Yes, though the photo doesn’t show it the bike was actually ridden with the crib like this.

A family in our neighborhood sent this photo to me today nicely illustrating something most people in the Netherlands take for granted: A bike is simply an amazingly convenient way to move stuff around the city. A bakfiets makes it safer and easier, and increases the load capacity but isn’t really necessary. Watch the cyclists ride by for a couple minutes (especially on a Saturday) and you’ll see somebody ride by carrying something unusual. it might be secured into a “bak” but then it might also just be balanced on their rear carrier and steadied by a hand, propped onto the handlebars or in one hand. Below some more examples, mostly from Marc at Amsterdamize
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A little bit of bike rap courtesy of the City of Amsterdam who is finally waking up to the fact that bicycles are one of the Netherlands greatest attractions and one of the strongest reasons it’s just such a darn lovely, peaceful place to visit or live. The incredible cycling mode share enables very high population density without the typical urban noise, danger and stress. Much of the 17th and 18th century city remains not as a museum but as a living, breathing, charming city as the city was once defined: a place for people. We love riding our bikes here… with our kids, dogs, SO’s, to work, to the pub, to school or just for the sake of riding!

My occasional encounters with police have generally been rather strange. I suppose it must be very strange to have a job that puts you in constant contact with some of the worst things happening in the city at any given moment. Do cops just lump the whole world into criminals and victims, and trust nobody in the process?

I’m musing about cops because I had a strange experience while cycling through the city Sunday afternoon. I was waiting with a couple other cyclists and couple cars for a light to change at a wide intersection. The pedestrian signals in the direction I was headed turned to “walk” and the coast was very obviously clear. I rolled through the intersection, thinking I’d already behaved “better” than a cyclist would typically do in such a situation here. Everybody knows that cyclists in Amsterdam generally proceed with caution but ignore traffic signals. One waits only when it’s either unsafe or the police are watching. Like it or not, that’s the practice.

I suppose it would have been wise to have first looked around before proceeding to see who was watching. Thirty seconds after crossing the intersection without incident or inconvenience a police car pulls up to my left, window rolled down. The two agents in the car look at me as if I have “Cops are Dicks” written in bold letters across my back and motion for me to stop and talk. They don’t get out of their car nor do they want to see my ID or anything official. The driver, obviously angry, leans over and asks some pointed, rhetorical question to the tune of “what the heck was that, asshole?!”. The female agent in the passenger’s seat is giving me that “Yeah, duhhhh!” look… though I was thinking approximately the same in reverse.

I’m no genius but I can put two and two together; It’s pretty obvious he’s referring to my riding through a red light a few meters back. A quick assessment of the situation suggests that admitting guilt and feigning embarrassment is my best approach. But the cop continues before I’ve had a chance to test my acting skills: “How do you think it makes us feel when you ride through red and everybody giggles and looks to see what we’ll do? You show no respect!” They don’t seem to have a problem with a cyclist breaking the law. The problem is that I did it in front of a police car. Oh, now how do I react? I can’t exactly say “Sorry officer, had I seen that you were there I wouldn’t have continued.” Likewise, admitting guilt to jumping a red light is a pointless since he’s already noted that it’s accepted.

A couple moments later they still hadn’t stepped out of their car so I figured they’d no intention of giving me a ticket or fine unless I did something stupid. I played it safe, sticking to “Yes, that was dumb of me.” and “I see your point… Understood.” Then they drove away, apparently satisfied that they’d made their point.

Lesson learned: Only run red lights in Amsterdam when the police can conveniently ignore it.

Alexis, of Buckingham Palace fame sent me this link to a brilliant essay by Social Philosopher André Gorz. It was originally published in the September-October 1973 edition of “Le Sauvage”. It’s worth noting that this is the same period when some more enlightened cities in the Netherlands began realizing that the automobile-based urban development was a dead-end street and thus began planning and building for a bicycle, pedestrian and public transport future. That is why the compact cities of the Netherlands most closely resemble the future (which was sadly also the past) where people…

…feel at home in their neighbourhoods, their community. their human-sized cities, and they will take pleasure in walking from work to home-on foot, or if need be by bicycle. No means of fast transportation and escape will ever compensate for the vexation of living in an uninhabitable city in which no one feels at home or the irritation of only going into the city to work or, on the other hand, to be alone and sleep.

But that’s nearly the conclusion of Gorz’s article. Here below is the beginning plus a link to where you can read the remainder. It’s well worth your time, profoundly and beautifully written.

The worst thing about cars is that they are like castles or villas by the sea: luxury goods invented for the exclusive pleasure of a very rich minority, and which in conception and nature were never intended for the people. Unlike the vacuum cleaner, the radio, or the bicycle, which retain their use value when everyone has one, the car, like a villa by the sea, is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don’t have one. That is how in both conception and original purpose the car is a luxury good. And the essence of luxury is that it cannot be democratised. If everyone can have luxury, no one gets any advantages from it. On the contrary, everyone diddles, cheats, and frustrates everyone else, and is diddled, cheated, and frustrated in return. This is pretty much common knowledge in the case of the seaside villas. No politico has yet dared to claim that to democratise the right to vacation would mean a villa with private beach for every family. Everyone understands that if each of 13 or 14 million families were to use only 10 meters of the coast, it would take 140,000km of beach in order for all of them to have their share! To give everyone his or her share would be to cut up the beaches in such little strips — or to squeeze the villas so tightly together — that their use value would be nil and their advantage over a hotel complex would disappear. In short, democratisation of access to the beaches point to only one solution — the collectivist one. And this solution is necessarily at war with the luxury of the private beach, which is a privilege that a small minority takes as their right at the expense of all.

Now, why is it that what is perfectly obvious in the case of the beaches is not generally acknowledged to be the case for transportation? Like the beach house, doesn’t a car occupy scarce space? Doesn’t it deprive the
others who use the roads (pedestrians, cyclists, streetcar and bus drivers)?

You can read the rest of Gorz’s article here.

I periodically see fellow bloggers denigrating the “lycra crowd” with the basic idea that recreational cycling (at least if it involves wearing special clothes) is the antithesis of utilitarian cycling and just plain old bad. But why? Cycling is just plain wonderful, whether riding the bakfiets across town to bring the kids to school, or riding up a mountain with friends. All work and no play makes a dull boy! There has to be a place in the world for objects and activities without productive function. Otherwise there would be no art, sports, play, hobbies or fun… and that world would suck.

And many activities (productive or otherwise) are enhanced by donning specific gear. The doctor pulls on scrubs for surgery, the construction worker wears tough trousers with gear loops, knee pads and steel toed boots, and the fireman stays warm but not crispy in his Nomex coat and helmet. If you’re going to spend the day in the saddle you’ll probably be most comfortable in cycling clothes. Whether you’ll look good in them or not is another story.

I’m also perplexed by why people believe it’s impossible to be both a cyclist for transportation AND and cyclist for fun. I ride a no-nonsense utility bike every day to get around the city, and then (weather, work and family permitting) I get on one of my lovely sporty bikes and ride for a few hours. For much of my life that meant riding fast: training and competing in races. With the addition of Pascal our recreational cycling has generally become a family activity. Today we took maximal advantage of a Sunday with perfect cycling weather: We were out for 6 hours, though one doesn’t ride very fast while holding a sleeping baby in one arm, nor cover much distance with multiple cafe stops.

Anyhow, just ride your bike. Certainly do it for transportation, but don’t let the hair-shirt idealists stop you from going nowhere useful on your bike… in the tightest lycra sausage suit if you wish.

There’s a common misperception that the millions of bikes around Amsterdam are cheap “junkers”. Sure, there are plenty of low-quality bikes around the city but they don’t last long. Their parts wear out and break, or they rust badly and then the bicycle quickly becomes unrepairable and gets thrown away… or more often left to rot until the city declares it a “wreck” (“fietswrak”) and carts it away. This actually doesn’t take long at all – usually just a couple months.

Along with the unfortunate but unavoidable disposable, modern bikes are also an amazing number of remarkably old bikes. These bicycles, 30, 50 even 70 years old aren’t pampered and regarded as classics (though some could be considered so). No, they’re just somebody’s trusty transportation, often having been in continuous service for a couple generations.

That’s amazing when you think about it: 20 or 30 kilos of steel, rubber, leather and maybe some plastic “overbuilt” to such a high quality standard that it can reliably carry several or many times its weight for a service life unthinkable for most products. It’s an incredible material efficiency and all the more fantastic considering that these bikes live outdoors in a cold, wet climate. All of the bikes in my photos have rust, but it’s mostly the dark brown (sometimes beautiful) patina of quality steel; It forms an oxide layer after the original paint or chrome has been worn off and then doesn’t corrode further. This is partially because the steel has few internal impurities so it doesn’t rust from within. That’s the nasty kind of orange rust that’s impossible to stop and will quickly kill your bike.

This is also a lesson in the importance of simplicity. More complicated products simply have more things to go wrong, require more service and are more likely to someday be declared irreparable. Note in these photos how few of the bikes have gears or hand brakes. Vestigial frame mounts for rod brakes are common though I don’t see any in these photos. Nor is there much “design” to be found here. Many are lovely bikes but there’s no pretentiousness or design just for design’s sake. This also plays are role in durability: things that go out of fashion cease to be maintained.

The accompanying photos are just of bikes I happened across over the last two weeks, mostly on Thursdays (that’s papa day) while walking around the city with my five month old son Pascal. The newest bikes in the photos were made in the 1960′s and the oldest probably date back to the 1930′s. Most Dutch bikes stayed approximately the same through this period and the differences are only of concern to the the enthusiast and mechanic. Unfortunately very few of the bikes made after this period and virtually none of the bikes from the 1980′s to the present will last nearly as long as these.

It’s specifically this timelessness and durability that WorkCycles strives to achieve. It’s an uphill battle though, given the unavailability of certain parts (a good coaster brake hub…), customers expecting features such as multiple gears and hand brakes and a modern world economy of cheap products made with inexpensive materials and overseas labor. We’re working on it and continually making improvements.

[Show as slideshow]

Nu is je kans om een super mooie en degelijke WorkCycles stadsfiets met 20% korting te kopen. Wij hebben nog wat fietsen met iets oudere specificaties (2007-2008 modellen) en het is gewoon tijd om ze uit onze winkels te krijgen. Er is, trouwens, helemaal niks mis mee meet deze fietsen. Ze verschillen alleen maar in enkele details van onze nieuwste uitvoeringen: bijvoorbeeld mischien een andere velgtype, een gewone dynamo of 7 versnellingen IPV 8 versnellingen.

We hebben een redelijk breed assortiment van modellen, frame types en maten beschikbaar o.a. omafiets, opafiets, kruisframe heren (pastoorfiets) en dames, transport dubbele stang en abdij (een andere type kruisframe). De meeste fietsen zijn martzwart maar eer zijn ook enkele in hoogglans.

De uitverkoop loopt totdat de oude fietsen op zijn of 31 december 2008. Nu staan deze fietsen in beide winkels maar we gaan ze allemaal naar de Lijnbaansgracht winkel verhuizen.

Bel of gewoon langskomen om een fiets uit te zoeken:

Stadsfietsen op WorkCycles’ website

And now in English for our foreign friends…
Now is your chance to purchase a beautiful, tough WorkCycles city/utility bike with a 20% discount. We still have some bikes with older specifications (2007-2008 models) and its simply time to get them out of our stores. There is, incidentally, absolutely nothing wrong with these bikes. They differ only in certain details from our latest bicycles: for example maybe another rim type, a standard dynamo or 7 speeds instead of 8 speeds.

We have a reasonably broad range of models, frame types and sizes available including the oma, opa, kruisframe men’s (pastoor or cross-frame) and ladies, transport double-tube and abbey (another type of cross-frame). Most of these bikes are matte black though a few are gloss black.

The sale runs until the old model bikes are gone or 31 December 2008. The bikes are currently divided between the two shops but we’ll move them all to the Lijnbaansgracht shop.

Call or just stop by to find a bike for you:

City bikes on WorkCycles’ website

Curious about what cycling is like in the Netherlands? Here’s a beautiful and informative series of reports by a Canadian couple who are presently doing a relaxed two week cycle tour in the Netherlands… in normal clothes, on WorkCycles city bikes. Honestly I’m a quite jealous as I sit here taking a a break from the quarterly bookkeeping.

You can follow the progress of Les and Helen’s Dutch cycle tour here.

Enjoy your trip guys!