A man travels with his home-built home on a bicycle. That’s all I know about this one. Thanks to artist friend Abner Preis for the tip but don’t go searching for his website – it seems to have been hacked into a porno site, I assume NOT Abner’s doing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While I’m writing about bakfietsen again here’s some more info about what makes them tick…
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I wrote in an earlier post about the two ex-Marines riding WorkCycles Secret Service bikes around the world. They previously sent a photo anonymously from their Blackberry (that much I could read in the email) of one of them somewhere in the UK. Well now they’re apparently somewhere else, judging from the different, hilly scenery in this photo. And they’ve traded camera duty thus we see our other protagonist in this story… though I honestly can’t remember which one of the two is Sage. I think it’s the guy in this picture. Detailed descriptions are clearly not their forte.

[UPDATE: In this photo we see Cooper while in the previous photo it's Sage. Glad that's cleared up.]

Speaking of riding the Secret Service in terrain hillier than pannekoeken flat Holland and also of non-detailed descriptions, we were tinkering with Shimano roller brakes today. Shimano makes several versions of their nearly maintenance-free roller brake but their literature and website offer almost no information about the differences between them. Countless conversations with the Shimano tech support guys were fruitless. There are three basic versions of roller brakes commonly found on quality bikes:

For about a year or so we’ve been fitting the IM70 to all Bakfiets Cargobikes and the Secret Service, partially because they look cool but mostly because it clearly has a more consistent, snappy feel and is more powerful. This baffled us since the braking unit in the center of each rollerbrake seemed to be exactly the same unit. In theory then there shouldn’t be much difference.

But today our chief mechanic Eric showed me something new: They’d opened up one of each type of rollerbrake to check out the guts and it turns out that the IM70 is actually special. While the IM40 and IM50 share the same flat braking surface (like a drum brake except in steel), the IM70 has a “V” shaped, or rather double conical braking surface. This gives it more braking surface area and probably makes it self-adjusting as well.

The problem though is that the front IM70 doesn’t have it’s own cable stop, thus meaning that it only fits on front forks equipped with a little cable stop tab. Many bikes don’t have these.

Enter the Shimano IM80 roller brake due for introduction shortly. Again the Shimano literature is just worthless marketing garble but at least it’s visible from the photos that the cable stop is built into this one. Let’s just hope that they’re using the better V-shaped brake surface.

Oh, just to back up a little here… “What’s a roller brake” you might ask, or perhaps a little more advanced question: “how is a roller brake different from a drum brake or a disk brake?” I’ll try to explain briefly, without photos. If that doesn’t work I’ll try again later WITH photos.

Drum brake: Two semi-cylindrical “shoes” get pressed against the inside of a cylindrical drum. The drum rotates with the wheel while the shoes are stationary in the frame or fork. The shoes are pressed outward at one end by means of a cam. More sophisticated drum brakes have been fitted to motorcycles and cars but, to my knowledge, never to bicycles.

Disk brake: A disk rotates with the wheel and the sides of the disk get squeezed by flat pads. The pads can be either cable actuated through a helix or hydraulically actuated.

Roller brake: The IM40 and IM50 are basically just drum brakes with a six lobed actuation cam that presses the shoes outward radially over their whole length instead of just at one point. The roller brake shoes are also steel, running in a bath of special graphite grease. Does your rollerbrake make noise? Squirt fresh grease in.

The IM70 roller brake has the same actuation as the IM40 and IM50 but uses a special type of drum described above.

I’m sure that’s all just totally clear for you know.

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Our web developer Doede sent me a despairing note the other day telling me that the rear wheel of his new, old bakfiets got ripped off. The poor beast looks so sad, like a horse with a broken leg.

In case you’re confused thinking that a bakfiets is a modern, two-wheeler that mom carries her kids in, you’re half correct. That’s a Bakfiets Cargobike, with Bakfiets being the very generic trade name for Maarten van Andel’s brilliant bike. But to Dutch folks “bakfiets” still generally means a giant, heavy duty three-wheeler with a wooden box on the front, a brake lever between your legs and a fixed gear to keep those legs busy. Just to be sure: “bakfiets” is singular and “bakfietsen” is plural. Please remember that as it’s quite painful to read “bakfiet”. Check here for a more detailed description of the etymology of bakfietsen, bakkersfietsen, bakkers, bakken, gebak…

Anyhow the theft raised the question of who would bother stealing an old bakfiets wheel. They’re nearly impossible to find but then again such a wheel has no significant market value. Thus Doede’s wheel was probably stolen by another bakfiets owner whose hub, drum brake or rim finally died after 40 or 50 years of faithful service. And who rides old bakfietsen like these? Well, Doede reasoned, not the sorts of people you’d expect to be stealing their fellow bakfiets riders wheels: hippies, squatters, socialists and others well to the “left” of the socio-political spectrum. Just goes to show you that you can’t judge a book by its cover… or that such demographic stereotypes don’t actually work for crap.

[UPDATE 26-08-09: On Sunday while cycling out of the city with Kyoko and Pascal for a day trip we came across a scene I'd never witnessed before: A building getting broken into and squatted. A raucous mob of perhaps 50 men and women with creative hair and almost entirely black clothing was smashing their way through the door of a pretty, 17th century building in the Weteringschans. Upon breaking the door open the crowd cheered and stormed inside with the contents of a delivery van and no less than two big, old bakfietsen. I also recognized a couple of Amsterdam bakfiets/transportfiets "colleagues" of the old skool variety. Just goes to show you that some stereotypes have a basis in reality.

I pulled my camera out to get a couple pics of the bakfietsen playing a key role in the squatter's life, but I was immediately apprehended by somebody apparently appointed the "no fucking pictures" man of the event.]

In case you’re wondering what sort of rear wheel would be supporting the rear frame of that bakfiets had some scumbag not stolen it, here’s a quick description:

It would look like this one on a brand new WorkCycles Bakfiets, meaning thus that such wheels are actually still available… just not at a price many old-fashioned bakfiets riders are prepared to pay for:

And here’s a picture of a whole, brand-new classic bakfiets, just because I’m so thrilled that such gorgeous, durable, early 20th century vehicles can still be in production. In the background is the Nijland factory where these bikes are made for WorkCycles:

It takes some cojones to give your brand new €2000 family triplet tandem a spray can paint job and then cover it in cheesy plastic flora… but the results are certainly unique and effective.

Why does the Amsterdammer do such a thing? Simple: Making it crazy and unique wards off thieves. Your bike is critical to getting around but at the same time not an object of obsession. The same family has ridden a similarly decorated Bakfiets Cargobike for years, probably appearing in thousands of holiday photos and blogs as a result. Now the kids are older and it’s time for them to contribute some locomotive force.

Thanks to the kind WorkCycles customer for stopping by with the bike.

In case you want a more subtle way to make your bike undesirable to thieves you can also check out WorkCycles High-Tech Antitheft Bicycle Spray.

Here in Amsterdam we just ride our Bakfiets Cargobikes, but over in North America it seems to be fashionable to put them on your giant car and drive around with them. Doesn’t seem like nearly as much fun to me, but hey, who am I to complain… I’m profiting from their excesses.

But just in case the guy with the ghetto blacked out Suburban with Cargobike on roof thinks he’s tough, check out this one. It’s a Unimog with the same Cargobike practically disappearing into the bed.

Never heard of a Unimog? Well then check out these videos of Unimogs in action. Suburbans are for pussies!

The ash-tray bike!, originally uploaded by Iam sterdam.

WorkCycles didn’t make this one and I haven’t seen it yet myself. The Amsterdam city District “de Baarsjes” is using this brilliant “Asbakfiets” to promote smoke free and butt free surroundings. They’re giving out little cigarette and gum wallet/baggies to hold the nasties until a suitable trash container can be found.

A little background:
Ashtray = asbak
Cargo trike = bakfiets

The “bak” part of the words is the same: means “tray”, “box”, or “bin”. I suppose “bucket” probably also comes from the same origin.

Here’s more (humorous) bakfiets etymology

Thanks Iam sterdam for the great photo!

Before I moved to the Netherlands in 2000 I was hardly aware of carrier bikes, especially anything more exotic than a Schwinn Cycle Truck or Worksman hot dog cart. Even in cycling capital of the world Groningen where I first lived here transport bikes were very uncommon. The streets were swarming seas of cyclists but everybody just rode normal Dutch bikes. The only unmotorized bakfiets I recall was a loaner at a second hand shop called Mamamini. It was big, old fashioned bakfiets just we sell at WorkCycles. Mamamini even shows the bakfietsen in front of their stores on their website. But somehow that trike didn’t interest me. Maybe it just seemed too absurd, as if it were just a prop. In reality these bikes are actually quite easy to ride as long as the terrain is flat.

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But in Groningen I met Marjette, crazy about bikes, probably ten centimeters taller than me and fond of riding her bike in absurdly short skirts. Marjette had (and still has) a hand-built carrier bike of a type I’d never seen before (not that that was a challenge). It’s a Long John type bike cobbled together from an old city bike, a folding bike, an upright from a heavy duty shelving system and random scrapyard bits. Most importantly it has a big rack in the middle to carry stuff: a couple crates of beer, a fridge or a chest of drawers etc. It might be crude but it is strong. The steering system was very cranky making the bike difficult to ride but after tweaking it here and there and lubricating the pivot points it was much more manageable. In any case that relationship didn’t last long but the obsession with transportfietsen stuck with me.

How Marjette got this bike is a good story in itself. It was made by the neighbor of an acquaintance who lived on a boat in the Oostelijk Eilanden (eastern islands) area of Amsterdam. This is the 19th century docklands area where WorkCycles Veemart shop is also located. Like a handful of the area residents this guy had a yard full of rusty, old stuff. Marjette brought him 20 liters of paint from a Groningen paint factory where you could get “seconds” paint for free. As payment Marjette could choose something from the scrap pile. She chose the Long John bike and believes the guy was very happy she didn’t go for the motorcycle next to it.

Sometimes we get strange requests at WorkCycles. This time it was (for the second time) to make bakfietsen with trees in them. Hey, if your cash is good and it isn’t harmful or dangerous we’ll make it.

I’ve no idea what equidura is but somebody is apparently selling the stuff.

I don’t know whether the customer had seen this one we did a couple years ago for the Zwitserleven pension and life insurance company. Apparently they rode around Amsterdam with a pretty girl in the chair to demonstrate the relaxed life one would have as a result of buying their insurance, or something like that.

The cheapest way to get a palm tree for this bike was to buy one… and to this day this palm lives in our bedroom. We’re very fortunate to have high ceilings since the tree is almost 300cm tall now.

Jimmy sleeping in the Cargobike box

Some time ago I posted a photo of a child sleeping on the bench of a Bakfiets Cargobike. Here customer Jimmy de Bruyn in Amsterdam naps in the Cargobike box amongst the day’s picnic gear. Yeah, there’s a lot of space in there.