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…

Here’s a peek at the high-tech, formula one style undercarriage. Actually I’ve never looked at the undercarriage of a formula one car but I assume they’re quite similar: carbon steel multi-leaf springs with floating eyes, H profile axle and steering axis with giant sealed bearings. Unlike modern trikes of the Christiania, ‘t Mannetje, Fietsfabriek, Nihola, Bakfiets.nl persuasion these classic trikes just float along like a magic carpet too heavy to get off the ground.

The hubs feature tapered steel axles and sealed bearing the size of a man’s wrist. There is not one gram of aluminium on the entire trike. Of course there is plenty of carbon though: In fact most of the 185 x 85cm mahogany box is carbon.

At the rear is a similarly sophisticated drivetrain. Inside this steel chain cover a motorcycle chain connects the 1:1 fixed gear ratio. Yes, that’s correct folks: These 130kg bikes with 400kg load capacity are fixies. For 100 years hip couriers, contractors and hippies have been riding them in both skinny and baggy trousers, sometimes displaying manly butt crack as befitting the baker, the plumber and the carpenter. Being a fixie and a tricycle it’s even easy to do some “freestyling” on this baby. backwards riding? No problem. My favorite trick is the “parallel park”.

Note also the 26 x 2.5″ transporter tires, fender stay that doubles as a lifting handle and cottered cranks. We’re not quite ready to trust those new fangled square taper crank axles, and besides, nobody makes one that’d fit anyway.

Moving over to the other side we see that motorcycle chain opposite the giant drum brake. In case you’re thinking it doesn’t look so big just consider it relative to the parts around it: 4mm thick spokes, (twice as thick as “HD” 14 gauge spokes), 14mm hub axle, fat tire, moto chain etc. It’s a big drum and it does a fine job of stopping this bike… unless you load the box up with several hundred kg of stuff and point the rig downhill. Then the drum will only stop the wheel, while your puny, girlie man weight will do little to stop the rear tire from merrily skidding along the pavement while momentum inexorably carries you to your… Actually I don’t really want to worry about that so let’s move on to the brake lever between your legs.

You might be surprised to learn that the current crop of fixed gear hipsters are only the latest fixie riders to have brake levers in strange places. There’s no irony to this foot long steel bar between your legs; It’s your one brake lever and please remember that when bearing down on a group of Italian tourists obliviously arguing over an unfolded map about which way the Anne Frank house is. Above the brake arm is a ratcheting parking lock. Just flip it up while riding and down to park. Pressing the brake handle down pulls the brake rod which in turn pulls the brake actuation arm on the drum itself. There isn’t much to go wrong here, aside from forgetting where it is. This probably explains the frequency of damage on the front of our rental bakfietsen, though we’ve fortunately never had to clean blood off.

We even ride these bakfietsen ourselves. Being “truck-free” we move stuff back and forth between the two WorkCycles locations by bakfiets. Here’s a shot of Renzo moving some random junk over to our Lijnbaansgracht location shortly after we opened. Like Doede, mechanic Tom even has his own old bakfiets. He picked it up in the spring second (or maybe fifth) hand, cleaned it up mechanically and lovingly applied at least 20 coats of boat varnish to the wooden box.

So… do you now want one of these babies? They begin at €3000 including the 19% Dutch VAT and you can check them out on the “Professional 3-wheelers” page on the WorkCycles website. You can even rent a big bakfiets for a big job, a picnic, your wedding or just to ride the family around Amsterdam in.

The topic of the horrible, Chinese made family bakfiets copies has come up here intermittently but I’ve never written anything in depth about them. For those unfamiliar I’m talking about bakfietsen sold under various and constantly changing names, some of which are listed in this post on bakfiets.co.uk. Regular readers already know my conviction that these crude constructions of randomly “designed”, stamped and welded pot metal in the shapes of “bikes” and “trikes” are actually of negative value to their unfortunate purchasers and the world in general. The various fly-by-night firms selling them without warranty promote them as less expensive though somewhat simplified alternatives to similar looking, quality bicycles made by Bakfiets.nl, Christiania, Gazelle, Fietsfabriek and WorkCycles. If this were really the case I’d respect their activities, helpful or detrimental to those of my own.

However they’re just pandering to wishful thinking; Sure, it’d be great to have some inexpensive bakfiets options for families but the laws of physics and economics even apply to bicycles. The quality models simply cost what they have to, given the heavy duty demands, the need for safety and relatively small quantity production. Depending on the format and how deluxe it’s equipped they cost (in the Netherlands) between €1300 and about €2300. Anybody who can come up with a better price-quality-feature ratio will succeed in this competitive market.

The “bak-fakes”, on the other hand, are sold solely to earn a quick profit. They’re designed and made to such low standards that they’re really not useful machines. The customer is not getting a less pretty version of a €1500 bicycle for €600, she’s getting stuck with a flatpack full of ill-fitting, fast rusting steel pieces, paperboard panels and inappropriately chosen bicycle parts sourced from the very lowest level of department store bikes. Even if one pays a professional mechanic to do the assembly and replace the completely unusable pieces a decent riding, safe, semi-acceptably durable family transporter will never emerge. Even if no physical harm results from riding the thing, it’ll deteriorate with amazing rapidity. Oh, and there’s NO warranty. When your bike breaks in half (yes, they do that) you’re just outta luck.

The Dutch seem to have lost patience with the bak-fakes so we’re seeing fewer and fewer of them. Dutch people might be famous for loving a good deal but they do actually ride their bikes, so really crappy bikes tend not to stay on the market very long. Look how Kronan’s success here was so short lived. I guess that explains why the Chinese bak-fake manufacturers are seeking out new markets. Now they’ve just shown up on American shores through a firm called DoubleDutchBikes.

Ian at Bakfiets.co.uk has been following my discussion with Daniel Kok, who’s written a few comments on this blog about the bicycles he’s importing from China to the USA. Judging one’s character just by the comments they leave on blogs and by their website isn’t exactly a reliable science but the picture Ian’s post paints is indeed pretty sketchy looking. Blog comments pretending to be a customer of your own business and roundabout non-answers to questions aren’t good signs.

Daniel initially commented as “dkok” here in this post, though referred to Doubledutchbikes as “they”. Clicking the link he left behind I found on his site that the proprieter seemed to be a certain Daniel Kok. Given the Dutch name and similarity to “dkok” it didn’t seem too great a leap to guess that Daniel was our poster. Returning to the site today I cannot find his name there anymore. Whatever. I understand that the small business owner just needs to get the word out there and who expects the etiquette police to be following like hawks.

So anyhow Daniel and I discussed whether his bikes are or are not the cheapo bikes in question. Ian of bakfiets.co.uk picked up on our discussion and apparently did some further research. If such things concern you go ahead and read about more of Daniel’s blog commenting activities on Ian’s site.

On Bakfiets.co.uk Ian shows a bunch of pictures of these bikes with commentary about certain features. Some of the images actually originate from my own Flickr photo set you can see in the slideshow below.

Daniel claims to have made extensive changes to the bike so I suppose the crux of the matter is whether DoubleDutchBikes has really made so many improvements to justify:
A. Selling them at all.
B. A price increase from about $650 (€500 in NL) to $1900.

That would seem a tall order but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen more. Until then CAVEAT EMPTOR, folks… and happy cycling, whatever you choose to ride!

[Show as slideshow]

Hello,
I was browsing your blog, and found it most interesting indeed. I thought based on what I have read there that I should share my recent experiences with you.

I purchased a brand new bakfiets 1 1/2 years ago and have been through so much hell with it and the company who sold it to me that the Rijdende Rechter even wanted to cover it on the show, but the vendors wouldn’t participate so that came to nothing. I am not looking for help or advice; I just thought this story might interest you.

I am a 39-year-old ex-American student with a 4-year-old. 1 1/2 years ago I realized that a bakfiets would be the solution to many of my transport problems, not having a car. I was able to use some of the money my family set aside after my great-aunt’s death for my education. That meant, however, that I needed to get an inexpensive bakfiets. Naively I thought that I should get a cheaper new one so that it would come with a guarantee. I bought a Faya4you.

The Faya4you bakfiets is ostensibly delivered “rijklaar”. When it arrived, the delivery folks left without waiting for me to test ride it. I took it for a spin, and one of the first things I discovered was that the brakes did not work– at all. Luckily this came to light outside the home of my then neighbor, who is a bicycle repairman and sells used cycles. He put the brakes in order for me, saying they had not been installed correctly.

The next thing that happened was that the wood, particle board, swelled up after a couple of rains and fell off! So I installed new wood.

Thereafter, the left pedal and crank suddenly fell off. I took the trike to the Wolkenfietser, Haarlem’s excellent repair facility. They found that the axle had been twisted into a spiral, after only a couple of months of riding. I sent several e-mails to Faya4you (they normally do not answer the phone), and when I eventually mentioned legal action an axle suddenly arrived in the mail, with no other contact. I took it to the Wolkenfietser, where I was told that it was too short but that they would put it in and see how long that worked out. The answer was, about a week. So I bothered Faya4you again for a few weeks, this time with no response. By then I had come to depend on the bakfiets and was seriously inconvenienced by not being able to use it. So I gave up and bought a good axle, which was duly installed.

A couple of months after that the gears stopped working. If I left it in 2 all was well, but if I ever switched it to 1, which happened frequently accidentally because of the placement of the release lever, it would freewheel for a while until I moved the lever back to 2, then make a horrendous “thunk” noise, then be in something VERY heavy for several revolutions, “thunk” again, and go back to 2. This was never repaired.

Shortly after that the bakfiets started pulling to the right. It also started periodically making a sort of low-grade screaming noise from somewhere under the bak.

Shortly after that, I was riding through traffic with my son in the bakfiets and it started feeling very weird: the back end seemed to sort of slide right out from under me every few seconds. I got off and looked, and part of the frame had snapped right in two. I took it to the Wolkenfietser and they said it was dead. I really, really needed the bakfiets and had less than no money so I took it to a smith, who welded a metal plate into that part of the frame.

Over the next couple of months the bakfiets seemed to get heavier gradually. After a couple of months there started to be a swish, swish noise coming from the back. I could not get this noise to reproduce itself when I was in a position to be looking at the back end. Eventually though it started suddenly feeling like it was going through deep sand (it was still screaming, by the way, although that went away temporarily right after the weld). I was able finally to see that the back wheel was tilted sometimes. By the time I made it back to the Wolkenfietser the wheel was VERY tilted all the time. The fellow there started to check the spoke tension, and the spokes just started falling out. The upshot was that I needed a new wheel, due, they said, to the poor quality of the original wheel. This I got. They advised me that the whole machine is of such poor quality and was so traumatized by the frame break and weld that they felt I should not try to get it repaired again if something else went wrong.

It made it another few weeks. My son had started public school and in order to get him there without a bakfiets I need to walk 20 minutes and then get a bus, which runs at inconvenient times. I also have a serious back issue that made it difficult to do that. Anyway, during the last several weeks (about 12 weeks, I think) of its life, three things happened. First, the screaming increased and became accompanied by a numer of groans and squeaks and murmers. The front end developed a downright weird oscillation: when I started riding it would very slightly bounce up and down in front. This gradually increased until it was bouncing along joyously, then would stop when I stopped, and gradually build up again as I went forward. The third thing that happened was the pedals started rocking. If I was pedaling on the right the whole pedal assembly would rock over to the right, same thing on the left.

Then last Monday the bakfiets just ground to a halt. I got off and looked, and part of the brake had come free and jammed itself between the wheel and the tire, shredding the inner tube. I managed to push it for half an hour, then my back gave out.

And that is the end of it. I was in a panic but my father decided to buy me a second hand bakfiets, and it should arrive tomorrow. It is a Christiania Light, 5 years old, so I hope it will last for me.
After the frame break I started sending e-mails and faxes to Faya4you without response. I sent two registered letters which were not picked up from the post office. I phoned continually from a variety of phones without answer. I sent the story to the Rijdende Rechter. After calling them twice the publicity lady for the show finally got a call back, and was told that Faya4you had done everything possible to help me and wanted nothing further to do with me. That same day a man called me and told me that he had received a lot of faxes that were not for him. I asked him what his number was and he did not want to tell me. I read him the Faya4you fax number and asked if it was his and he said that he did not know, then hesitated and then said no, it wasn’t. He would not provide an alternate number.

And that is the end of that. I will have to sue them but right now I have 6 weeks left at school to get my degree and I have no money, so it will have to wait at least a little while. It seems to me I may have left an event or two out of this narrative, but you get the idea. The key events are here.
Anyway, as I said I just thought you might be interested to hear about this incident and this company.
Sincerely,
(name removed for privacy)
Haarlem

The question of inexpensive family bikes comes up frequently and I often have venomous words about some of them, specifically because we hate hearing stories like the one above. Its an awful feeling to have to so sorely disappoint a customer by informing them that their nearly new bike is essentially irreparable. Five hundred euro might seem like a great deal in comparison to €1500 for a quality model and one might even accept shortcomings such as poor finish, lame lights, too few gears and somewhat higher maintenance as a reasonable tradeoff for the affordable purchase price. But the story below paints a very different picture: that of €500 initial cost plus probably much more in repair costs and time wasted on a bike that was nevertheless pronounced “dead” and worthless after 1.5 years. That doesn’t represent good value in my book nor was it an efficient use of world resources. Whether it’s responsible to sell such products from a safety perspective (specifically to carry children!) is an area I won’t even touch here.

Just to note I’m just publishing this report for her and have no commercial interest in the matter whatsoever. I just find it a story worth telling because it effectively illustrates my conviction that quality products from a trusted source are worth paying for from every perspective: economics, safety, sustainability, enjoyment of life… Conversely, nasty, fly-by-night junk like this bike is of nothing but negative value for the world. If the people at Faya4You wish to respond (perhaps with a different version of the story) they are welcome to do so.

The choice of a second-hand Christiania as replacement is excellent. If the bike looks OK after having been ridden five years it seems a safe bet that it’ll go another five or ten without any great problem. If fact, whenever possible with many purchases, second hand is the best bet for the budget, and for sustainability. The big challenge can be finding the right bike secondhand. The demand for bakfietsen is growing so quickly in the Netherlands that it can be very difficult to find a decent one with appropriate specifications for a price that justifies buying second-hand. Bakfiets.nl Cargobikes, especially Long models, often sell for well over €1000 used. Same for bikes from Christiania, Fietsfabriek, ‘t Mannetje and Nihola. Its understandable then that most people will stretch for a new one with the latest upgrades, no hidden problems, in the color they want for a few hundred more.

It was not a long-term test though, and it would be expected that some conclusions would change with further use of the bicycles. Our experience has been that the two wheelers gradually become more favored as parents get comfortable with them, while riding a trike tends to get “old” after the novelty wears off. This is apparently a particularly Dutch sentiment as our colleagues in Denmark, England and Germany swear by the trikes. Different strokes for different folks.

The testing appeared to have been conducted over a few days and many interesting moments and comments were captured on video. Amongst the most notable:

The bakfietsen tested were representative of those available and in common use in the Netherlands, with one notable exception: the Gazelle Cabby was not present. The report mentions that one bike wasn’t delivered in time for the test but doesn’t say which one. I’ll guess it was the Cabby, since it would be fairly obvious to include the one bakfiets produced by a major manufacturer. If that’s not the case I find it a very strange omission, either on the part of the test panel or Gazelle. The bikes tested include:

Two wheelers:

Three-wheelers:

And the winners are…
The results were broken into two-wheelers and three-wheelers with the experts showing a strong preference for the two wheelers. Thus winners of the two wheel bakfiets category and overall test winners: WorkCycles Cargobike and Bakfiets.nl Cargobike. It was noted that the two are close cousins and the experts were asked specifically whether the WorkCycles upgrades justified the couple hundred euro price difference. The answer was a clear “yes”; the upgraded brakes, lighting, rear wheel and other features improved the bike considerably. The experts were clearly extremely enthusiastic about these two bikes.

Amongst the three-wheelers the Bakfiets.nl Cargotrike and Winther Kangaroo were the standouts. Aside from noting the solid handling and construction, and roomy box they didn’t really say much about the Cargotrike. They did note that the cockpit is somewhat cramped for taller riders. About the Kangaroo they noted its light weight and permanent canopy. A minor downside was its width and the €3000 price is in a league above all the other models.

And the loser is…
The Boxbike from Halfords. This was the only bike in the test that was basically rated “unacceptable” for its sloppy construction, poor steering behavior and for only having three gears, inadequate for such a heavy trike. It was noted in the testing that it was very hard to keep all three wheels on the ground.

We’re obviously happy about the results, though they really just confirm what we already believe. We were aware that a WorkCycles bike would be included in the test but have become cynical after seeing so many bizarre “test results”, “awards” and reviews (see my post about the TrioBike reviews). After watching the program I was mostly just relieved that it went smoothly, that they’d really taken the time and effort to do a fair and meaningful test.

Here you can find my English translation of the original report text.
And here is the original report in Dutch.
Here are links to other tests and reviews of bakfietsen.

I’ve come across a number of thorough and well-written reviews (and some not so good) of various child-transport and family bikes & trikes:

Bakfiets.nl Cargobike
Let’s Go Ride a Bike
BIKE2WORK2LIVE2BIKE
Velo Vision
Bicycle Fixation
Bike Utah Valley
EcoMetro

Bakfietsgigant, Bakfietsweb, Couleurs, DoubleDutchBikes (USA), Redy Kangaroo, Hollandia, PImmies, Trendonline, Tricycleweb (all seem to sell the same bikes)
“Karin” (Dutch language)

Christiania (Trike)
“Marga & Huub” (Dutch language)

Faya4you
Guest post from Haarlem in this blog

Fietsfabriek 995
Caliban’s experience with the FF 995 and notes on other bikes too

Gazelle Cabby
Bakfiets.co.uk

Winther Kangaroo
Musings from a Stonehead

TV consumer program Kassa tests 13 bakfietsen from Dutch and Danish producers Included are: Bakfiets.nl, Christiania, Fietsfabriek, Nihola, Winther, ‘t Mannetje, Bakfietsgigant, Halfords, Johnny Loco, Babboe and WorkCycles
My english language translation of the bakfiets test
The original bakfiets test report in Dutch language
My post with comments about the program and results.

Bakfiets.nl vs. Fietsfabriek 995 vs. Gazelle Cabby
Bakfiets.co.uk (again)

Bakfiets.nl Cargobike vs. Smart Car
Part one: Measurements
Part two: Features

Bakfiets.nl Cargobike & Cargotrike, Bakfietsweb, Christiania, Gazelle Cabby, New Viper, Triobike!… In French language.
Vélo Brouette

Now that I’ve been “collecting” these links for some time the reviews have become more balanced, covering a broader range of bikes than I first found.

Here’s one more review in Dutch though its already three years old and wasn’t very objective to begin with: Fietsersbond bakfiets test. Its in Dutch and no direct link is available.

Here on the “Groot Gezin” (big family) chat site there is a long thread with discussion about many of the child transport bikes and trikes. The focus is generally on the cheap bakfiets options and like any discussion the opinions are to be taken with a grain of salt. Dutch Language.

Does anybody have any suggestions, particularly about other well-known bikes such as Nihola and Christiania? Please keep the discussion to family transport bikes and not transport bikes in general.

Als BN’er (Bakfietsverkopende Nederlander, of ten minst legaal bewoner in Nederland) vind ik vele bijzondere dingen in mijn email inbox: o.a. aanbeidingen voor nieuwe software, aanbeiding voor interessante investeringen in de 3e wereld, aanbiedingen voor pillen om mijn mannelijkheid groter/krachtiger/langdurender te maken, en af en toe als ik gelukkig ben ook aanbeidingen voor bijzondere nieuwe bakfietsen.

Die laatste vond ik vandaag en wat een mooie bakfiets het is! Deze nieuwe bakfiets is niet zomaar nog een Chinese kopie van een Bakfiets.nl Cargobike of een Fietsfabriek Filibak/Christiania. Nee hoor, daar zijn re al tientallen van te kiezen! Als een leuk verassing is het een Chinese kopie van een Sorte Jernhest, de Deense bakfiets die met het achterwiel stuurt! Wow, een namaak van een fiets die al onmogelijk is te verkopen. Dit vond ik zo’n gewaagde actie dat het een BEM (nieuwe afkorting voor Bakfiets En Meer) blog post moest verdienen.

In de bovenstaande afbeeldingen zien we deze stijvolle bakfiets, uitgevoerd met een onwaarschijnlijk combinatie van een soort doorzichtige zuurstoftent en BMX banden. Denk aan de mogelijkheden voor nieuwe types wedstrijden! Ik zie ook nog enkele interessante punten in de foto’s:

Over achterwielsturende voertuigen: Er zijn redenen waarom alleen maar speciale voertuigen zoals heftrucks sturende achterwielen hebben. Een fiets met meer dan twee wielen is al vreemd genoeg te fietsen, daarom hebben je ouders die zijwieltjes zo snel mogelijk erafgehaald. Een voertuig die met de achterwiel(en) stuurt is heeft even zo bizarre een stuurgedrag. Wat verwacht je als je deze twee dingen combineert? De perfecte fiets om je kinderen mee te nemen, natuurlijk!

Jij bent nu zeker benieuwd waar je zo’n bakfiets kunt kopen en wat het gaat kosten. De eerste ga ik je niet vertellen maar de prijs is (voor nu) €899, inclusief BTW. In het geval dat je een fietsenmaker bent is het ook handig te weten dat jouw inkoopprijs €575 is, zonder BTW. Jouw marge is dus 24% op een fiets die jij zelf moet monteren uit twee dozen van de allerkleinste stukjes en een chineestalige handleiding zonder afbeeldingen. Als je heel erg handig bent kan het in mischien één lange dag! Maar over marge hoeft de fietswinkel geen zorgen maken – deze fiets wordt toch nooit verkocht.