No, the original NYT article was NOT cited.

We’re just back from Japan here and there’s still so much to show and tell. First I’ll get past the jetlag and clear the pile on my desk. In the meanwhile you can check out the 550 or so photos of Japan I posted on Flickr. I’m patting myself on the back here for making them pretty entertaining and informative.

Meanwhile I came across a nice bit of bike and fashion parody out of Shanghai, China. Most of you probably saw the slightly silly but timely articles on Dutch bikes such as “Riding the It Factor” in The New York Times. Yours truly was interviewed for said article, WorkCycles bikes were mentioned and used as props and the super photos of my friend Marc (a.k.a. Amsterdamize) were used for an accompanying slideshow about Dutch cycling.

Well shortly afterward some “economic refugee” Shanghai expats showed up with “It’s the S**t!” Factor parodying the NYT article above.

A couple days later “5000 Years of Civilized Riding” appeared… their take on the NYT fashion shoot with some worthy quotes such as:

…in China, bicycles have been part of the culture for 5,000 years. Fashionable Qin riders first unified China’s sense of style in 221 BC…

Oh, and I learned an excellent new (for me at least) acronym: BINO (Brand in Name Only).

Thanks to Fred Shasta, writer of these pieces.

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.

[Show as slideshow]

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.

I can’t read Indonesian so I can only hypothesize about this site about pre-WWII Simplex bicycles in Indonesia. Simplex was an Amsterdam bike maker that made some of the best bikes of this period. That’s significant considering that the Dutch bikes of this era were probably the best city bicycles ever built. Seventy years later here are still quite a few of them on the streets of Amsterdam… and apparently also in Indonesia.

So why would there be so many old Dutch bikes in Indonesia? Simple: Because it was a Dutch colony until the 1945 to 1950 Indonesian war of independence. It seems pretty unlikely that all those pre-war Dutch bikes were imported after the war so I’ll assume they were initially brought there by the pre-war Dutch colonists. Regardless of the history its still strange for an Amsterdammer to see all those lovely old Simplex bikes with palm trees in the background and the details described in a text I can’t understand. Well at least I can understand many of the technical terms because they seem to have adopted the Dutch words for many bicycle parts. A couple examples:

Historical trivia:

Mark Stosberg in Richmond, Indiana, USA sent a kind note asking a couple relevant questions worth public answers. The photo below I blatantly stole from Mark’s blog. It seemed appropriate.

Mark

Hello Henry,

Thank you for your blog which provides a unique glimpse into Dutch bike
culture for westerners like me who haven’t been able to visit yet.

As a new bakfiets owner in Richmond, Indiana, I have a couple things
I’ve curious about, which I think would make interesting topics for
future blog posts.

1. Accessories. In the photos I see of Dutch community bikes, there is a
noticeable absense of several accessories: Rear view mirrors, bike
computers, and water bottles.

If I had to guess, the answers might be:

– Rear view mirrors would be stolen (assuming they are detachable)
– For the bike computers and water bottles, perhaps they are less
important for shorter, urban trips, and also could either be stolen, or
would create another chore to carry the removable parts inside all the
time.

2. “Key Management”. The AXA Defender lock seems like it is somewhat
common there. If I attach the key for it to my keychain, I have to
leave the whole keychain attached to the bike when it is unlocked, and
my foot hits the keys that way. Are there common ways people avoid
this, and still keep track of their AXA Defender keys?

Unrelated, you may be interested in the stories and photos I recently
created about my new bakfiets. You can access that content through my
homepage below.

Thanks!

http://mark.stosberg.com/

(more…)

People often ask where to store big, tough Dutch bicycles and trikes. After all they don’t fit inside doll-house sized Dutch apartments and certainly cannot be carried up the ladder-like stairs common in Amsterdam buildings. Answer: Dutch bikes are outdoor dogs. Like cars you just leave them outside, ready to ride… after unlocking the massive chain that protects in from the bicycle thieves. That’s why the good Dutch bikes are made simple, tough and understated, with thick, strong paint and lots of stainless steel parts.

The challenge is that Amsterdam is an extremely densely packed city of 800,000 people and the average resident has more than one bicycle. This means that many areas of Amsterdam are simply overflowing with bicycles. The bikes are locked to ubiquitous bicycle racks, canal railings, stair railings, streetlight poles, signpoles, fences, scaffolding and anything else that stands still long enough. That might not sound ideal but its heaven if you figure that one car takes as much space as about 20 bikes. If the bikes were replaced by cars Amsterdam would spread to cover an enormous area of land that doesn’t exist, losing most of what makes it so wonderful.

But in some places there are so many bicycles that special bicycle storage facilities are necessary. There are many examples but the best known is Amterdam Central Station (train station) which counts the following bicycle storage facilities:

Fietsflat: Built a few years ago as a temporary facility to hold 2500 bikes while work progresses on a permanent garage to hold 10,000 bikes. In fact its estimated that there are often 4000 bikes crammed in to the present “fietsflat”. Parking your bike here is free but its usually filled by mid-morning.

Bewaakte fietsenstallingen: two manned, underground bicycle parking garages, each with a capacity of about 500 bikes. For about €1.50 per day you can leave your bike here.

Fietspont: this a a brand new bike storage facility for 350 bikes on a decommisioned ferryboat in the Ij river behind the station. It was painted and decorated by homeless people (who ride bikes too). Its free bike parking here.

Underground bike garages: Enormous new bike parking facilities to house 10,000 bikes at the station by 2009 are in the works.

Everywhere else bikes can be fit: As everywhere else in Amsterdam, there are bikes locked to every centimeter of fixed object and ground space possible in the station area. People can be very creative about how they find a place to store their bicycle: in a canal, hanging by a cable from a bridge, vertical on a pole… anything goes!