Just two or three years ago you couldn’t throw a free water bottle without hitting an outrageous chopper at Eurobike. The longer, lower, fatter and more contorted the better. Scantily clad and heavily made up females paraded them all through the halls. Choppers might still be popular on the street (though not here in Amsterdam) but have disappeared from the bike industry’s consciousness. Only the undisputed king of the fat bikes stuck around for another showing:

The King of Choppers from reknowned German firm Bitte Nicht Beruhren!

And I suppose if I went to the trouble and expense of building something like that I’d do my own best to get as much mileage out of it as possible… and that isn’t going to happen by racking up the kilometers at a wobbly, walking pace.

So without further ado, here are some “themes” (or is it “memes” now?) we detect, in the form of a picture show and tell.

Lightweight
For whatever reason the bike industry has been obsessed with light weight for decades but in the last years it’s been reaching a frenzy. Friends in the US tell me how no self respecting, middle-aged, spare tire equipped weekend warrior would even bother showing up for the evening group ride without a 7kg Cervelo. My friend Gary, a long-time cyclist and regular on Palo Alto’s twice weekly morning ride told me a funny story recently. While cooling off after the rolling 30km loop on his trusty 80′s era Merckx (with modern parts) another rider congratulated him for being able to “keep up” on such a dinosaur of a bike. Now don’t get me wrong; I like equipment as much as the next guy and have spent many an hour designing and building my own fast bikes. But I also understand that it doesn’t actually make that much of a difference until the margin of winning or losing races is measured in seconds or even fractions of a second. Toward the end of my competition career I missed getting a bronze medal in the US national pursuit championships by 0.09 seconds. In fact the silver medal was only about 2 seconds faster. It’s a fair bet that some time in a wind tunnel to improve my position and choice of gear would have netted me at least the bronze. Probably even the “blind” purchase of whatever was reported to be the latest, greatest pursuit frame could have done the same.

This bike weighed less than Tom’s eyeglasses but it also had squishy, creaky brakes (and probably lots more). Yuck! Who wants to ride a bike that feels like that?

But to ride with the group around “the loop”? I’d even go so far as to venture that for this type of recreational cycling the advantages of modern road racing bikes (stiffness, lighter weight, more gears) are to a great extent offset by several disadvantages (giant frames and parts with the aerodynamics of a cinder block, higher bearing friction and cranks as wide as a horse). In any case it’s hard to comprehend that another cyclist could be so deluded by the marketing hype that he’d actually believe that Gary would be meaningfully handicapped by riding a bike similar to those ridden to victory in most professional races as late as the early 90′s.

This isn’t Gary’s Merckx. It’s my own, similar 1980ish DeRosa. Just for the record: I don’t feel hamstrung by this 30 year old bike.

Getting back to Eurobike the only really obvious trend was for Lightweight. I don’t mean just “light weight” but actually the company called Lightweight and the very light weight wheels they make. I’ve been told they’re “good” wheels and they damn well ought to be for about €3000 and up. It is a little bit of a bummer though that a broken spoke thanks to the airline or somebody’s pedal poking means the death of the wheel. Ping. Oops there goes €1500.

Whatever. Though I object to the concept I don’t really care much about disposable €3000 wheels. That is, I wouldn’t care if they were just an exotic piece of sports equipment used by serious athletes to win events. What’s strange though is that Lightweight wheels were absolutely everywhere at Eurobike. They had a big, fancy stand stocked with earnest men explaining the wheels’ benefits and their spoke insurance program. We saw an entire group ride shod with Lightweights. Dozens of stands featured them in most of their bikes. Even “city bikes” wore Lightweight wheels:

Please name something more stupid than this €10,000 “city bike”. Then consider that it won a Eurobike award.

Meanwhile one had to search far and wide to find a quality, comfortable, stylish bike for a regular guy to ride his kid to school on. I suppose this observation says all we really need to know about the bike industry or at least where Eurobike is going: Cycling is a sport and the more extreme the better. End of story.

Well I’m running out of writing steam and time here so you’ll just have to wait a few days (or more) for the next Eurobike meme: Inventors’ Stupid Drivetrains. Other bike industry themes also coming soon: Co-branding, Protection and Utilitarian Bikes? Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalal I can’t hear you!.

Sneak preview of the next post, just to get your nerdy minds salivating with anticipation:

With the business, two little kids and general disinterest in things religious I’m really a slacker when it comes to the holiday wishing stuff . Fortunately for the world’s spirits not everybody is. Here in bakfiets-land the best greeting cards come from Double Dutch in Switzerland.

Thus hereby a “reposted” or perhaps “regifted” seasons greetings from Workcycles.

Happy holidays,
Alex, Frits, Johan, Josh, Henry, Paer, Richard, Sascha, Stephan, Tom, & Wesley

The Sinterklaas “Intocht” (arrival parade) needs no introduction for the locals who began chasing Sinterklaas and his many “Zwarte Pieten”along the Amstel river and through the streets of Amsterdam as toddlers. It goes approximately as follows:

Sinterklaas is the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus. While they’re both apparently Saint Nicholas only Sint’s white beard bears any resemblance to the fat “Ho Ho Ho!” fellow in the red snowsuit who flies his reindeer driven sleigh from the North Pole. Sinterklaas is tall, skinny, serious and righteous. He comes not from the north, but by ship from Spain. Sint himself is not actually Spanish; he’s Turkish. I suppose it’s all really a lot less weird than flying a reindeer powered sleigh from the North Pole.


Sinterklaas on his white horse


Santa Claus in his reindeer-powered flying sleigh

While Santa Claus has some elves to help him out Sint has an entire army of Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes). The Pieten do the heavy lifting as well as the “naughty or nice” judging of the children. Naughty children get their gifts replaced by coal and truly heinous kids are stuffed into a sack and brought back to Spain. I’ve never been clear on just what despicable crimes a child must commit to be sentenced to a holiday in Spain but I assume it must be worse than struggling to avoid having their teeth brushed or head-butting their baby sister.

Pascal didn’t get stuffed into a sack and brought to Spain but he did get a bunch of pepernoten dumped on his head by a mischievous Piet.

Depending on who’s telling the story in what era Zwarte Piet has variously been depicted as a shackled devil, a chimney sweep, a Moor colorfully dressed as a renaissance era page, or a Moor colorfully dressed as a renaissance era page whose face is blacked from descending many chimneys. The first explanation has been abandoned since it doesn’t sound nice to modern children and the rest each have their modern adherents. In the modern tradition Zwarte Piet, or rather an entire battalion of Zwarte Pieten, have been played by men and women in blackface which provokes a surprisingly little bit of controversy for it’s being potentially racist (depending on which version of the story you want to believe).

Only confusing an already convoluted story: A Moorish Piet probably wouldn’t even be black since what the Europeans referred to as “Moors” were mostly Berbers and Arabs from northern Africa. As a resident of a city with a considerable population with roots in this region I can assure you that they’re usually not particularly dark skinned. But heck, Shakespeare also portrayed Othello as black in so who am I to argue? Not that any of this is terribly relevant aside from showing how confused traditions can get.

Racist or controversial or not this is an enormously popular celebration, as witnessed by some half million happy fans lining the streets of Amsterdam in the rain (remember: We’re not made of sugar.) cheering the arrival of Sinterklaas and 670 Zwarte Pieten. Interestingly I spotted what seemed to be a handful of black Zwarte Pieten, also in blackface of course.

Each year Sint and the Pieten load up a ship full of “pepernoten” (little cookies like ginger snaps) and stuff in Spain and sail for Holland. Their exact route is unclear but they do end up sailing up the Amstel, which is odd considering that this is inland from Amsterdam. Perhaps they’ve chosen another inland route to pick up carrots for the horses or something.

Zwarte Piet with a nice big carrot for the horses.

Once they reach the Amstel thousands of families with kids on bikes and in bakfietsen ride along the banks cheering Sint and the Pieten onward. The ship lands by the Scheepvaartsmuseum (the shipping museum) in the center of Amsterdam and Zwarte Pieten and Sint parade through the streets in all manner of Dutch vehicles and conveyances.

Inline skate Piet with balance bike Pascal.

Sinterklaas rides his white horse while the various Pieten show their preferences for Workcycles transport bikes, but also inline skates, unicycles, fire engines and in an unfortunate development this year: scooters. Yuck, we don’t like scooters, but we’ll discuss the problem of scooters on the bike paths another day.

Degenerate Pieten on scooters

Meanwhile we’re doing our best to keep our own kids from going down the gateway drug, slippery slope of scooterdom, beginning of course by cycling daily with them from about a month old.

A couple young bakfiets passengers

It could eventually backfire but thus far it seems to be working; Pascal is absolutely crazy about his teeny bike, insisting on riding it everywhere we go. He calls it his “Beanits bicycle” (BMX bicycle). Not only are we getting a kick out of watching him ride we’re also not complaining about no longer having to carry him around, nor about him coming home exhausted from a day of “cycling” all over the city, ready for a nap.

At such a young age (two) kids learn such motor skills amazingly quickly. After just a couple weeks on the bike Pascal figured out he could push off and ride with his feet in the air. Two weeks later he’s maneuvering along busy sidewalks, up and down Amsterdam’s cobblestoned bridges and “jumping” off steps and curbs. Obviously we don’t let him get too far since a two year old’s judgement must be pretty close to nil but he’s been very well behaved so far… which partially explains why he didn’t get shipped to Spain last week.

His first Halloween costume? The great Eddy Merckx of course!

Thanks to everybody who voted Workcycles the Best Bike Shop in Amsterdam!

That’s no mean feat in the bicycle capitol of the world with no less than 250 bike shops and half a million daily cyclists.

A couple weeks ago we made our annual trek to Zeppelin capitol of the world, Friedrichshafen, Germany for the Eurobike trade show. Most bike nuts would wet their pants over the idea of some 15 former zeppelin hangars full of the latest carbon fiber race wheels that weigh less than your toenail clippings, extreme downhill bikes with a meter of suspension travel, our favorite pro racers’ bikes complete with real Roubaix mud still in its nooks and crannies and more buzzwords than you can shake a stick at. I, however, am jaded by 30ish years on and off around the bicycle industry. These days I go not to ogle the latest gear but to talk to suppliers and dealers, shake some hands and meet some new people. I also like to take pictures of the dumbest stuff I see but even that’s getting difficult because it’s mostly the same dumb stuff as the past few years, maybe copied by somebody else.

I was still amused by the following little interchange: I was ending my one minute tour of the giant, enclosed Specialized stand where two attractive young women at the entrance informed me that no photos were allowed while half the visitors were voraciously snapping pictures of everything but the carpet. What they’ll do with all those pictures of last year’s silver hybrids repainted in retro colors and renamed “city bikes” I do not know. As I was approaching the same two security ladies on my way out, Alberto Contador (3-time Tour de France winner sponsored by Specialized) was on his way in. The security ladies, apparently not recognizing Contador from the 20 meter tall images of him in the very same stand, asked to see his expo ID card. Contador stood there and smiled but did or said nothing. His brother produced their ID’s from his bag and they continued along silently. I found it funny but maybe you had to be there.

Exxon Graftek 5, originally uploaded by paulmoseleyphotos.

As a teenaged bike racer and mechanic I went to the shows full of excitement to see the very latest weight-weenie wonders from names such as O.M.A.S, Pino Morrini, Speedwell, Exxon Graftek (yes, that very same evil Exxon made some of the first carbon fiber frames), Bullseye, Weyless and Hi-E. Eddy Merckx autographed a poster for me while I tried in vain to think of something to say to him. A guy at the Benotto booth wrapped handlebars with translucent “Cello-Tape” in something like five seconds per side. Phil Wood, already advanced in his years, sat at his table cutting and rolling spokes with his lovely machine. One year Castelli or another Italian firm showed up with shockingly shiny Lycra bib shorts and bibs. I was happy to trade a chafed butt and legs in black wool for looking a bit too disco.

There must have been things other than mostly Italian racing bikes and parts at these shows but I hardly noticed them. I guess Wald was there with their galvanized steel baskets and training wheels, Bendix with coaster brakes. Nishiki, Peugeot, Schwinn, Univega, Ross, Raleigh and two dozen others were omnipresent with maybe a couple real racing bikes and the rest of the display filled with caricatures of them: frames of mild steel pipe, narrow handlebars, brake lever extensions, fat counterweight pedals, stem mounted shifters, pie plates to keep the bike from committing suicide by tossing its chain into the galvanized spokes loosely holding the potato chip shaped, chromed steel rim with embossed sidewalls that maximize water holding capacity. Ironically many of these BSO’s (Bicycle Shaped Objects) are now being rescued from suburban garages and fetching small fortunes as “vintage” bikes. Actually even we found a good use for these crappy bikes back then: We dug through the semi-broken parts bins to convert dozens of them into ratty, disposable cyclocross bikes for winter training and amusement. It’s good we worked in bike shops since our “death ride” sessions through the local woods rarely ended until somebody or their bike was too broken to continue.

There were also always a few characters (sorry: “inventors”) peddling new and better ways to convert one’s muscular output into forward bicycle motion. These were (and still are) typified by a myriad of machined aluminium levers, cams and pulleys operating a web of cables, springs and short sections of bicycle chain. Since pedaling in circles is obviously unnatural and inefficient we could now row, hop, treadle or oval-pedal our way down the roads so innocently free of bicycle infrastructure. The inventors are still at it, apparently still not satisfied with pedaling a single wheel, in circles, through trusty roller chains. In the Netherlands I learned that one could make that near perfect roller chain drive nearly maintenance free simply by wrapping a plastic or vinyl chain case around it. That, of course, hasn’t stopped the development of toothed rubber belt drives.

This one seems to have been inspired by the one below that has been displayed with much fanfare and many scantily clad young women for the last several years. Since bakfiets-en-meer is a family friendly blog Richard demonstrates it here instead of the scantily clad girls.

For a nice overview on most of the weird and wacky bike stuff I saw through the years check out mountain bike pioneer Charlie Kelly’s site.

And voila! here’s the Swingbike at Eurobike, as shown on Kelly’s site. Of course even after 25 years it’s well preserved since it’s unlikely it has ever been ridden.

Now this one below was actually at Eurobike’s nerdy cousin SpeziRad last year. The inventor seems to have accepted (for now at least) that pedaling in circles is OK. Perhaps a linear drive system is his next project. However he’s unsure of whether one should ride sitting or reclining… so he’s built a bike that can be rapidly switched between both on the fly with an amazingly complex system of interconnected hydraulic linkages. Perhaps with this development recumbent bikes will finally take over the world as their proponents have been predicting since I began riding bikes. I, on the other hand, predict that recumbent riders will continue to mostly be engineers with beards and dutch engineers with long commutes through the countryside.

There was no debate, however, about the best approaches to building bike lanes in the 1970′s and 80′s in the USA; Actually I don’t think I’d heard of a bike lane until I moved to California a decade later. Helmets? We strapped leather hairnets on only when we raced and it was hip to wear a cycling cap over your hairnet, brim to the rear. I still have my shiny, patent leather (vinyl I assume) Saavedra helmet and two year old Pascal thinks it’s funny to bump into things while wearing it. Isn’t that a sort of proof in itself that helmets are bad? There were actually a few plastic helmets available by then: Bell made an enormous, white mushroom with two red stripes (had one but never wore it). ProTec made one that looked much like the current skate/multipurpose helmets, except dorkier. Skid Lid made a very creative helmet that looked kind of like a big phillips screw on your head. In 1980 or so I got an orange Brancale hardshell. It was trim and light though it probably didn’t offer much impact protection… certainly not after I bored out the many ventilation holes to about double the original size (FYI: I was 14). At Eurobike these days there’s an entire hall dedicated helmets, glasses, pads, gloves and the likes. That was handy for us since we could simply skip it. We did still see several more companies showing helmets disguised as bulbous hats in other halls though.

I’m a little unclear on these “hatmets” from Denmark. If I absolutely had to live in a place with traffic conditions dangerous enough to warrant wearing a helmet while cycling around town I wouldn’t have any problem just wearing a helmet like the other cyclists there. The same is true for going fast on a racing bike with a group. In a safe cycling place such as the Netherlands or Denmark a helmet is simply unnecessary, which makes me wonder about a Danish company’s motivation for making helmets for cycling around town. I guess it’s just a vanity thing so unfashionable people like me just can’t get it.

A decade or so later in the early 90′s I began going to Interbike while I worked for Avocet, the company that (amongst other things) got cyclists hooked on putting little computers on their bikes to monitor their performance. I was always super busy building and working the booth as well as visiting their last remaining OEM customers so these shows were just a blur. This was the golden age of mountain bike garage innovation (which Avocet steadfastly refused to accept) and try-athlons were really popular amongst moneyed, type A 30-40 plussers but I actually don’t remember seeing anything at all at these shows. I only remember talking to justifiably cranky Grant Peterson when he was at Bridgestone (now Rivendell), skeptical Sky Yeager at Bianchi (now Swobo) , and my friend Ross Shafer when Salsa had soul and rockin’ parties. The Southern California contingent showed off lots of crazy neon yellow, purple anodized, white tired, elevated chainstay mountain bikes… and my memory begins to fade about there. I guess somebody must have been making road racing bikes in the early 90′s but it has since disappeared into the ether that exists between latest-greatest and classic.

But wait, just for the sake of balance here’s a gratuitous shot of some scantily clad women promoting something at Eurobike:

And city bikes, Dutch bikes, cargobikes, utility bikes, even just comfortable bikes with fenders etc? Nope, aside from cheapo beach cruisers I don’t recall seeing any of it at all until I began visiting IFMA (Cologne) and Eurobike in Germany. Practical bikes have always been available in most northern European countries, particularly in The Netherlands and to a lesser extent in Scandinavia and Germany. The bike expos though, like most of the bike industry, are much less about practical bikes and gear than bikes as sporting goods, lifestyle accessories and just plain old stuff to sell to make money. Thus 95% of those 15 Eurobike halls is dedicated to showing off the latest recreational gear. Here and there are a few firms making bikes or parts intended for normal people to ride as transportation. Real city bikes for daily use in all weather, for carrying kids and groceries and whatever, can practically be counted on your hands. Sometimes the focus on play bikes is laughable, such as Shimano who decided to not even bother showing ANYTHING from their utility oriented Nexus and Inter lines this year. The only internally geared hub to be found in their huge stand was the new 11 speed Alfine, which is disk or rim brake only. I couldn’t find a single coaster or roller-brake in their entire stand. There was a specially marked “disk brake zone” though.

Shimano did show their new E-bike components called “STEPS”. On the bright side it’s all nicely integrated into the component set and works very smoothly and naturally (I rode it for 15 minutes). On the downside it’s not at all torquey at low speeds and some of the components (which have to be used as a complete set) aren’t suitable for the harsh, outdoor life of a city bike. No, Shimano proudly points out that this system is designed for recreational cycling.

Each year at Eurobike brings a new hype. The buzz about E-bikes has been building for the last several years but the bikes themselves have been pretty wonky. This year was absolutely the year of the E-bike, or alternatively “E-Urobike”. Not only did Shimano show off their new STOPS system, Bosch introduced their creatively named “e-Bike-system” that they claim to have invested €440,000,000 in. Panasonic and Yamaha’s already well developed crank motors were fitted to bikes offered by several manufacturers and Heinzmann and Daum in Germany each showed new systems. Of course there were also tons of hub motors from China and Taiwan mounted as unmarked, original equipment on bikes of many brands. Even Specialized proudly showed off the e-bike Fabian Cancellara used to win Paris Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders.

We spent about half a day riding various bikes with the systems most promising for Workcycles bikes. In a nutshell the motor has to offer good low-speed torque from a near stop, be durable in a rough outdoor life, and compatible with gear hubs, roller or drum brakes, a chaincase and a rear baggage or child carrier. Since most systems are intended for “play” use very little of what’s available meet even those basic requirements. Some impressions on the systems we were able to spend considerable time with:

Shimano
See above.

Bosch crank motor. Note the ISIS crank axle, meaning that fitting a chain case will require having special cranks made. No it’s not available any other way.

Bosch
We each rode a couple bikes with the new Bosch crank motor and found it good but not awe-inspiring considering the investment and hype. Probably most impressive was the well developed software which offered four different modes, each tailoring the various behavior parameters to a certain type of riding situation. Oddly enough the Sport mode was the best we’ve seen yet for load carrying since it kicked in with lots of torque from a standstill without feeling out of control. On the downside the Bosch motor was surprisingly rough and noisy and the arrogance of the reps staffing their stand was staggering. The Bosch guy I talked to basically ended our conversation when I told him that Workcycles builds just a couple thousand bikes a year.

Daum crank motor in the Urban Arrow prototype. More about the bike later.

Daum
Daum is a German manufacturer of exercise equipment who displayed a promising, new crank motor unit. Overall the feel was quite similar to the Bosch or perhaps even torquier though the software management wasn’t nearly as polished. At low speeds the reactions of the Daum were jerky and sometimes disturbing. The people at their stand took our commentary seriously though, and promised full access to tinkering with the control parameters. Daum is incidentally happy to sell either one or a thousand systems.

Panasonic crank motor in a remarkably unattractive and nonsensically spec’ed Flyer grocery getter bike.

Panasonic
Several Japanese firms have already been building e-bike crank motors for a decade and this experience was obvious in the Panasonics we rode in expensive but butt ugly Swiss Flyers. These are the first e-bikes that have ever performed well enough to make me think I could willfully ride one… though definitely NOT one of the Flyers since, like most e-bikes, they’re criminally ugly. The Panasonic motor is smooth, quiet, about as torquey and powerful as any of the 250W systems and pretty much invisible in use. You just feel very strong, like Spartacus Cancellara. Since the Flyers are built for the Swiss market they’re not governed as severely as the EU spec bikes. That doesn’t influence the pulling power but it did enable us to cruise along effortlessly on fairly upright bikes at 35km/hr. Yamaha’s crank motor is very similar to the Panasonic unit though I haven’t ridden the latest version.

So if I’m writing about e-bike motors the obvious question is whether Workcycles is going to introduce one. Yeah, good question. I’ve expressed my general dislike of both the existing models and to some extent the concept itself. On the one hand I’m absolutely in favor of anything that extends the usefulness of bicycles as practical vehicles. I’m perfectly happy to ride around in wind and weather on a bakfiets loaded up with kids and stuff but I’m not so arrogant to think or expect that everybody else is, especially if they live in a town with more elevation variation than a lot of steep, little bridges.

On the other hand the addition of a motor, a bunch of electronics and a big pack of batteries almost guarantees the end of the bicycle as a timeless, durable vehicle that can be inexpensively kept on the road for decades. When those batteries wear out or fail in a few years bike owners will discover that replacing them, often along with the battery management system, will cost as much as a decent non-electric bike. Control units will die and since there’s precious little standardization in the bike industry there will often be a slim chance of finding a replacement after a few years, never mind the question of who is going to diagnose and carry out these repairs. I can assure you that we won’t be seeing lovely old electric bikes like these still in trusty service after 70 years, or probably even ten years for that matter.

So did I see anything interesting at E-Urobike aside from the electric stuff? No, not so much. Below are a few of the pics I took with some commentary:

Urban Arrow, click image to see more photos on Flickr.

Here’s the Urban Arrow, whose bottom is shown as the example for the Daum motor. This is a new two-wheeled e-bakfiets from an(other) Amsterdam firm. The design is by Wytze van Mansum whose neato Cannondale Dutchess concept bike got lots of publicity. The partners are an experienced team who’ve previously been with Kronan and Bugaboo. I haven’t ridden it but it’s quite attractive, generally seems well considered. There’s nothing to point and laugh at, such as most of the johnny-come-lately’s in this field. I’m thinking mainly of the various 2-3-4 in one monstrosities, all marketed as the perfect solution to a transport problem parents weren’t aware of.

Urban Arrow’s expanded polypropyleen box, click image to see more photos on Flickr.

There was plenty to see on the cosmetic end of “cargobikes” though. A couple of the better examples hail from Denmark, the designer bike capitol of the world:

I think this one is called the “Handlebrack”. Crappy handling dynamics and parking instability aside it is pretty good looking.

This Pumiomega gets my vote for Most Pointless Poser Utility Bike. We have here a long bike with a not very big or usefully designed cargo rack, exposed derailleur gearing, cheap V-brakes, uncomfortable ergonomics, no fenders/lights/chainguard or even a darn bell. It’s sort of a Bilenky cargo/ Kemper Filibus mashup with all of the functionality removed and built with a single aluminium tube to leave it’s rider wondering when the inevitable catastrophic failure into two halves will occur. Fortunately few children will get hurt since it’d take somewhat more creativity to install a child seat than the typical buyer will possess.

A really expensive, techno-pizza bike

A couple Workcycles employees would jizz in their pants if they saw this spread of Phil Wood goodies. Yep, that the same Phil Wood as described above. Sadly Phil, who genuinely enriched cycling with several handy innovations (sealed hubs and pedals, cartridge bottom brackets…) passed away earlier this year.

And I think that’s enough words and pictures for one post so I’ll leave you to contemplate the following:

Workcycles has been nominated “Best Bike Shop of Amsterdam”. We certainly believe that’s true so if you’d like to make this an official reality we’d really appreciate your vote. And there’s a bonus: Voting enters you to win a specially built Workcycles bike!

Click here to vote and register to win the Workcycles bike. “Best bike shop” appears on page 10 so you can either vote for all of your Amsterdam favorites or just skip to the important part.

Of course you needn’t live in Amsterdam to vote but you probably will need to visit to pick up the bike… not that visiting Amsterdam is such a bad thing. You’ll already have a bike to use here too!

OK, the fairy tale didn’t work out perfectly but 2nd place in the 2010 World Cup isn’t bad for little Netherlands. As an American I was only a little disappointed while the rest of the country takes matters of football much more seriously.

Why football (“soccer” for my countrymen) on bakfiets en meer? Because practically everything here has something to do with bikes. I snapped these photos an hour or so before the final match with Spain. Bicycle traffic jams, folks, all over the city! Everybody was cycling or walking somewhere to watch the game with friends and party; at somebody’s house, on one of the squares with giant TV’s, at a cafe… Central Amsterdam was one wound up, vuvuzela tooting, orange wearing, Dutch flag waving, case of beer on the rear carrier near riot.

Why do most people ride bikes? The usual answers: It’s the most convenient, fun, social, cheapest way to get around. And on such an evening half the city would be riding home considerably less sober. Regardless of what the laws say (drunk cycling is technically not legal of course) I’d much rather be amongst lots of drunk cyclists than drunk motorists. Besides, what’s the fun of wearing silly clothes and wrapping yourself in a flag if you’re just going to sit inside a car?

In News & Events on the Dutch Volvo website:

Bij Volvo staat veiligheid voorop. Niet alleen van de mensen in een Volvo, maar ook van iedereen eromheen. Daarom introduceren we nu de POCito: de Volvo onder de kinderfietshelmen.

Translation: At Volvo safety comes first. Not only for the people in a Volvo, but also of everyone around it. Therefore we now introduce the POCito: the Volvo amongst the children’s bike helmets.

Am I being simplistic in seeing this as essentially the same as Smith & Wesson introducing and promoting children’s bulletproof vests to protect them from the guns they make?

Volvo continues in their press release to explain that each year in the Netherlands 35 children under 12 die “in traffic”. They don’t qualify whether this gruesome statistic has anything to do with bicycles, but actually that’s fairly irrelevant: Deaths and serious injuries amongst children while cycling are almost entirely inflicted by automobiles. As Mikael Colville Andersen frequently comments: They’re conveniently “ignoring the bull in the china shop.”

Later in the same press release Volvo explains their promotion of mandatory helmet laws in the Netherlands. From a business perspective it’s the obvious choice. The Dutch city planners widely recognize the danger that automobiles present to other street users and have been working hard for decades to minimize it. The primary safety tactics include excluding and slowing automobiles, and separating autos from bicyclists and other road users. This has very successfully led to both the safest roads in the world and the highest cycling rates. Promoting or enforcing helmet use, on the other hand, has shown to reduce cycling rates while safety gains are debatable at best.

Though we should always strive for improvement cycling is already mighty safe here in the Netherlands. Let’s just briefly look at Amsterdam, the capitol city in rough numbers:

Thus…

As noted in an earlier post…

Heck, we can even go further and note that universal helmet use would indeed probably prevent death in a couple of those six yearly incidents, but certainly not all of them. And then there’s that other pesky problem: It’s been demonstrated that helmet laws and promotion decrease cycling rates and reduced numbers of cyclists increase the danger of cycling. So aside from deflecting some blame what does Volvo expect to accomplish through widespread helmet use?

Cartoon by Wulff Morgenthaler via Copenhagenize.

My excuses for the lack of precise numbers and supporting statistics; There’s an impatient toddler tugging on me and it’s time to head to the office. But I can assure you I didn’t pull the above facts out of a hat or sleeve. If you want to investigate further there are plenty of numbers to be found elsewhere in this blog and far more on David Hembrow’s excellent blog.