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.
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.
The above photo by supertsaar on Flickr reminded me of a conversation I had with Jos Louwman, founder of the well-known Mac Bike bicycle rental company in Amsterdam. Jos rode the same “Pfanntoom 1″ bakfiets to our Oktoberfietsfeest party this past fall and I commented that it reminded me of the casket bakfiets I’d seen recently.
As it turns out there’s quite an interesting story behind the Pfanntoom and the reference to the casket trike was eerily close to the truth. Here’s a rough translation of Jos’ response:
“Funny that you the Phanntoom 1 compare to the casket bakfiets. My friend Henk Pfann (the godfather of the Amsterdam Bakfiets Club) is buried in the box that was originally mounted on the bakfiets. As a memorial we mounted a pontoon from a aquaplane on the chassis.”
It’s also worth noting that the box that was originally on this bakfiets (the one Henk Pfann is now buried in) was in the shape of a book, specifically a bible; Henk and his family were in the book business.
The name Pfanntoom is a word play on the Dutch “fantoom”, the English “phantom” (meaning the same thing) and the name Pfann.
The bakfiets chassis under the pontoon appears to be an old Maxwell, a long extinct firm that made some of the best bakfietsen ever. Maxwells often had unusual features including triple main tubes, lovely double chainstays, and a handle built into a rear fender reinforcement. Maxwell was founded in 1914 and continued until 1961 though I’ve never seen a Maxwell bakfiets or transportfiets that looked as if it was built after WWII. The Maxwell name is still in use for a generic line of Dutch city bikes but these don’t have anything to do with the old Maxwell.
We were back at the panda portrait thing on the way to dinner this evening on the bakfiets cargobike. Still haven’t gotten around to mounting the camera to get Kyoko in the shot too. I guess we don’t really plan these things.
One could actually debate whether these are truly “pandas” considering that the one taking the picture (Kyoko) is not the one piloting the bike (me). But, in our defense all three of us are riding on the bike and considering that poles, remotes, tripods are acceptable for pandas I cannot see why a passenger photographer would not be accepted.
Actually I’d like to take some shots of how we usually ride as a family: Pascal in the box, me piloting and Kyoko side-saddle on the rear carrier. But to do that we’d have to mount the camera and operate it remotely, something that would actually require planning.
I can’t believe I’ve never come across this quadruple tandem before. I was parked on the Keizersgracht in the center of Amsterdam and looks as if it’s been there for years.
It’s a sweet bike too: a Gazelle, probably built in the 1950′s or 60′s mostly from bakfiets and transportfiets parts. A few cool details:
all lugged frame construction
three eccentric bottom bracket shells of varying sizes to tension the chains
bakfiets rear drum brake operated by the last rider
motorcycle front drum brake
It’s also really heavy. I tried to set it more upright for the photo but realized that would have required a helper.
“Rot op met deze &*%$#@! fiets” roughly translates to “Fuck off with this fucking bike” .
In other words somebody is displeased with Doede’s choice of bicycle. Below, the same in better detail.
The sticker in all it's glory
Here we can read the smaller text below.
Dit is een asociale fiets hij is echt te groot en waarschijnlijk kan ook jij er niet normaal mee fietsen
And in English: “This is an antisocial bike it is really too big and you probably also can’t cycle normally”
Now let’s consider this more carefully.
The sticker shows a (very badly drawn) bakfiets with three kids, thus demonstrating that the sticker maker/sticker understands at least one function of such a bike.
He’s (and almost certainly a “he”) is writing in (bad) Dutch about a very Dutch topic. It seems reasonable to guess that he’s somewhat familiar with bikes and thus understands that one doesn’t carry three kids on any ordinary bike.
So I can only infer that he’s expressing his disapproval that a family should have three (or more) kids.
Now if anything is antisocial it’s telling people, unsolicited, by sticking things on their bikes, that they have too many kids, that they ride a bike that’s “too big”, and that they probably can’t ride a bike normally. So fuck off, you righteous asshole! Put stickers on your own bike and don’t tell people how they should live. Be happy that Doede rides a bakfiets (no wider than the handlebars of a normal bike in case it matters) instead of driving a Cadillac Escalade. And be happy that you live in Amsterdam, cycling capital of the world.
Just finished a special bike for Fromagerie Abraham Kef who’s shop is nearby in the Jordaan. Kef specializes in French cheeses they import (though they also have cheeses from elsewhere in Europe) and sells them both retail and wholesale to fine restaurants. Yes, despite their reputation for marginal food there’s good eating to be done in the Netherlands.
Because the soft cheeses must be kept consistently cold, it’s necessary to use highly efficient insulated transport boxes. That’s the blue ones, of which the bike can carry four at a time. Unfortunately the standard Bakfiets Cargobike chassis isn’t quite long enough to carry two of these next to each other. Thus we performed surgery: the frame was cut in two and another section of tubing was added in the middle. The frame was then reinforced with a rib, as found on the older Cargobike frames. Note that this is a Cargobike 2.0 with the 60mm tube plus the reinforcement rib.
In addition to the four insulated boxes we included a bog 80 x 60cm uninsulated crate for general transport. It’s not actually intended to ride with all five boxes stacked up, though we did prove it’s possible (and scary since you can barely see ahead).
Tripping Angels presents “Konijnen Fruit’; a rabbit bakfiets cycling trip through Amsterdam. Unnecessary inside joke: It helps to have seen the classic Paul Verhoeven film Turkish Delight (“Turks Fruit”), which you should see anyway because it’s a great film and has some quintessentially Dutch cycling scenes.
In case you were wondering what people do with a rental bakfiets, here’s an example.
On our way to see friends for dinner at super yummy New King in the Zeedijik. Sun was directly into the camera, making things tricky. We’ll have to try again later.
Today was the most important day of the year for the Dutch: Queen’s Day. Everybody should experience this monumental block party slash mass garage sale at least once in their life. Nowhere else have I ever experienced so much humanity in such close quarters for so long over such a large part of a city. Three quarters of the city wears orange. Boats fill some canals bumper to bumper. People pack the most popular streets making even walking impossible, never mind bicycling or driving a car.
A few years ago Queen’s Day meant heavy-duty partying from the evening before (Queen’s Night) until at least late afternoon for us. Beer flows through the streets as water through the canals. We wandered the Jordaan (drunkenly) feeling half insider and half outsider.
But after eight or ten Queen’s Days the spectacle of the crowds and the partying becomes too familiar. More recently it’s become a quest to buy as much needed baby stuff as possible, as cheaply as possible. Kyoko researches the best neighborhoods to shop, and maps out our schedule… beginning at an ungodly early hour. Of course she knows what she’s doing and this year we scored a high-chair, lots of old wooden toys, modern toys, three buckets of baby-lego, cute clothes, two Bobike Mini child seats and more, all for maybe €100. The lightheated salesmanship and negotiations over how many cents will be paid for a toy make it all fun. Our partying was limited to sitting on our friends’ roof terrace afterward.
So why tell you about “Koninginnedag”? Well, because the bakfietsen are instrumental. All of the WorkCycles and MacBike rental bakfietsen get reserved months in advance by people and organizations planning to sell their goods or put on a show.
We and many others carry our new possessions home by bike too. It’s pretty much the only practical way to do so considering you can’t get a car within kilometers of the busy areas. Cycling might sometimes be slow or frustrating but you can usually find a quieter street to ride along or at least walk the bike through the crowd for a couple blocks. This year we took Kyoko’s Bakfiets Cargobike and a WorkCycles shop errand bike with two 60cm x 40cm plastic bins.
On a more somber note there was an attempted attack on the Royal Family, who was in Apeldoorn for the event. Some guy sped his Suzuki Swift (a small car) through the barriers in an attempt to hit the open bus the Royal Family rode in during the procession. He missed the bus but hit a number of bystanders. Some five people were killed and about a dozen wounded. The Dutch Royal Family has always travelled with minimal security and has never previously had a seriously threatening situation. Similarly the Dutch ministers are known for riding bikes around like normal people The press is speculating that this era of innocence has just ended.
