Last night I loaded our freshly refinished (in RAL 2004 “pure orange”) dinner table into one of our big, classic rental bakfietsen in order to bring it home. This morning I was then faced with the dilemma of how to both return the bakfiets to the shop AND bring Pascal to his “creche” (daycare center), both about a kilometer or two from home. Do I dare let an almost two year old sit in the 190 x 85cm box untethered, unhelmeted, unpadded, unrollcaged…? After some deliberation with Mama-en-meer we decided that it should be OK, particularly since Pascal has logged enough thousands of cycling kilometers to not have much urge to do anything stupid and terrible-twos-toddler-like. Besides, we figured, the bakfiets has a top speed of about 10km/hr and everybody (even taxis!) gives it a nice, wiiiiiiide berth.

The old table I just painted orange.

So upon arriving at street level instead of Pascal climbing into mama’s cargobike or being lifted onto papa’s Workcycles Fr8 he was propped into the back of the bak, tucked between the moving blankets and my courier bag. I released the parking brake between my legs and rolled off the curb, still curious whether child would just stay where I put him or insist upon “exploring” the nearly two meters of mahogany playground in front of him. I’m happy to report that we figured correctly; Pascal was perfectly happy to sit back near me, feet out front, calling out the “autos”, “cheeps”, “big ships”, “mononos”, “bicipas” and “tjams” as we rode. We got a few approving smiles and no disapproving looks that I could see. Isn’t unfortunate few kids outside of the Netherlands can have such experiences?

We always go on this bike now?

Hoeve de Schoor in Baexem, Netherlands

This past weekend we took our first little holiday as a family of four. We loaded the kids into their safety certified car seats in a rental Renault and headed south. Despite the documented danger of driving automobiles we chose not to wear helmets. First stop was our friends’ wedding party at a tranquil old (“old” as in dating to at least the mid 1300’s) farm complex in Leudal township in Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands. The farm, called Hoeve de Schoor, was very similar in format to some old farms I know in France; a continuous ring of buildings forming a sort of walled complex with an inner courtyard. One or more of the buildings are residences for the family, workers and guests and the others are for the farm: barns, storage areas, workshop and so forth. As is typical with these places the encroaching nature combined with the “patina” of curvy thatched roofs, wood- and stonework rounded and polished by hundreds of years of feet and hands is utterly charming and relaxing.

After a night’s stay in the farmhouse and a lazy brunch with the family and friends the kids were in good spirits and we didn’t need to head directly back to Amsterdam. Both Kyoko and I had passed through Limburg many times on my way south to Belgium, Luxembourg, France and destinations further but we’d never actually spent any time in the area. We decided to get some more use out of the car (which we only have a couple times each year) and continued 45 minutes further to Maastricht, the main city and nearly southern point of Limburg. Actually Maastricht is more like a Dutch peninsula jutting into Belgium and Germany.

Along the way we checked out some notable villages along the way. In one we happened upon some local fellows riding a sort of bicycle train contraption. One fellow demonstrated to Kyoko (-taking the pictures – I was focusing on the road, driving being a life-threatening activity) his remarkable intelligence: He could actually recognize that she’s an Asian!

Little did Fuckface realize that 2000 visitors per day would now be viewing this image here. But hey, I assume he stands behind his opinions, probably being one of the 27% of Limburgers who just last week voted for extreme right, anti immigration, muslim-hater Gert Wilders and his PVV (Party for Freedom). But I digress… we were enjoying a relaxing family trip.

Once installed in a Maastricht hotel we set out to explore the city. Maastricht is much older and richer in very old stuff than Amsterdam: city walls, cathedrals, tiny buildings with tinier doorways, water flowing under and through buildings and streets of rounded cobblestones. The architecture is also far more ornate than in sober Holland. Amsterdam has lots of buildings from the 1600’s and 1700’s but not much older. In Maastricht you come across things from the 1000’s and 1100’s. That’s old.

Of course whenever I visit a city I look at the bikes, bicyclists and infrastructure. In this regard Maastricht was hardly recognizable as being part of the Netherlands. There were certainly some cyclists here and there but only in quantities comparable to a typical German or Swiss city. In other words nothing at all like most of the rest of the Netherlands. I spotted one Gazelle bakfiets and in two days only once did I see a parent carrying a child on a bike. There were bike racks and perfectly good bike roads and lanes… just largely unused. I actually saw an empty bike rack getting overgrown with nature – a redundant impossibility in Amsterdam. We did, however, see an amazing number of groups of racing cyclists on Sunday morning.

Trams were also notably absent in Maastricht. I assume there are buses though I cannot recall actually seeing any. Instead of bicyclists and public transport there seemed to be a large, underground parking garage every few blocks in the city center. That’s apparently what it takes to hide all those cars. Ah, but at least there were Segways in abundance! Has Segway maybe hired Geert Wilders as their spokesperson?

What is it about Segways anyway that universally makes their riders look like total dorks? See above for evidence.

I’ll round this one off with a valuable message from Maastricht. A number of shops had these stickers on their windows. Should we maybe get some for WorkCycles too?

Some industry insiders, myself included, were at least suspecting things weren’t going smoothly at Amsterdam’s populair transport bike producer De Fietsfabriek. Yesterday their filing for bankruptcy got leaked and now the press is all over it like flies on poop. That’s not really surprising considering the uncanny knack those guys had for keeping the media’s attention. It is (or was) indeed a very charismatic story about a temperamental and driven Kurdish immigrant’s success with that most Dutch of products; the bicycle. I have to admit that it sounds far more exciting than “Highly educated industrial designer and ex bike industry guy from New York makes conservative, high quality bikes in Holland”. But I suppose the downside of celebrity status is that you’re even more newsworthy when things go wrong.

A lot of people apparently think it’s really important news for WorkCycles since friends, colleagues and acquaintances have been sending me links and commentary all day long. Just for the record: We’re not exactly cheering here. Regardless of the situations that led to their financial difficulties I sympathize with their situation as a fellow business owner. According to the news reports the two partners are looking at personal responsibility (Fietsfabriek was an unincorporated partnership) of about 1.2 million euro. How on earth does one dig themselves out of such a hole?

Most who’ve forwarded the news do so both because WorkCycles and De Fietsfabriek are often compared as Amsterdam colleagues/competitors. Magazine and newspaper articles have often featured both of our bikes and interviewed both myself and either Dave or Yalcin from Fietsfabriek. However the suggestion is really that WorkCycles would benefit hugely from the disappearance of Fietsfabriek. I’m no so convinced of this. It is true that both firms produce their own unique lines of heavy-duty city bikes, transport bikes and trikes (bakfietsen) and both are based in and have multiple shops in Amsterdam. We’ve even sold our bikes through a handful of the same dealers, though for what it’s worth the WorkCycles line has generally (or always?) replaced the Fietsfabriek line.

But as Dave Deutsch, one of the Fietsfabriek partners, and I have discussed several times we’re very different companies that make very different bikes that appeal to different audiences. WorkCycles are mostly black or grey or other boring colors. We’re willing to paint them anything you wish but that’s just what our customers want. Our bike designs, and perhaps our entire company “look and feel” is straightforward, the focus being an admittedly nerdy, no-BS, technical perfection. Fietsfabriek, on the other hand, has been much bolder: bikes with frame designs that are fun bordering on silly, in colors spanning the rainbow. I’ve seen them quoted as saying they’ll build whatever the customer wishes. Sorry to disappoint you but WorkCycles won’t make such claims; We’re flexible but we build bikes with a collection of parts and principles we’ve thoroughly tested and trust. Of course I have to think that WorkCycles bikes are better, but I suppose they think the same of their own product.

Photo by Marc of Amsterdamize

The differences between our products and approaches have fortunately led to each company appealing to different audiences. Fietsfabriek is much bigger and better known in Amsterdam while WorkCycles is stronger elsewhere, particularly in other countries. Regardless Fietsfabriek’s extroverted charm and constant media attention has brought them a much younger, hipper customer base than ours. When customers go “shopping around” for a bakfiets or sturdy city bike in Amsterdam they’ll likely visit both but the experiences are so different that customers seem to choose where they belong.

But still, isn’t the Fietsfabriek one of WorkCycles main competitors? Only from a tunnel vision perspective. Our competitors are everything else people might spend their money on instead of transport bikes: kitchen remodeling, cars, travel, a flat screen TV. In particular the rampant bike theft is worse for our turnover than another bike company that brings considerable media attention to small bicycle manufacturers. If Amsterdammers could perceive it as safe to park their bikes we would sell far more, better equipped, more expensive bikes.

Will WorkCycles benefit anyway? Of course, probably to some extent. All things considered Amsterdammers will continue buying bikes at about the same rate so some of the would-be Fietsfabriek customers will inevitably come to us in their absence… and just order their bikes with different specs and in brighter colors than have been typical Workcycles. But while these types of bikes were totally novel in 2003, now in 2010 they’re fairly mainstream and can be found in many hundreds of shops all over the country. Thus whatever vacuum that opens will be filled not just by WorkCycles but also by many dealers offering bikes from a variety of large and small manufacturers. And therein lies one of the fundamental challenges for both of our companies: There’s far more competition now than just a few years ago. Compete or die.

Photo by Marc of Amsterdamize

The newspapers first all published approximately the same piece which simply reported that Fietsfabriek has filed for bankruptcy as a result of huge debts and that the curator is working on a continuation. According to those in the know there’s a debt of 1.2 million on a yearly turnover of about 3 million. There are 60 employees for which permission for layoffs has been requested. (To me these are strange numbers: a debt of almost half the yearly turnover and 60 employees for just 3 million turnover.)

If you can read Dutch or wish to read an online translation you can check the article out in Het Parool.
Fascinating are the reader’s comments that follow: Some blame the bankers. Some blame the saturated market. A few bakfiets haters take the opportunity to demonstrate their moral superiority and insult some parents. And a surprising number imply fraud, one claiming rather specific knowledge of an enormous tax fine for avoiding customs charges. That’s some pretty hefty stuff to be accusing in the comments section. Truth or just an axe to grind? Who knows.

Later in the day Het Parool published an UPDATE. Herman Stil apparently researched further, calling around to Fietsfabriek dealers, their bike designer and partner Yalcin Cihangir. Ouch, this piece paints a much uglier picture. One former dealer announces that they opened a bottle of bubbly upon hearing the news and goes on to run off a list of problems. (In the comments below the same dealer denies the bubbly part but supports the rest of the statement.) Other dealers offer similar descriptions including poor quality, many broken frames, chaotic delivery and administration and add that their critique only led to intimidation. Several dealers listed on their site replied that they haven’t done business with the Fietsfabriek in years. Michael Kemper, the German designer of the Fietsfabriek bikes claims he hasn’t been paid the agreed royalties in two years. Yalcin denies all of the accusations and fires back that his critics aren’t bike makers, just people who want to share in his success. Concerning Kemper’s accusations he turns them around claiming that Kemper began producing the bikes himself and selling them to the dealers behind his back. Cihangir is quoted as saying “I’ll come with new models, a new Fietsfabriek. Just wait.”

What to believe? It’s really hard to say. I assume some of the worst accusations are hyperbole or half-truths on both sides. But my impression has always been of a company with a genius for seat of the pants marketing and promotion but not for organization, infrastructure and long-term relationship building.

The irony of all this is that perhaps the biggest publicity they ever got was from a hugely successful two-part documentary in 2004 by Frans Bromet called “Failliet of niet? – de fietsfabriek” (“Bankrupt or not? – the Fietsfabriek”) in which Yalcin struggles getting his new Fietsfabriek business on its feet out of an imploding bike builder called ‘t Mannetje, a criminal Jan Willem Deijmann and seemingly everybody doing their best to cheat everyone else.

Business-wise I’m not particularly fussed about where it goes but I certainly wish the best for Dave, Yalcin and their employees.

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.

This is 19 month old Pascal’s absolute favorite-est toy; a toddler-sized mini bakfiets purchased last year on Queen’s day for €5 and fixed up a little. Whenever he visits dad at work(cycles) (which is quite often since we live just five minutes bike ride away) Pascal immediately searches out his bakfietsje. He then races around the showroom and workshop, deliberately slamming head-on into chairs, doors and shins. Thankfully he avoids the bikes. Sometimes he’ll fill the box with bells, locks, Brooks handlebar grips or whatever products he can reach and “transports” them to far-flung corners of the building.

The other day when I picked Pascal up at the daycare the women there commented that he seems oddly obsessed with the little bicycles, tricycles and rideable vehicles. Apparently he goes from one vehicle to the next much of the day, doing a few laps, “testing” them for fun factor, and generally hoarding them. Hmmm, how strange… I can’t imagine where he got this from.

Pascal also likes the tiny Micro Mini scooters in the shop though this one definitely takes second place to his baby-bakfiets. Probably the scooter is actually still just too big for him. Pascal rides it without problem but the handlebar is at about his chin height, nose height before he’s standing on it.

The same also seems to be the case with the Micro G-Bike “loopfiets” (pedal-less balance bike) we have here. It’s made for kids about 2 years old and up and Pascal can just barely get his leg over it. He’ll go a couple steps, never really settle into the saddle and then fall over. He tries it every now and then but it’s clearly frustrating.

Micro G-Bike

There are a lot of loopfietsen available, a number of which are good. We like and sell the Micro G-Bike (and its bigger G-Bike + brother) because:

Prices:

They’re all available to try and in stock a at WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht shop.

Since Pascal loves riding these bikes and little vehicles so much I figured I’d tinker a bit to see whether he would actually ride the G-Bike already if it were lower. I replaced the 120mm wheels with a pair of 80mm inline skate wheels I had. This lowers the bike by 2cm which is a lot considering the saddle is normally only 30cm high in the lowest position. Kyoko and I each rolled around on it, clown style, and it rides just fine. It’s just slower over carpet and bumps. Of course it’ll be more inclined to get stuck in holes outdoors but once he’s ready to ride beyond the living room or playground I’ll just put the original wheels back on.

A toddler on a two wheeler without training wheels might sound like crazy-talk to those not in the Netherlands but actually it’s quite normal here. Dutch kids grow up sitting on mom and dad’s bikes and learn to ride at a very young age. Training wheels (which are actually counterproductive) are thankfully disappearing in favor of “loopfietsen” (balance bikes, run bikes, training bikes…). Just today while an expat family was in the shop testing (adult) bakfietsen I asked their five year old daughter whether she could ride a bike yet. “No, only with training wheels.” Much to her parents’ surprise I handed her a loopfiets and commented to them that she’d ride a two-wheeler by the time they left. As it turns out my statement was conservative; the little girl pointed the bike down the length of the shop, made a couple careful first steps, pushed off and lifted both feet in the air, gliding along until another push was needed. Mission accomplished. Her folks can now remove the training wheels from her own bike.

…was luckily also “papa day”. Thursday’s are dad’s weekday to hang out with Pascal. Since a 19 month old demands pretty much full-time attention it means a (nearly) no work day. We do all kind of things on papa day: ride to the zoo, walk around Amsterdam doing errands and checking out every park and playground along the way, visit friends… If it’s decent weather we often go for a bike ride.

Today was beautiful, at least by Dutch late winter standards. After breakfast we got on the bike and then we rode until early evening. We stopped at several playgrounds to test their slides (P’s favorite). The big, curvy one near the wind turbines was the winner. We sat on the terrace of a cafe and shared a chicken saté and frites. We checked out a running windmill where they still grind grains and the nice bakkers bakfiets out front. We even climbed “Het Kopje van Bloemendaal” the biggest hill in the area (43 meters!).

Of course our daily ride bikes are equipped with child seats but I also have a bike especially for longer, recreational rides with the family. It’s essentially a heavy-duty touring bike somewhat modified to make it comfortable and safe with a toddler in a front child seat and it works really well. It has full fenders and dynamo lights so rain and darkness aren’t real problems. With a triple crank and derailleur gearing I can climb hills. I usually bring one pannier with kid essentials: diaper/wipes, snacks, jacket, spare clothes etc. Speaking of panniers I absolutely hate the Vaude roll-tops I’ve got. Sure they’re waterproof and lightweight but having only one compartment is a total pain in the butt; all of the little stuff you need falls to the bottom, my camera bangs against the lock or keys and so on. Next panniers will have little compartments, will stand up when off the bike, and will be quick to open and close. I’m thinking Carradice canvas or something along those lines.

In any case we’ve racked up a lot of family kilometers both around Holland and on holiday in France. Pascal sits in front of me in a Bobike Mini seat. When he naps I drape an arm over his little handlebar cushion so that his head rests in my arm. I’ve climbed entire mountains like this since you can’t always predict when a little kid will fall asleep. Our heads are only a few centimeters apart so we can “talk” easily. Pascal points out the animals (wanwan, baaahh, moooo…) and vehicles (monono, kruk, batchi, pee pee…), and particularly gets a kick out of hearing his voice flutter when we ride over rough surfaces: “Waa-aa-a-aaa-aa-a-aaaaa!” Being a typical dad I thought this was unique but it turns out lots of kids do exactly the same thing. As long as the scenery/action is good, and we stop to play or eat each hour or so Pascal will happily ride and babble all day… and that makes me very happy.

A year or so ago Oscar Mulder of My Dutch Bike in San Francisco commented that he’d periodically heard from his family that his great grandfather had a bicycle shop in Amsterdam and was the “inventor of the bakfiets”. Perhaps this was never a particularly notable factoid until Oscar and his wife Soraya began a shop dedicated to supplying bakfietsen and other Dutch bikes last year.

Needless to say I’m always skeptical about anybody who’s supposedly the inventor of anything as straightforward as a bicycle with a box. But also being fascinated by the history of such things, and bikes in particular, I was also very curious to learn more. Was he known for developing a particular style of transport bike, or a special bakfiets for a particular purpose much as Maarten van Andel is much more recently the “spiritual godfather” of the 2-wheeled family bakfiets? Such stories often get twisted, misunderstood and mistranslated as they get passed through generations and languages so such an explanation seemed fairly plausible.

I forgot about the incident until Oscar sent me a note with a number of scans of photos he’d received from his mother (who still lives in Holland). None of the photos are dated but a little archive research as well as some technical features of the bikes seems to puts most of them in the 1910-1915 range. Making the task a little easier is the fact that the shop was in the Jordaan district just a few blocks from both my home and WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht location where my office is. Much of the Jordaan looks much like it did 100 or actually even 250 years ago… aside from the cars (yes, even here there are some, though mostly just parked), some rather tasteless new buildings from the 1960’s and 70’s, and a few of the bigger canals that were filled in.

Concerning the photos and archive info we first see that great grandpa did indeed have a bike shop at Rozengracht 49 (and maybe also 40 though that’s disputable). It was called “Bergreijer” which is a play on words. Bergmeijer was the family name but “rij” is the first person form of “ride” or “drive” and “berg” also happens to mean “mountain” so in a punny sort of way it means “mountain rider”. The Dutch, incidentally, have a thing for funny names. Even when other countries were busy with dead-serious names and advertising the Dutch were naming companies with puns and other humorous approaches. It’s a history that goes back at least to when Napoleon became ruler of the region in 1810 and forced everybody to take on a family name which wasn’t at all universal at that time. Either out of spite for their ruler or figuring the names would disappear along with the ruler many people cose silly names. I actually know people who’s names directly translate to “Fountain pen”, “Short knees” and “Born naked”… seven generations later. Napoleon’s bones must be laughing in his grave.

This week Herbert Kuner of the excellent rijwiel.net website sent a couple emails to Oscar chock full of additional information. Kuner found a Bergreijer advertisement in a 1919 trade magazine listing also a separate factory at Laurierstraat 134-142. This is around the corner from the Rozengracht 49 and presumably the factory location was just for production since I don’t think the Laurierstraat was ever a street for retail shops. There are still a number of light industrial outfits there, for example our offset printing firm a few doors down from where Bergreijer stood. This location is also not listed in the 1915 phone book, which inexplicably we both found digitized on the Internet.

Another picture, though shows yet another bike shop called J. Cruiming right next to Bergreijer in the Rozengracht. Cruiming apparently also called themselves a bicycle factory and in fact a sign notes that their shop was not open to the public. This combination of retailer and fabricator is not so strange; many bike shops in this period made their own frames and other parts. I was able to find the same buildings in Google Street View. The two buildings in the right of the photo are essentially unchanged but the facades of numbers 49 (Bergreijer) and 51 (Cruimer) have unfortunately been changed.

The photos include a number of bikes, most of them fairly standard models for this period. Inside the shop are two rows of bikes, many of them with rod-operated rim brakes and none with lights fitted. A carbide lamp fitted to the bracket at the top of the headset was the standard nighttime solution then though none are visible here. Barely visible in the lower right corner seems to be a child sized bike.

There’s a gentleman in uniform, I’m guessing police though I suppose it could also be military or some other official function in which case he was very happy that the Netherlands remained neutral in WWI. His bike has a front fender that ends behind the fork crown as was the practice then. It’s a fixed gear since I see no sign of either hand brakes or even a reaction arm for a coaster brake. The chainring is a work of art and we can see it since none of the bikes in the photos have any kind of chain covers. Apparently the enclosed chain case became a defining feature of the Dutch bike later on.

Here’s a rather dashing fellow looking ready for the start of the next Portland Tweed Ride or other costume themed bicycle gathering. I’m guessing he’s physically challenged since his stylish tricycle is hand driven through a very simple pair of levers that also serve to steer the machine. It looks like it would ride fine in a fairly straight line but sharp turns could be difficult, especially for somebody who’s partially paralyzed… or maybe that’s not really the purpose of this trike. There aren’t many streets this wide bordering large rivers in Amsterdam so I’ll venture a guess that this photo was taken on the west side of the Amstel river.

***Correction: A sharp-eyed, bike loving friend of Herb Kuner in Amsterdam points out that the above and below pictures look like they were taken along the Nassaukade. Silly me! That’s right around the corner from my home and I didn’t recognize it. Of course it is about 100 years later, but still… This morning I looked more carefully while riding Pascal to his daycare center and sure enough I found a spot where the trees (aside from being much thicker) and buildings match the above photo.

This is our first bakfiets of the bunch, and it’s a remarkably ornate one. Check out that laquered box, the beautiful ironwork that seems to support both the loooong leaf springs and the handlebar, and the carbide lamps missing from the bikes in the shop above. The bike almost looks like more of a showpiece than a utility vehicle but who knows what its function was: selling cakes or household goods perhaps? Whatever it carried wasn’t heavy given the light-duty leaf springs. Though this is a very old bakfiets I’ve seen many pictures of similarly old bakfietsen from England and the Netherlands. Nope, this is not the bakfiets Mr. Bergmeijer invented.

Now, THESE last two are the bikes in question. They’re vaguely “Long John” type bikes from at least 20 years before anybody called them “Long John”. Actually they differ from Long Johns and all of the more modern variations in that the frame also runs above the load carrier along with the steering mechanism. On Long Johns, van Andel’s Bakfiets.nl Cargobike and the legions of bicycles these two have inspired the front wheel is steered via a rod linkage below the load carrier. The two photos show two different versions o the Bergreijer transportfiets. The photo with the delivery boy is probably an earlier model or prototype with no steering linkage; the handlebar has simply been extended back to reach the rider. The other bike with “G. Goes, Hemonystraat 18″ (an address in Amsterdam) has a longer box and is steered via a rather complex system of bevel gears on a shaft. They seem to have gone from the simplest system possible to the most complicated… or maybe the other way around. The bike is clearly marked “Bergreijer” and “Model D” along the top tube.

I have seen a few other bikes that looked like these. One of them I almost purchased a few years ago but the owner decided not to sell it after all. This bike with its much more robust construction and dynamo lighting is much more recent, possibly from the 1930’s. The owner told me it was a Maxwell, a very well regarded Amsterdam builder of transport bikes, quite a few of whose big trikes still can still be on the streets. Another very similar (but still different) bike is displayed at a bike repair shop near Amsterdam Central Station.

Looking more recent than the Bergreijer bikes but older than these two are these slick-looking Veeno’s shown on rijwiel.net. It is worth noting that ALL of the bikes described here are older than the 1938 I’ve seen proposed as the beginning of the Danish Long Johns, though I imagine somebody, somewhere in Denmark was also experimenting with long wheelbase transport bikes before then. This repeating of history and reinventing of wheels I discussed earlier in “What’s really new in the bicycle world?”.

So did the Bergmeijer brothers invent this type of bike? It’s possible and their “Long Johns” are the oldest I’ve seen yet. However I’m only a dabbler in antique bikes and this was a time of incredible innovation and experimentation with bicycles (and cars, motorcycles and trucks too). There were several thousand little bike companies throughout the country so quite likely somebody else was also working on such bikes as well. Some day somebody else’s grandmother might pull a few worn photos of even older examples from a shoe box. For now though, I think it’s safe to say we’re at least approaching the beginnings of the Long John type bike.

Does anybody have any more good clues to help fill in the puzzle?

The last few winters have been pretty wimpy; hardly any snow and not even particularly cold. Actually that’s not entirely true since there’s nothing more bone chilling than a rainy, windy day just above the freezing point. The Dutch call it “waterkoud” meaning “water cold”, though it doesn’t prevent them from cycling like their water soluble cycling neighbors.

This winter began in November. It rained for weeks and weeks and weeks, right through much of December. It was apparently the rainiest November since the Golden Age… or something like that. Fortunately we were in Japan enjoying perfect weather. Then in late December it got colder and the rain turned to snow. Of course we’re talking about Amsterdam here so it’s never very much snow, but at least it’s been snowing regularly and the snow’s been sticking around for long enough to have some winter wonderland. Cycling in the snow is fun, especially in a city where the distances are short and you can largely avoid cars. I’ve always loved the quietness and lightness of a snowy city, I assume the result of the snow absorbing sound and reflecting light far better than most of what’s under the snow.

This afternoon poked my camera out the door to snap the above picture. Good thing those bikes aren’t spring flowers but no takers for a bakfiets rental this evening?

It’s ironic that some humble, dirty parts such as a parking stand actually have far more influence on your cycling experience than a beautiful frame or fancy, name-brand components. A stable, smooth working parking stand enables you (for example) to safely load up the kids and groceries, plop the bike onto the ground and cycle away uneventfully… just how you want it to be. But few people pay attention to such mundane things in the showroom so this is exactly where most manufacturers save a few bucks or euros. WorkCycles isn’t “most manufacturers” because we actually ride our bikes every day, carry our kids on/in them, move our stock between two shops on them… and listen to our customers who do the same.

Finding decent parking stands has been one of our most vexing challenges. During our quest for the perfect parking stand we’ve tried dozens. Most are so crappy that they don’t even deserve mention: All those Hebie copies from Taiwan and China fit poorly and then either bend under the weight of a loaded bike, quickly get scarily sloppy and break, or seize up from corrosion. The more sophisticated folding stands from Humpert and Spanninga (Sparta) have also failed our durability tests miserably. The cast aluminium Pletschers are light and pretty but not strong enough for bikes with child seats and heavy bags.

The older, galvanized version of the Hebie 2-leg centerstand

Once upon a time we complained bitterly to Hebie about their stands quickly seizing up and breaking at the riveted joints but they’ve listened and since fixed these problems. The joints have been reinforced and the stands are now powder-coated black instead of galvanized (silver) so they can live outdoors in salt-water-air environments. The Hebies stands are good but they still have limitations: They’re a single-pivot design so they can only be made so wide before interfering with cranks and possibly your heels. Wide equals stable.

For the Fr8 we have a specially bent, wider Hebie stand. It’s 33cm instead of the normal 26cm. That makes it more stable and I haven’t heard of any customers complaining that they hit their heels on the stand (though it probably does happen sometimes). On the downside our special Hebies are more expensive.

Of course the integrated stand of the Fr8’s Massive Rack doesn’t suffer any of these limitations because it’s at the front of the bike. The Massive Rack is 60cm wide, making it by far the widest and most stable stand available. But this huge carrier is just too much for most non-industrial users to ride around with. So the centerstand search has continued.

WorkCycles is also the Benelux importer for Monark transport bikes and a while back we received a couple new double-pivot stands they’ve made for their postal delivery bikes. This stand makes no compromises to be suitable for the “consumer market”; It’s pure, heavy, industrial steel. It’s not pretty nor is it designed to it anything other than Monark’s own matching frames. Thus today I put the grinder and drill to one and modified it to fit the WorkCycles Gr8 prototype I’ve been riding recently. I suppose it’d be more suitable on the heavier-duty Fr8 but this is the bike I’m riding right now and I still have more components to test before moving on to another bike.

Fitting the Monark centerstand to the Gr8/Fr8 was a laborious task, also requiring cutting away a section of the chaincase. Fortunately it’s at the bottom of the case and now fairly well protected by the stand itself so it shouldn’t compromise the weatherproofness much. Removing the chaincase for service is really tight now, though.

So how wide and stable is the Monark stand? It’s 45cm, thus nearly twice as wide as the normal Hebie 2-leg stands. The bike stands as stably as a house on it. Given it’s massive construction I’ve absolutely no doubts about it’s strength but now we’ll see how it endures the test of time and weather.

Below we see that the Monark stand is by far the widest one that fits underneath a (reasonably) normal bike:
Hebie normal 26cm
Hebie modified for Fr8 33cm
Monark double-pivot 45cm
Bakfiets.nl Stabilo (Cargobike) 54cm
WorkCycles Massive Rack 60cm

PS: Surely somebody will have to ask what the Monark stand weighs. Answer: I don’t know but it’s really heavy, about twice the weight of the Fr8 Hebie stand it replaced.

PS2: Perhaps you want to know why my bike is so rusty. Aren’t WorkCycles bikes supposed to be high-quality and corrosion resistant for their intended outdoor life? Yes they are but I’m deliberately riding and leaving an unpainted frame outdoors to see how badly it will rust. In fact it’s not nearly as bad as we figured it’d be; After about four months of Dutch autumn and winter rain, snow and road salt it’s mostly brownish on the surface. So far there’s nothing that couldn’t quickly be sanded away, nor does it get trousers dirty or anything.

We arrived at work yesterday figuring that the sub-zero cold, wind and snow would keep most of the customers away, leaving us with time to work on some projects. The highest priority is reconfiguring our workshop after building a massive, floor-anchored, steel frame to hang our electric bike lifts from. It’s a great improvement but not entirely our own initiative. The lifts, you see, were bolted into the 150 or 200 year old wooden beams of our ceiling… and thus the floor of the neighbors upstairs. Though the lifts are nearly new and operate very quietly they do make some vibration. Standing on the concrete (over sand) floor we never noticed this vibration but it drove the lady upstairs crazy. Actually she’s complained very vocally and angrily about a lot of things, apparently calling and writing every possible authority on a regular basis. Most of her complaints have nothing to do with our activities (there’s another bike workshop next door and several apartments have been renovated), but the vibration was a legitimate issue according to the various city inspectors who visited to investigate.

So the city ordered the building owner (a social housing corporation that manages tens of thousands of properties) to fix the vibration problem. It was decided that the only solution was to totally isolate the lifts from the floor beams, and the only practical way to do that was to build a steel frame all the way to the floor. We’re very fortunate and thankful that they took care of the job and paid for it. But it still requires an investment of several days of our labor to refit the lifts and lights. We took the opportunity to make them fully adjustable on both X and Y axis as well as angle, and now we’re adding more lights. I don’t think a workshop can ever have enough light.

Anyhow, this is all we were thinking about yesterday morning so I got busy with the scaffold, drills, plugs, screws and wiring to hang the fluorescent boxes on our ancient ceiling. And then the first snowy Cargobike and customer came in:

Customer: “My bike is almost impossible to ride. It’s really slow, and I think the brake lever might be broken.”

Mechanic: “I’m pretty sure your cables are frozen.”

Customer: “But I think there’s also something wrong with the brake.”

Mechanic: “The brakes are probably fine but they’re being locked by the frozen cables.”

Customer: “Oh wait, now it seems to be fine.”

Mechanic: “Sure, your bike is indoors so the cable just thawed, releasing the brake. It’ll freeze again a few moments after going outside. If you can wait 15 minutes I’ll fix it.

While working on this bike another snowy bike came in with the same problem, and so it went the whole day. Alexis and I pulled and flushed at least 15 cables yesterday. The problem is that Amsterdam bikes live outdoors, rain or shine. Tiny amounts of water drip and condense into the cable housings. On good quality bikes the cables are stainless steel and the housings are lined with polyethelene or another low friction plastic so the water doesn’t make much difference… until the thermometer goes below the freezing point. Then the cable freezes inside the housing. Usually it creates enough friction that pulling hard on the brake lever will overcome the friction, actuating the brake but the brake’s return spring cannot pull it back… thus locked brakes.

So here’s what you do to fix (or prevent) a frozen cable:

1. Let it thaw.

2. Remove the crimped end cap and make sure the end of the cable isn’t unwound or damaged. If it is either rewind, shorten or replace the cable as necessary.

3. Remove any kinks in the cable so that it can easily be pulled and reinserted through the housing.

4. Pull the cable out.

5. Seal the nozzle of a compressed air pistol against the upper end of the housing and blow everything possible out of the housing.

6. Seal the dispenser straw of a suitable light oil against the brake lever end of the housing. It might be necessary to pull the housing cap to do this. We use a generic multipurpose oil with teflon but just about any light oil should work fine. Don’t use “dry” type lubricant because it won’t displace the water for long.

7. Spray the oil into the housing until it begins coming out the other end.

5.5 Oops. Put a rag at the brake end of the housing to catch the oil coming out at great velocity.

8-9-10. Thread the cable back into the housing, readjust the brake and crimp a new end on.

This fix is valid for any brake (or gear) cable but I’m basically assuming the bike has roller brakes here. Drum brakes can pull their own freezing tricks and rim brakes simply aren’t suitable for storing outdoors and riding in snow country. Now the techies can ask me why I didn’t write anything about disk brakes.

This experience also demonstrates something about Amsterdam cyclists: Not only do they store their bikes on the street, they also ride in ALL conditions including snow. Of course they do; How else would they get to work, take the kids to school, do the groceries and visit their friends?

Speaking of snow, here’s a sneak peek at our surprising new development: The WorkCycles Child Transport Sled. We’re strong proponents of the K.I.S.S. philosophy (Keep It Simple Stupid) and our Sled meets the KISS criteria beautifully: It needs no wheels, tires, bearings, towing linkage or even harnesses. Just shove the kid in and go! It’s versatile too: You can pull it while walking, tie the patented “S.T.R.A.P.” (Singular Tied/Releasable Attaching Pieceofplasticwebbing) to your bike or even have your dog(s) or oxen pull it from a yoke. When there’s no snow it can be attached to the front carrier of your bike as a convenient transport bin.

In testing the WorkCycles sled we also learned that Amsterdammers not only ride their bikes all year round in all conditions, they can also make really big snowballs.