I wrote in an earlier post about the two ex-Marines riding WorkCycles Secret Service bikes around the world. They previously sent a photo anonymously from their Blackberry (that much I could read in the email) of one of them somewhere in the UK. Well now they’re apparently somewhere else, judging from the different, hilly scenery in this photo. And they’ve traded camera duty thus we see our other protagonist in this story… though I honestly can’t remember which one of the two is Sage. I think it’s the guy in this picture. Detailed descriptions are clearly not their forte.

[UPDATE: In this photo we see Cooper while in the previous photo it's Sage. Glad that's cleared up.]

Speaking of riding the Secret Service in terrain hillier than pannekoeken flat Holland and also of non-detailed descriptions, we were tinkering with Shimano roller brakes today. Shimano makes several versions of their nearly maintenance-free roller brake but their literature and website offer almost no information about the differences between them. Countless conversations with the Shimano tech support guys were fruitless. There are three basic versions of roller brakes commonly found on quality bikes:

For about a year or so we’ve been fitting the IM70 to all Bakfiets Cargobikes and the Secret Service, partially because they look cool but mostly because it clearly has a more consistent, snappy feel and is more powerful. This baffled us since the braking unit in the center of each rollerbrake seemed to be exactly the same unit. In theory then there shouldn’t be much difference.

But today our chief mechanic Eric showed me something new: They’d opened up one of each type of rollerbrake to check out the guts and it turns out that the IM70 is actually special. While the IM40 and IM50 share the same flat braking surface (like a drum brake except in steel), the IM70 has a “V” shaped, or rather double conical braking surface. This gives it more braking surface area and probably makes it self-adjusting as well.

The problem though is that the front IM70 doesn’t have it’s own cable stop, thus meaning that it only fits on front forks equipped with a little cable stop tab. Many bikes don’t have these.

Enter the Shimano IM80 roller brake due for introduction shortly. Again the Shimano literature is just worthless marketing garble but at least it’s visible from the photos that the cable stop is built into this one. Let’s just hope that they’re using the better V-shaped brake surface.

Oh, just to back up a little here… “What’s a roller brake” you might ask, or perhaps a little more advanced question: “how is a roller brake different from a drum brake or a disk brake?” I’ll try to explain briefly, without photos. If that doesn’t work I’ll try again later WITH photos.

Drum brake: Two semi-cylindrical “shoes” get pressed against the inside of a cylindrical drum. The drum rotates with the wheel while the shoes are stationary in the frame or fork. The shoes are pressed outward at one end by means of a cam. More sophisticated drum brakes have been fitted to motorcycles and cars but, to my knowledge, never to bicycles.

Disk brake: A disk rotates with the wheel and the sides of the disk get squeezed by flat pads. The pads can be either cable actuated through a helix or hydraulically actuated.

Roller brake: The IM40 and IM50 are basically just drum brakes with a six lobed actuation cam that presses the shoes outward radially over their whole length instead of just at one point. The roller brake shoes are also steel, running in a bath of special graphite grease. Does your rollerbrake make noise? Squirt fresh grease in.

The IM70 roller brake has the same actuation as the IM40 and IM50 but uses a special type of drum described above.

I’m sure that’s all just totally clear for you know.

IMG_1916, originally uploaded by henry in a’dam.

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.

My buddy Chomi and I have been taking photos of the WorkCycles stickers that keep appearing on abandoned bikes around Amsterdam. We’ve spotted them on bikes all over the city, but particularly in several neighborhoods such as the Jordaan and the Oostelijke Eilanden. It’s fun to browse through the slideshow to see the sights or identify the broken bicycles left to rot. Or if you know Amsterdam well you can try to figure out where the bikes are located. Perhaps we should have a contest. Suggestions?

The stickers are available at WorkCycles: €0.50 each. They’re mostly sold out so we’re going to invent some new ones and print more soon.

No bicycles have been harmed in this project.

70cm WorkCycles Transport on smart car, originally uploaded by henry in a’dam.

I’m surprised this little Smart car doesn’t tip over backwards when driving with this huge (70cm frame) WorkCycles Transport Double-Tube. But apparently a man of 200cm (6′ 6″) fits in a Smart.

Photo by Doede van der Linden.

Bas of www.transportfiets.net, (that’s trans-port-feets-poont-net for english speakers) turned me onto this super little video. It’s genuine film footage from a 1933 race in Bussum (near Amsterdam) on baker’s and butcher’s bikes. Back in those days most transport bikes had fixed wheels (“fixies” you young folk) and like all those modern-day urban hipsters on track bikes, these bikes had no brakes either. There’s a difference though: A transportfiets weighs an easy 50kg, and that’s before it was loaded down with 50kg of meat. The wheels alone weigh a good 10kg each. Can you say mo-men-tum?

I have a handful of old “transportfietsen” in various states of disrepair and disassembly. They’re glorious machines; Very simple but so solidly made that they put all other bicycles to shame. Riding them is a great sensation. It takes a while to get up to speed but once all that mass is rolling there’s no stopping it.

These bikes were employed by practically every baker, butcher, milkman and other business in the Netherlands from perhaps the 1920′s until perhaps the 1960′s, when cars and delivery vans became affordable for small businesses. Keep in mind that the Netherlands was quite a poor country through modern history until the 1960′s. The bikes were ridden by delivery kids, much like pizzas are now delivered by annoying kids on mopeds with boxes on the back.

Note also that the Dutch Transportfiets predates the similar format but rather esoteric and much lighter duty French “porteur” or “veloporteur” by decades. Transportfietsen were also made in quite large quantities which partially accounts for the remarkably large number still on the streets, considering that the last of them went out of production in the 1970′s. Of course the fact that they were quality built like tanks also helps.

Transportfietsen were made by hundreds of firms, small and large and most of them look essentially the same: double top tube, huge front carrier fixed to the handlebar and (large) front axle, generally no rear carrier or parking stand. Pre-WW2 examples all had 28 x 1 3/4 wheels and usually fixed wheels. Later both 28″ and 26″ wheels were used and most were made with a single-speed Fichtel & Sachs Torpedo coaster brake hub. Parts such as chains and sprockets, forks handlebars, cranks, pedals etc were all bigger and stronger than on normal bicycles. I have never seen an old transportfiets originally equipped with gears or a front brake.

Have a look around transportfiets.net for tons of examples, including a number of bikes in restoration and also lots of old archive photos and catalogues. Bikes like this will never come back so it’s great that some enthusiasts are keeping them alive as examples of the values of another era.

2007: Azor aluminium frames being hand-welded

I recently spotted some bullshit about the difference between “hand-built” and “hand-made” on some site or blog promoting somebody’s bikes, or maybe it was just a blog comment. Huh? I’ve been designing and making (often pretty nice) things with my own hands for many years and have always used “hand-built” and “hand-made” interchangeably. Furthermore when it comes to bicycles, they’re mostly built with quite human labor intensive processes: Steel and aluminium frames are generally soldered, brazed or welded at least partially by hand, finish work is manual, and assembly is mostly performed manually on an production line of some sort. This is true for the bikes of small and large producers.

Certainly all of our (WorkCycles) bikes are made this way. Most of our city bike frames are hand built/made in Belgium. Some are hand built/made in Holland and China. Ironically enough the frames made in China are the most consistently straight and best finished. So much for China bashing.

The notable exception to our “hand-made” (or was it “built”) rule is the Bakfiets Cargobike frame which is built/made by a (very sophisticated) robot in a factory in South Holland province. The robot bends and miters the tubes and then welds them together. All of our bikes are assembled and finished by hand… though the mechanics do utilize machines such as a headset press and seat tube reamer to work more efficiently. Will the manual labor police disqualify them from being called “hand-made” for this?

Anyhow this is all just a long introduction for a fantastic film from 1925 somebody put up on You Tube (in two parts). Its called “De Avonturen van Piet” (The Adventures of Piet) referring to Piet Pelle, a promotional cartoon character of Gazelle. Between Piet’s adventures of taking his Gazelle bike to the North Pole we see a proud overview of the workings of the Gazelle Bicycle Factory. Amongst other processes:

The commentary is all in Dutch but you’ll get the idea of what’s going on: they’re hand making bicycles… or are they “building” them. Who cares! Its fun to watch.

1925: Gazelle frames being hand aligned

There’s a more complete version of the Gazelle factory video here but it doesn’t seem to have any sound.

Oh yeah, here’s Piet Pelle of Gazelle:

Nihola trikes are nice vehicles and quite rare in Holland but popular in Copenhagen, Denmark. For reasons beyond my comprehension the Danish prefer three-wheeled family transport bikes while the Dutch go mostly for two wheelers. I could write for hours on the subject but to make a long story short WorkCycles customers have overwhelmingly been happiest on two-wheelers so that’s what we sell unless a customer really needs a tricycle. A two-wheeler such as a Bakfiets Cargobike leans and rides like a normal bike. Trikes are always somewhat strange and unpleasant to ride, and that’s probably why we learn to ride on two wheels as young as possible and then almost never go back to three wheels. There are certainly valid reasons to need a trike, though:

In any case I put this picture up because it demonstrates a problem with some trikes: They can tip onto their noses when the center of gravity moves too far forward of the front axle. Usually this happens while kids are climbing into the trikes from the front.

On the Nihola its funny to see but really not a problem: Unlike most trikes the Nihola’s front wheels steer independently, as on a car. The frame is thus a single unit so the tail simply sticks in the air and the kids laugh.

However the Nihola is not the only child carrier trike with the front wheels well behind the front of the box. The Winther Kangaroo, TrioBike and Zigo Leader are also constructed this way.

I’ve never seen a Zigo but it appears, like the Nihola, to have independent steering via tie-rods. Reports from my colleagues that the Zigo’s turning circle is very large would tend to confirm this. The Zigo’s child carrying unit sits almost entirely forward of the front axle and the bike is very light so it will almost definitely tip forward when kids climb in the (only) front entrance, unless mom is attendant and holding the rear end down. Fortunately, like the Nihola, the Zigo’s tail will merely stick way up into the air. Annoying but probably not dangerous.

When this happens to the Winther and TrioBike its not such a humorous occurrence: These trikes have central, axle pivot steering, meaning that the trike steers by turning the front carrier parts of the trike in relation to the rear bicycle part. Thus when the nose goes down and the tail goes up… the rear part of the bicycle will rapidly fall to one side, perhaps tipping the entire bicycle, falling into a parked car or other bicycles, or even falling into the roadway. Both of these bikes have light aluminium frames so it really doesn’t take so much weight to tip them.

One can argue that a parent should always be present to hold the bike steady but that’s just not how it works in the real world: kids absolutely love playing on and in these bikes, regardless of adult supervision.

The photo of the Nihola I found in the flickr album of “andjohan”.

For more reading material about the TrioBike have a look at this earlier post where I used it as an example to complain about how ridiculous and inaccurate online “reviews” can be. The comments that follow get rather bizarrely heated and emotional.

Streetchalk drawings found in a playground on the Kerkstraat, a few blocks south of the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. They seem to be bicycle paths, but where are they leading?

A friend sent me a link to a new robotic bike parking system in Tokyo, reminding me of one of my favorite topics: where to put all the bikes when everybody cycles. The Tokyo system is very cool and executed on quite a large scale. It apparently has space for 9400 bikes. Just for reference a parking garage for 9400 cars would be enormous – a quick calculation suggests that it’d be at least 150,000 m2 in surface area or perhaps much more considering all the entrance and exit paths necessary to keep it flowing.

The video of the parking garage in action here can be found on a gazillion sites already so here’s a French language blog with a thorough description with photos and videos of the Tokyo system at Kasai (train) Station. The photo above is from this site and the author is apparently busy with an English translation. There are also many nice pictures and descriptions of the 2008 Sakura, the cherry blossoms the Japanese are crazy about.Cleanliness and technical perfection aside I’m skeptical about whether such an elaborate, high-tech bike parking system is really necessary. For example, the humble fietsflat in Amsterdam holds about 4000 bikes on any given day and its nothing more than a three level metal structure with a lot of bike racks. Of course the fietsflat and its users are not so kind to your bicycle.

There are also other automated bike parking systems. This Dutch system called “Fietsmolen” (Bicycle Mill) is simpler and seems to offer much higher density. A couple examples have been built in Holland. The fietsmolen is basically just a carousel with one or multiple concentric rings of bikes. Each ring rotates independently of the others and gets its own entrance. A two ring system holds 100 bikes and according to the creator rings can be placed inside and outside the basic module. That would offer space for about 200 bikes per unit, comparable to the 180 bikes per unit in the Tokyo Kasai system.

The Fietsmolen system can be placed underground or above ground, as needed. Of course multiple Fietsmolens could be installed together as has been done in the Tokyo Kasai system. When installed back to back the Fietsmolens pack together very densely.

The Fietsmolen site is in Dutch and not especially handy either. Keep clicking and you’ll find photos and examples.

This was actually a very typical moment for an Amsterdam bicycle commute but my work hours are strange so I don’t often find myself in bicycle traffic jams. Friday was an exception and the drawbridge over the Amstel River was opened so a couple ships could pass through. This bridge is actually quite high so it only needs to open for larger ships.

There are actually many, many such drawbridges in Holland, some even in highways (though these only open in extreme cases). In the city and countryside they open quite often to let freight ships, barges and larger pleasure boats through. The smallest drawbridges in villages are hand operated with a counterweight and a chain. Signs state the local “bruggeld” (bridge toll) which is generally collected by a local pub owner or retiree who hangs a clog from a fishing pole to collect the toll. I’m actually (for once) being serious here. See the photo below.

Generally the bridges operate very quickly but sometimes quite a few boats have gathered and the bridge will remain open for 5 or 10 minutes. Quite a few bicycles, trams, scooters and cars will then accumulate on either side.

Things to note in first photo:

- Schoolgirls with hockey sticks. Field hockey is very popular in Holland.

- The tram (the electric lines for the trams raise and lower with the bridges)

- Only city bikes, most of which have the usual white mudguard tail. No, wait… I spot one rear derailleur.

- Almost every cyclist has a bag slung courier-style over the shoulder

- The stop sign is painted on the road surface of the bridge

- No cars: sorry folks, too many cyclists, pedestrians and trams to have room for cars on this street. You’ll just have to take a longer route through the city.