It’s our seventh annual, world-famous WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest* (“october bike, beer and BBQ party”). As usual we’ll have live music, yummy food, plentiful drink, balloon animal making, absurdly generous lottery/raffle, child friendliness, and a general relaxed atmosphere. Yep, we missed last year but we promise to make up for it this time!

*”Oktoberfietsfeest” translates approximately to “Traditional, Bavarian inspired, beer and wine soaked, sausage devouring, autumnal bicycle party”. We take full credit for inventing it and imitators will be mercilessly ridiculed for their lack of creativity.

The important questions:

Speaking of winning bikes… Sign up for another chance to win a (different) Workcycles bike by voting for Workcycles as “Best Bike Shop in Amsterdam” for the 2nd year in a row. Maybe it seems arrogant but we really believe that we’re the best of the 250 choices in Amsterdam and do our best every day to keep improving. VOTE HERE (question #48) and just skip the other 49 if you don’t care which is the best canine friendly, organic coffeeshop in A’dam.

Check out some previous Oktoberfietsfeesten:
WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest 2008: Photo journal
A shiny day for Workcycles Oktoberfietsfeest

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

- Henry and the Workcycles crew

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Tattoo studio House of Tattoos a few blocks from WorkCycles in the Amsterdam Jordaan did this tattoo. Though it is one of our bikes (in mirror image) it’s not gracing one of our bodies; Tom found it while searching for tattoo artists. You can see more of Emilia’s work here. The bike isn’t really typical of her work. Most is of very finely drawn human and animal subjects.

I really appreciate the permanence and commitment of tattoos and some are really beautiful… but I can’t think of anything I want drawn on my body.

A year or so ago Oscar Mulder of My Dutch Bike in San Francisco commented that he’d periodically heard from his family that his great grandfather had a bicycle shop in Amsterdam and was the “inventor of the bakfiets”. Perhaps this was never a particularly notable factoid until Oscar and his wife Soraya began a shop dedicated to supplying bakfietsen and other Dutch bikes last year.

Needless to say I’m always skeptical about anybody who’s supposedly the inventor of anything as straightforward as a bicycle with a box. But also being fascinated by the history of such things, and bikes in particular, I was also very curious to learn more. Was he known for developing a particular style of transport bike, or a special bakfiets for a particular purpose much as Maarten van Andel is much more recently the “spiritual godfather” of the 2-wheeled family bakfiets? Such stories often get twisted, misunderstood and mistranslated as they get passed through generations and languages so such an explanation seemed fairly plausible.

I forgot about the incident until Oscar sent me a note with a number of scans of photos he’d received from his mother (who still lives in Holland). None of the photos are dated but a little archive research as well as some technical features of the bikes seems to puts most of them in the 1910-1915 range. Making the task a little easier is the fact that the shop was in the Jordaan district just a few blocks from both my home and WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht location where my office is. Much of the Jordaan looks much like it did 100 or actually even 250 years ago… aside from the cars (yes, even here there are some, though mostly just parked), some rather tasteless new buildings from the 1960′s and 70′s, and a few of the bigger canals that were filled in.

Concerning the photos and archive info we first see that great grandpa did indeed have a bike shop at Rozengracht 49 (and maybe also 40 though that’s disputable). It was called “Bergreijer” which is a play on words. Bergmeijer was the family name but “rij” is the first person form of “ride” or “drive” and “berg” also happens to mean “mountain” so in a punny sort of way it means “mountain rider”. The Dutch, incidentally, have a thing for funny names. Even when other countries were busy with dead-serious names and advertising the Dutch were naming companies with puns and other humorous approaches. It’s a history that goes back at least to when Napoleon became ruler of the region in 1810 and forced everybody to take on a family name which wasn’t at all universal at that time. Either out of spite for their ruler or figuring the names would disappear along with the ruler many people cose silly names. I actually know people who’s names directly translate to “Fountain pen”, “Short knees” and “Born naked”… seven generations later. Napoleon’s bones must be laughing in his grave.

This week Herbert Kuner of the excellent rijwiel.net website sent a couple emails to Oscar chock full of additional information. Kuner found a Bergreijer advertisement in a 1919 trade magazine listing also a separate factory at Laurierstraat 134-142. This is around the corner from the Rozengracht 49 and presumably the factory location was just for production since I don’t think the Laurierstraat was ever a street for retail shops. There are still a number of light industrial outfits there, for example our offset printing firm a few doors down from where Bergreijer stood. This location is also not listed in the 1915 phone book, which inexplicably we both found digitized on the Internet.

Another picture, though shows yet another bike shop called J. Cruiming right next to Bergreijer in the Rozengracht. Cruiming apparently also called themselves a bicycle factory and in fact a sign notes that their shop was not open to the public. This combination of retailer and fabricator is not so strange; many bike shops in this period made their own frames and other parts. I was able to find the same buildings in Google Street View. The two buildings in the right of the photo are essentially unchanged but the facades of numbers 49 (Bergreijer) and 51 (Cruimer) have unfortunately been changed.

The photos include a number of bikes, most of them fairly standard models for this period. Inside the shop are two rows of bikes, many of them with rod-operated rim brakes and none with lights fitted. A carbide lamp fitted to the bracket at the top of the headset was the standard nighttime solution then though none are visible here. Barely visible in the lower right corner seems to be a child sized bike.

There’s a gentleman in uniform, I’m guessing police though I suppose it could also be military or some other official function in which case he was very happy that the Netherlands remained neutral in WWI. His bike has a front fender that ends behind the fork crown as was the practice then. It’s a fixed gear since I see no sign of either hand brakes or even a reaction arm for a coaster brake. The chainring is a work of art and we can see it since none of the bikes in the photos have any kind of chain covers. Apparently the enclosed chain case became a defining feature of the Dutch bike later on.

Here’s a rather dashing fellow looking ready for the start of the next Portland Tweed Ride or other costume themed bicycle gathering. I’m guessing he’s physically challenged since his stylish tricycle is hand driven through a very simple pair of levers that also serve to steer the machine. It looks like it would ride fine in a fairly straight line but sharp turns could be difficult, especially for somebody who’s partially paralyzed… or maybe that’s not really the purpose of this trike. There aren’t many streets this wide bordering large rivers in Amsterdam so I’ll venture a guess that this photo was taken on the west side of the Amstel river.

***Correction: A sharp-eyed, bike loving friend of Herb Kuner in Amsterdam points out that the above and below pictures look like they were taken along the Nassaukade. Silly me! That’s right around the corner from my home and I didn’t recognize it. Of course it is about 100 years later, but still… This morning I looked more carefully while riding Pascal to his daycare center and sure enough I found a spot where the trees (aside from being much thicker) and buildings match the above photo.

This is our first bakfiets of the bunch, and it’s a remarkably ornate one. Check out that laquered box, the beautiful ironwork that seems to support both the loooong leaf springs and the handlebar, and the carbide lamps missing from the bikes in the shop above. The bike almost looks like more of a showpiece than a utility vehicle but who knows what its function was: selling cakes or household goods perhaps? Whatever it carried wasn’t heavy given the light-duty leaf springs. Though this is a very old bakfiets I’ve seen many pictures of similarly old bakfietsen from England and the Netherlands. Nope, this is not the bakfiets Mr. Bergmeijer invented.

Now, THESE last two are the bikes in question. They’re vaguely “Long John” type bikes from at least 20 years before anybody called them “Long John”. Actually they differ from Long Johns and all of the more modern variations in that the frame also runs above the load carrier along with the steering mechanism. On Long Johns, van Andel’s Bakfiets.nl Cargobike and the legions of bicycles these two have inspired the front wheel is steered via a rod linkage below the load carrier. The two photos show two different versions o the Bergreijer transportfiets. The photo with the delivery boy is probably an earlier model or prototype with no steering linkage; the handlebar has simply been extended back to reach the rider. The other bike with “G. Goes, Hemonystraat 18″ (an address in Amsterdam) has a longer box and is steered via a rather complex system of bevel gears on a shaft. They seem to have gone from the simplest system possible to the most complicated… or maybe the other way around. The bike is clearly marked “Bergreijer” and “Model D” along the top tube.

I have seen a few other bikes that looked like these. One of them I almost purchased a few years ago but the owner decided not to sell it after all. This bike with its much more robust construction and dynamo lighting is much more recent, possibly from the 1930′s. The owner told me it was a Maxwell, a very well regarded Amsterdam builder of transport bikes, quite a few of whose big trikes still can still be on the streets. Another very similar (but still different) bike is displayed at a bike repair shop near Amsterdam Central Station.

Looking more recent than the Bergreijer bikes but older than these two are these slick-looking Veeno’s shown on rijwiel.net. It is worth noting that ALL of the bikes described here are older than the 1938 I’ve seen proposed as the beginning of the Danish Long Johns, though I imagine somebody, somewhere in Denmark was also experimenting with long wheelbase transport bikes before then. This repeating of history and reinventing of wheels I discussed earlier in “What’s really new in the bicycle world?”.

So did the Bergmeijer brothers invent this type of bike? It’s possible and their “Long Johns” are the oldest I’ve seen yet. However I’m only a dabbler in antique bikes and this was a time of incredible innovation and experimentation with bicycles (and cars, motorcycles and trucks too). There were several thousand little bike companies throughout the country so quite likely somebody else was also working on such bikes as well. Some day somebody else’s grandmother might pull a few worn photos of even older examples from a shoe box. For now though, I think it’s safe to say we’re at least approaching the beginnings of the Long John type bike.

Does anybody have any more good clues to help fill in the puzzle?

It’s our sixth annual, world-famous WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest (“october bike, beer and BBQ party”). As usual we’ll have live music, tasty food, plentiful drink, balloon animal making, generous lottery/raffle, child friendliness, and a general relaxed atmosphere.

The important questions:

Check out the previous two Oktoberfietsfeesten:
WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest 2008: Photo journal
A shiny day for Workcycles Oktoberfietsfeest

- Henry, Chris, Richard, Tom, Eric, Thomas, Heimo & Alexis

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Yep, I love old bikes, especially really nice old bikes. I would have taken more photos of this old Fongers opafiets if he hadn’t been sandwiched between a half dozen other bikes… Amsterdam style. So I had to be content with a close-up of the giant, bullet-shaped Philips headlamp. If you look carefully you can see the reserve bulb above the normal bulb. Also note the soft luster of the nickel-plated finish on the headlamp, handlebar and brake rods.

Though I’m no Fongers expert I do know that they’re widely regarded as the best of the old Dutch bikes, which would make them the best of the best old bikes. Fongers, based in bicycle capital of the world Groningen, made both standard production bikes like this one and also very, very special bespoke bikes with unusual features such as locking headsets, sophisticated rim brakes and eccentric chain adjustment. These special Fongers models were extraordinarily expensive… and still are if you can find one.

To the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge only the older (prewar perhaps?) Forgers are of interest to the serious Fongers fanatics. In the 1950′s Fongers fused with a couple other northern bike makers and then in 1970 it was taken over by Batavus. Bikes have been periodically produced since then under the Fongers name but nothing to get your panties in a bunch about.

Andre Koopmans’ photostream in Flickr has quite a few great pictures of old Fongers bikes (including some made from hundred year old glass negatives), along with some truly arcane discussion about the various esoteric Fongers special bikes from the beginning of the last century. An example below:

Inside the RIH Sport shop on the Westerstraat

I was just paging through the Jordaan neighborhood newsletter and came across a little article by local bike racer Henny Marinus, who became Dutch champion in 1959 for the first time (and probably quite a few times after). Marinus rode a bike from our neighbors at RIH Sport on the Westerstraat, number 150.

RIH has been building racing bikes since 1921, first in a workshop nearby and then within a couple years in their present spot in the Westerstraat. They’re something of a legend in the Dutch cycling scene. No less than 63 world championships and olympic gold medals have been won on bikes built in the little RIH shop. The founders Joop and Willem Bustraan passed the business onto their son Willem Junior whose partner Wim continues to build bikes there. I’m guessing Wim is either semi-retired or uses much of the week to build in the workshop behind the showroom, since his opening hours are quite limited.

As you might imagine RIH bikes are traditional in style. They’re timeless, cleanly made, all lugged steel and I’ve never noticed any oversized tubes in their bikes. A couple times I’ve stopped by to do something our shops don’t have tools for (Italian thread BB taps for example) and Wim has been very kind, asking only a token sum for his time.

More info about the history of RIH
RIH Sport Website

Today was the most important day of the year for the Dutch: Queen’s Day. Everybody should experience this monumental block party slash mass garage sale at least once in their life. Nowhere else have I ever experienced so much humanity in such close quarters for so long over such a large part of a city. Three quarters of the city wears orange. Boats fill some canals bumper to bumper. People pack the most popular streets making even walking impossible, never mind bicycling or driving a car.

A few years ago Queen’s Day meant heavy-duty partying from the evening before (Queen’s Night) until at least late afternoon for us. Beer flows through the streets as water through the canals. We wandered the Jordaan (drunkenly) feeling half insider and half outsider.

But after eight or ten Queen’s Days the spectacle of the crowds and the partying becomes too familiar. More recently it’s become a quest to buy as much needed baby stuff as possible, as cheaply as possible. Kyoko researches the best neighborhoods to shop, and maps out our schedule… beginning at an ungodly early hour. Of course she knows what she’s doing and this year we scored a high-chair, lots of old wooden toys, modern toys, three buckets of baby-lego, cute clothes, two Bobike Mini child seats and more, all for maybe €100. The lightheated salesmanship and negotiations over how many cents will be paid for a toy make it all fun. Our partying was limited to sitting on our friends’ roof terrace afterward.

So why tell you about “Koninginnedag”? Well, because the bakfietsen are instrumental. All of the WorkCycles and MacBike rental bakfietsen get reserved months in advance by people and organizations planning to sell their goods or put on a show.

We and many others carry our new possessions home by bike too. It’s pretty much the only practical way to do so considering you can’t get a car within kilometers of the busy areas. Cycling might sometimes be slow or frustrating but you can usually find a quieter street to ride along or at least walk the bike through the crowd for a couple blocks. This year we took Kyoko’s Bakfiets Cargobike and a WorkCycles shop errand bike with two 60cm x 40cm plastic bins.

On a more somber note there was an attempted attack on the Royal Family, who was in Apeldoorn for the event. Some guy sped his Suzuki Swift (a small car) through the barriers in an attempt to hit the open bus the Royal Family rode in during the procession. He missed the bus but hit a number of bystanders. Some five people were killed and about a dozen wounded. The Dutch Royal Family has always travelled with minimal security and has never previously had a seriously threatening situation. Similarly the Dutch ministers are known for riding bikes around like normal people The press is speculating that this era of innocence has just ended.

60% off our favorite shoes from Trippen! This has pretty much nothing to do with bicycles but our friends Ben and Geraldine have decided to close their Amsterdam shoe shop “Shoes Garage” to move onto other ventures. Thus they’re blowing out the complete Trippen shoes collection.

You’re probably not familiar with Trippen. They’re a tiny firm in Berlin that designs funky, stylish, super-comfortable (and normally quite expensive) shoes. The shoes are hand-made in Italy from very obviously high quality leather. Some have notably thick leather, others super soft. Many models feature a molded cork insole like the main construction of Birkenstock sandals and this makes them very comfortable (and non smell gathering) when worn without socks. Why people then choose to wear their Birkenstocks with socks is thus one of the world’s great fashion-don’t mysteries.

Shoes Garage can be found in a little street in the Jordaan, just a few blocks from the new WorkCycles bike shop. Visit us both and kill two birds with one stone! (or as the Dutch say: two flies with one clap!):

The sale begins Saturday 22 November and runs until 1 December 2008. Get ‘em while they’re hot.

Newsflash July 2009: The sale has been over for months. Shoes Garage is closed, gone, and their website is offline. There are no more Trippen shoes. I cannot help you find Trippen shoes. Please do not contact WorkCycles or leave comments with inquiries for shoes. Thanks!

Shoes Garage
Eerste Bloemdwarsstraat 5C
1016 KR, Amsterdam
tel 1: 06 2497 0845
tel 2: 06 1588 7786
Shoes Garage Website

In beide winkels kun je fietsen (stadsfietsen, transportfietsen en bakfietsen) bekijken, uitproberen, aanschaffen of huren. Beide locaties zijn tevens volledig uitgerust om u te voorzien van service, en voor het doen van reparaties en aanpassingen aan uw fiets. Weet wel dat Workcycles fietsen bij ons voorrang hebben, echter ook transportfietsen van andere kwaliteitsmerken zijn we bereid te onderhouden. Voor service en verhuur is het verstandig van tevoren even te bellen voor een afspraak.

Bij de nieuwe Lijnbaansgracht vestiging hebben we ongeveer 5 keer zoveel ruimte als in de Veemarkt dus kunnen we een grotere assortiment bakfietsen en transportfietsen in de showroom houden. Meer verhuurbakfietsen zijn ook beschikbaar.

Op de WorkCycles contact pagina kun je een kaart vinden. Let op: De Lijnbaansgracht is een lange straat en we zitten bijna in de noordelijke hoek, vlakbij de Westerstraat en Lindengracht.

De verbouwing van dit oude pand nam heel veel werk, voornamelijk dooor ons uitgevoerd. Ben je nieuwsgierig over hoe beroerd het pand aanvankelijk eruitzag. Kij hier.

Childhood friend, photographer and cyclist Jonathan Barkey of Brooklyn, New York took all of gorgeous photos you see here. Thanks Jon!

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I’ll comment on most of the photos, beginning from above left:

My parents, Leonard & Betsey Cutler show off a couple new WorkCycles Fr8 bikes… so new they’re not even on our website yet. Henry shows off the latest WorkCycles “H.C. Clothing” to Sean Valerio of Museum Tickets fame. Mmmm, WorkCycles bikes! A cool English dude with accent straight out of “Snatch” checkin’ out the bikes and girls. A last minute rain shelter for the BBQ with Anne Kirchenmann, vegetarian grill virtuoso at work. Wieger from De Redding bakfietsen with Eric Loques of WorkCycles in front of the Great Wall of Panniers. Checkin’ out some (no longer) top secret WorkCycles prototypes. Willem & Dominik of Gitaarduo belting out the tunes. They’ve expanded well beyond bicycle themed songs and brought friends along to do original pieces. MacBike‘s new amphibious, submersible bakfiets. They’ll be using a fleet of these to lead underwater canal tours of Amsterdam. Its a little known fact that much of the most interesting history of Amsterdam is to be found under the murky canal water! Frank of BuroFrank and Stella brought their new prototype mini-bakfiets.

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Here are some of the most notable personalities, at least those whose names I can remember:

Henry of WorkCycles compliments Rick of Segijn en van Wees on their beautiful bikes with attitude. Stella checkin’ out 8 week old Pascal who’s checkin’ her out too. Wesley Hemelrijk with artist Simsa Cho. More about him later. Marc of Amsterdamize fame, Bruno of Museum Tickets and Chopperdome Rhalf. Chris and Richard, a couple of the brains behind WorkCycles. Anne, veggie meat griller supreme with Milou and Natasja. Ronald Onderwater of the other famous submersible bike with Johan of Azor Bike. David Lee of De Woordensmederij. Eric Loques of WorkCycles with another sketchy English character. Me showing off Pascal Yo. Heng Sie and Aki, Ingeborg & Martijn Samsom, Marlies & friend. Eric Schuijt, world famous bicycle traveler and owner of nearby Vakantiefietser with photographer Martin van Welzen who makes the lovely photos for our site (the good ones that is – I take the amateurish ones). Henry and dad Leonard with Jan Rijkeboer, owner of Azor Bike.

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Nope, I’m not even going to try remembering the names of the kids. Its clear they had a fine time though. A pair of De Redding bakfietsen (also to rent for parties!) made handy jungle-gyms. We grilled up lots of “pannekoeken” (dutch pancakes). Balloons were inflated, exploded, folded, tied, drawn on and fought with. A Xootr made a handy time-trial vehicle as the kids challenged each other to do the fastest lap through the crowd of tipsy adults. Two boxes of street chalk were reduced to mere powder – Note Jonah’s foot “drawing” technique. The kids won prizes in the lottery, here a big box that promises “300 games”.

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We gave away tons of WorkCycles hoodie sweatshirts, T-shirts (new) and work/cook aprons (also new). These are all in stock and available to purchase as well. Lots of other schwag including Vredestein baseball caps to Schwalbe courier bags, LED blinking pedals and Axa SL7 locks (don’t actually try to USE these!) was also given away.

But the grand prize everybody was gunning for was the custom WorkCycles bike, complete with orange tires and matching graphics. Artist Simsa Cho was the lucky man of the day and I can’t think of a more suitable owner for such an extroverted bike.

Thanks everybody for your support and patronage! It was a pleasure being your hosts and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Missed the party? You’re still welcome to visit our new shop any time. You can find directions to WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht here. We’re open for business both at the new location and at the original WorkCycles in the Veemarkt in Zeeburg.

Here you can see what the WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht space looked like when we began construction this March.