If the rather unglamorous background of a Ford Econoline box van with Washington state license plate didn’t give her location away you’d think Jill Keto was in Amsterdam or Copenhagen. WorkCycles Omafiets: check. Personalized with red fenders, basket and flowers: check. Stylishly dressed in heels, skirt and scarf: check. Mobile phone glued to ear: check. Child seat on the rear carrier: check. See Working Girl’s tips for Saving Money.

Her blog Practical Chic (“chic” rhymes with “geek”) and book “Don’t Get Caught With Your Skirt Down” aren’t about Dutch bikes; It’s about living well on a budget, something a lot of people, especially Americans are thinking about right now.

And Jill has a (funny) video about her visit to Dutch Bike Seattle.

Jill and those who think along these lines will get more people on bikes than all the “hairshirt green” martyrs in the world.

Thanks to the tip from Stephan from Dutch Bike Chicago.

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The Sinterklaas “Intocht” (arrival parade) needs no introduction for the locals who began chasing Sinterklaas and his many “Zwarte Pieten”along the Amstel river and through the streets of Amsterdam as toddlers. It goes as follows (please forgive me for the semi-accurate description – I’m only after the basics idea here):

Sinterklaas is the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, and probably a much older, more original, less commercialized story. Sinterklaas comes from Turkey, though I cannot say whether that’s related to the fact that Americans often eat turkey for Christmas dinner. As a helper (or slaves, depending on who’s telling the story in what era) Sint has Zwarte Piet (“Black Pete”), or rather a whole army of Zwarte Pieten. Piet is black because he’s a Moor from Spain (like Othello).

Here’s where it gets tricky for those sensitive about such topics, specifically because the Dutch are not particularly sensitive: The role of Piet is traditionally played by white people made up in “blackface” as was normal in the US back when gangsters wore hats and pointed tommy guns out of black sedans in battles over gambling and bootleg liquor. There’s occasionally debate about whether this practice (the blackface, not the gangsters) is racist… but not much. That can be witnessed by the 350,000 happy fans lining the streets of Amsterdam cheering the arrival of Sinterklaas and 670 Zwarte Pieten. Just to note I spotted what appeared to be a handful of black Zwarte Pieten, also in blackface of course.

In any case Sint and the Pieten load up a ship full of “pepernoten” (little cookies like ginger snaps) and stuff in Spain and sail for Holland. Their exact route is unclear but they do end up sailing up the Amstel, which is odd considering that this is inland from Amsterdam. Perhaps they’ve chosen another inland route to pick up carrots for the horses or something. Once they reach the Amstel thousands of families with kids on bikes and in bakfietsen ride along the banks cheering Sint and the Pieten onward. The ship lands by the Scheepvaartsmuseum (the shipping museum) in the center of Amsterdam and Zwarte Pieten and Sint parade through the streets in all manner of Dutch vehicles and conveyances. Sinterklaas rides his white horse while the various Pieten show their preferences for bakfietsen, Land Rovers, rollerblades, unicycles, BMX bikes, stilts, fire engines etc etc.

Why am I explaining all of this? Because of the bakfietsen of course! WorkCycles had the honor this year of loaning a dozen bakfietsen and transportfietsen to Sinterklaas and his team. The bakfietsen were used to carry pepernoten for the kids, hay and carrots for the horses, and yet more Pieten.

A few of the photos are my own. The others found on the following sites:
Sint in Amsterdam
Photos by Sandra Machielsen
MichaËl also has some nice photos, though I didn’t use them here

STREET TALK!
Bicycle Planning in the Netherlands
Thursday Nov. 20, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
by Hans Voerknecht, International Coordinator of the Dutch Bicycle Council

At LivableStreets, 100 Sidney Street, Central Square, Cambridge, MA, USA

Free and open to the public, donation suggested beer/sodas provided compliments of Harpoon Brewery! Note: FREE BEER!

Simply copied from the Livable Streets site to promote their event, which vaguely promotes my goal of promoting utility cycling, Dutch style.

Learn about bicycle planning in the Netherlands from the International Coordinator of the Dutch Bicycle Council (Fietsberaad).

The Dutch rely ever more on the humble bike for transport as pollution concerns and high petrol prices give new impetus to traditional pedal power in the only country with more bicycles than people. The Netherlands, home to just over 16.3 million people, actually boasts some 18 million bicycles– 1.1 bikes per person.

Not even the wet climate seems able to put a spoke in the wheels of the Dutch, who weave through city traffic shrouded in plastic on rainy days, transporting anything from pets and children to groceries, musical instruments and plants on their bikes. Many a parent can be seen negotiating traffic with a child secured to each end of a bicycle with shopping bags and even a briefcase secured to the sides.

This event is cosponsored by LivableStreets Alliance and MassBike. Many thanks to Anne Lusk and the Harvard School of Public Health for bringing Hans to Boston.

I hope some Boston area WorkCycles / Azor / Bakfiets/ Dutch bike riders will attend and proudly show off their fine machines! I’d love to hear how it went. Thanks!

Yesterday “Kassa” (cash register) the popular, prime-time, Dutch consumer program broadcast their test of family bakfietsen. Like some other consumer-rights organizations Kassa reports are widely regarded as quite reliable and honestly conducted. Despite my usual cynicism I felt the testing procedure they showed was quite rigorous utilizing two professional experts and a panel of experience experts, namely parents with children. A retailer specializing in child transport bikes and trikes provided lessons to get the parent testers proficient on the bikes as quickly as possible.

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:

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The question of how many people die each year as a result of bicycle accidents in Amsterdam and Holland in general comes up periodically. I’ve usually thrown out the figure of “a handful per year” that I’d once heard. It turns out that this is about right. Toby Sterling, fellow Amsterdam resident and blogger whom I’ve never met did the research and compares it nicely with other countries and the statistics for murders in Holland as well.

Here’s Toby Sterling’s blog and discussion of bicycle accident deaths.

And Toby’s earlier post here.

Here are some quick excerpts though Toby’s original text is more fun to read. Basically the message is simple: despite extremely high rates of cycling and negligible helmet use the odds of being killed while cycling in the Netherlands are extremely low.

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!

We actually built these classic “bakfietsen” for “drop” (licorice) maker Oldtimers this past winter but didn’t have a chance to get pictures of them in action until recently. I saw one being loaded up near Dam Square in Amsterdam last week and it reminded me to put them on the blog.

The concept is pretty straightforward: Old fashioned costume and bakfietsen to promote old fashioned candy. Each weekend they bring one or more of the trikes to a Dutch city, load it up full of free samples and wander around the city center and shopping streets.

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The bakfietsen themselves can be quickly set up in a number of ways to suit different purposes:

More info about these and other special purpose utility bikes and trikes can be found here on the WorkCycles site.

After delivering the bikes we received a huge box of the various flavors of Oldtimers drop. Its really yummy stuff but I have to admit that we got a bit “dropped out” after consuming about half the contents. One can only eat so much licorice.

Action photos from Face the Public, the field marketing firm behind the project.

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.

This is my third update about the beautiful new WorkCycles cargobike/utility bike/child transport bicycle shop we’re building on the Lijnbaansgracht in the historic Amsterdam Jordaan district. That’s right in the city center so its no longer needed to trek that 3 km all the way out to our original location in Zeeburg. I wrote the previous two entries in Dutch so here’s one for the English speaking world.

We’re doing the construction ourselves and with the help of handy friends because its cheaper and more fun that way, and then in the end everybody can say “hey I built/wired/plumbed etc that place” and I’m still riding the WorkCycles workbike I got for doing it. The plan to open in July remains and you can be sure we’ll announce the opening as soon as a date is fixed.

Our plans are nothing short of grandiose: This shop will be 350 m2 filled with bakfietsen, city bikes, utility bikes, family transport bikes, cargobikes… you name it. It’ll also be home to our and our friends’ collections of classic (or just old) utility bikes. Its a funky 150 year old building with strange corners and details which gives us endless opportunities for character. It’ll probably take a few years to find a place for everything in the midst of doing “business as usual” in the meanwhile but that’ll just provide you with an excuse to keep visiting.

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You can see photos of our progress a few weeks ago here:

http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2008/05/09/verbouwing-workcycles-toekomstige-jordaan-vestiging/

…and more from a few weeks earlier here:

http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2008/03/29/workcycles-nieuwe-fietswinkel-in-de-jordaan/

Maybe that helmet for kids to wear everywhere (below) isn’t such a bad idea after all if this is what the rest of the world is like.