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?

We’ve been working with ROC an Amsterdam technical college and a few other bicycle firms to create a new bicycle mechanic education program. There is already such an education track there but it’s primarily classroom based. This new program will be practice based, with interns working at each participating business for several months. In time the students will also work in and operate their own bike shop, similar to the student-run restaurants at cooking schools.

The problem we’re looking to fix may seem ironic; while cycling is über-hip amongst adults, it’s anything but amongst Dutch teens, especially the teens likely to follow a bike mechanic education track. The interns who periodically work at WorkCycles generally have no interest in bikes whatsoever. As soon as they’re old enough they dump their bikes in favor of scooters, and the bike education is often seen as a stepping stone toward a career as a car or truck mechanic. They’re generally also not the sharpest knives in the drawer and that’s part of the challenge.

Thus in order to fill this new education program with motivated (or at least willing) and capable kids the image of cycling and bikes has to be spiffed up in the eyes of our teenaged target group. In discussing these plans and tactics the organizer pointed us to the video above as a model. Though I doubt many of these kids have a long enough attention span to sit through this particular video it certainly is a great example of how to promote cycling amongst adults.

The video is from the BOVAG, the branch organization for businesses involved with selling and maintaining vehicles (including, bikes, mopeds, scooters, cars, trucks etc). It simply offers ten reasons to cycle more, with the emphasis on cycling instead of driving a car. It’s nicely shot, offers just enough facts to make the point, doesn’t take itself too seriously and is guilt free. The reasons…

1. Cycling improves your fitness.

2.Cycling keeps you slim.

3. Cycling gives you a great feeling.

4. Cycling reduces your chance of illness.

5. Cycling is convenient.

6. More cycling means cleaner air in your own surroundings.

7. Cycling is quiet.

8. Cycling improves access for short distances.

9. Cycling is inexpensive.

10. More cycling means less greenhouse gasses.

The title? “Natuurlijk pak ik de Fiets!” (Of course I take the Bike!)

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?

Appropriately found on the Geekologie site: “Inner City Sports no Chain, Comfort“.

It’s entirely unclear what is supposed to make this bike better as a city bike (and better than what anyway?). The design seems to be focused on the elimination of that most impractical and divisive of all bicycle developments: the drivetrain. So instead of employing a chaincase, belt, shaft, gear, hydraulic, lever or treadle drive (all have been done) the designer has destroyed the ergonomics of the bike. 150 years of development? Hah, they all had it wrong!

Imagine what a wanker you’d look like as you waddled through town on this thing, busting your bottom and getting splashed from each puddle, trousers dragging on the sides of the fat rear tire. One more demonstration of how “designer bikes” usually suck. I’ll just walk thanks.

Nice color scheme though.

I have to admit that I have a lot of bicycles, and I’m referring to bikes that are really just mine and not somehow part of the WorkCycles fleet or inventory. I periodically cull the flock but some have too much sentimental value to sell, even if I almost never ride them. There’s the Daedalus mountain bike from 1990, designed by me and built by Kent Ericksen of Moots in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There were six made of which I still know the whereabouts of four. I don’t think I could ever see my lovely De Rosa go. I bought it a year or two old from a friend in about 1982 and raced and trained on it for years until breaking one of the silly diamond shaped chainstays. My friend Brian Spitz (who built some of the world’s cleanest race frames for a while) repaired it but then I hung it up and forgot about it for 15 years. A couple years ago I decided I wanted to get back on a racing bike, found it still wrapped in paper and built it up again. Now it gets ridden regularly, much closer to it’s birthplace in Italy. There are many others, in order of how long I’ve owned them:

Those are all complete, rideable bikes. I also have a number of bikes in various states of incompleteness and a rather absurdly large collection of (mostly old enough to have no monetary value) parts. The semi-complete bikes include:

At least all of the old transport and city bikes are destined for the WorkCycles museum and a few are already on display. A few bikes including the city bike, Brompton, papa bike and racing bike are ridden regularly. Some of the others will return to service when the time is right. Amsterdam has, for example, a fantastic indoor velodrome and I’ve been itching to get back on the track, though that might have to wait until Pascal is old enough to ride too.

Anyhow this is a long intro to noting that I got another bike. This one is a transportfiets (Dutch delivery bike) from the firm “Yankee” in Hoogeveen (where Azor is now and Union once was). I’d never heard of Yankee but that doesn’t mean much; until the 1960’s there were hundreds of small firms building bikes in the Netherlands. Lugs, tubing and components were bought in from various suppliers and the bikes were built from scratch. The quality was typically excellent but the designs were very conservative. Only experts can tell many of the bikes apart and little changed from the 1920’s through the 1960’s or even 1970’s in some cases. A few of the manufacturers were known for particularly high quality (Empo, Fongers, Gazelle, Simplex) and/or unique design (Fongers, Locomotief, Maxwell, Simplex). Yankee though has somehow disappeared into the gorges of history.

Despite it’s near anonymity my Yankee is a beautiful bike, even after at least 50 years and perhaps even a decade or two more. I purchased it from a neighbor. When he brought it in it wasn’t pretty but it was clearly solid, complete and quite original. He’d originally bought the bike some 15-20 years ago for his catering business but no longer needed it. Since then we’ve mostly stripped it down, thoroughly cleaned and polished everything, straightened the front carrier and handlebars, replaced the tires (with better old ones) and assorted other improvements. Only the pedals, which weren’t original anyway, are “incorrect”.

You might not be familiar with the old Dutch transportfietsen and aside from the lovely brass head badge this one’s as typical as they get. Here’s a rundown of some of it’s features:

Perhaps the most obvious feature of a classic transportfiets is the front carrier, always fixed to the wide, 1″ diameter handlebar, very heavy fork crown and front axle. Thus this giant carrier swings with the wheel making it a handful to ride when loaded. Typically a huge basket or wooden crate was mounted on the carrier to carry bread, meat, milk or whatever else the tradesman (or his son) delivered. The load capacity was huge, both in volume and weight. This carrier was made by the firm “Roelewiel” who made the carriers for many brands of bikes.

The reason these bikes still exist despite their hard lives is the extraordinarily robust construction. This bike weighs almost 40kg. There’s not a single dent in the fenders or frame tubes and the frame was still perfectly straight. The drive chain, chainring and cog are 1/2″ x 3/16″, like on mopeds and small motorcycles. The crank bearings are larger diameter and wider. The cranks are massive chunks of steel.

Bonus for the hardcore nerds who spotted that the left crank is mounted backwards: Yes, I’m aware of it. It’s that way because the crank was apparently bent in an accident and after straightening it still has a little “S” bend so it now fits better backwards.

Before WWII all Dutch transportfietsen had 28″ wheels, generally 28 x 1.75″ like this bike. For those keeping up with current fads and trends that’s the same size known now as a “29′er”. After WWII they were built with either the 28″ wheels or fatter 26″ wheels (for even heavier duty applications). My Yankee has the classic Vredestein “Transport Extra Zwaar” tires. This translates to “transport extra heavy” and they weren’t kidding; these tires weigh some 1500g each and they’re supported by special steel rims that weigh a couple kilos each.

The early transportfietsen were mostly or all fixed gears, meaning they had no means of freewheeling nor did they have brakes. The rider slowed the bike by means of resisting the rotation of the pedals. This was no mean feat on a heavy and heavier loaded bike with the further momentum of such heavy wheels. Of course these bikes were only ridden by professionals, though even they indulged in competitions. During WWII the occupying Nazis banned fixed gear bicycles (really, I’m not making this up) perhaps for a couple reasons:

The Yankee has a coaster brake hub I’ve never seen though. It’s a Bendix like the American hubs I grew up with, except that this one is different. Inside and out it looks much like the German Torpedo but still different, most notably that it has a helical actuator instead of the roller clutch used in the Torpedo. In any case it’s definitely a special, heavy duty model with a 3/16″ cog threaded in place with a locknut.

Am I going to ride it? Nah, probably not for a while. I’m just going to hang it up in our Lijnbaansgracht shop as one more constant reminder of what “quality” means.

From the creative minds of famed eco-designer Ross Lovegrove and Biomega bicycles. Aside from being vaguely unique can somebody please explain what the benefit of this exercise is? I mean, I’m sure a complete aluminium frame was cut up to enable laboriously hand-fitting the carefully selected and finished bamboo tubes. I’ll eat my hat if such “hybrid” frames won’t require ten times as much energy to make as the Chinese made all-metal ones they replace. They’ll be heavier, weaker and more maintenance intensive too.

And then all this trouble to make a uncomfortable bike with neither practical amenities (OK, it at least has an enclosed drivetrain) nor sporting potential.

Interesting and structurally sound bamboo bikes have already been made, for example by Craig Calfee. I stick to my opinion that “designer bikes” are almost always pointless at best and bad bicycles at worst… and that’s coming from somebody who left the industrial design field to start a bike company.

Photos from “Design Boom”.

“Fietsen worden verwijderd” = “Bicycles will be removed” and is a common sign in Amsterdam since bicycles cover every usable wall, sign pole, lamp post, fence, gate, bridge railing, fence, window (and bike rack). Putting a Fietsen worden verwijderd sign on your window or door is no guarantee that the spot will remain bike free but it’ll at least keep the most conscientious people away.

Ahh, but why is it also written in Chinese characters? I’ll just leave that as a mystery for the locals to answer.

OK, so perhaps somebody disagrees with the sticker: “Tijd voor een goeie fiets” (time for a good bike)… but at least they had the decency to leave the workcycles logo intact.

Here’s a nice little video interview of Jan Rijkeboer, founder of Azor Bike where they make Bakfiets.nl, Onderwater and some WorkCycles bicycles. Jan proudly gives a tour of their factory in Hoogeveen… far from Amsterdam where their bikes are most popular. He describes how most of the parts come from the various factories in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, and how people with various disabilities (or do I need to say challenges this year?) perform some of the functions in the assembly process. It’s in Dutch but you’ll still find it fun to watch even if you can’t understand this strange noise we call a language.

Why ride a bakfiets to the station when it’s so much more difficult to park than a normal bike? Well, a parent might drop the kids off at school and continue on to the station during their morning commute. Or a family might go to the station with the kids in order to take the train to visit grandma, or for a weekend in Paris or…

The problem is that providing parking for all the bicycles is a hopeless battle. Each day 250,000 travelers pass though Amsterdam Centraal, a considerable number of whom arrive by bicycle. This is not surprising considering that it’s the most practical and cheapest way to reach the station for most of Amsterdam’s residents. But Amsterdam Central stands on a small artificial island so space is very limited. Current bicycle parking includes:

Photo by Flickr user Ron Layters

In total I’d estimate there are about 6000 bike parking spots on the island. Locals know that it can be nearly impossible to find a place for your bike if you arrive at the station after rush hour so they take public transport instead. Cycling is also gaining in popularity in Amsterdam, recently accounting for more than 50% of trips made. Thus the need for bike storage always remains greater than the supply, despite constant additions. The city plans to reach 10,000 bike parking spots within a few years but it’s likely it will continue to remain at capacity.

Nonetheless the city recognizes that cycling is still the most efficient and least resource intensive way to more people around the city. Passenger capacity of the trams, buses and metro are also being expanded but this is far more difficult and expensive. Getting to Amsterdam Centraal by car has already been rather hopeless for a long time.