The coastal climate keeps it from snowing in Amsterdam as much as you’d figure for a place quite far north and with a reputation for considerable rainfall. Some winters it hardly snows at all while some winters it begins in November and snows regularly until spring. Still it almost never snows more than perhaps ten centimeters and then it usually warms up a couple days later, making a slushy, dirty mess and gradually disappearing.

This winter, however, it’s already snowed more in November and the first half of December than we usually see all year. No matter; we have our bikes to get around and today’s snowfall was just what I needed to remember that. This morning I had a plan to train at the Velodrome with my friend Toon. Yes, I still do that sort of thing and no, there is no conflict between being a cyclist for both transportation and fun/fitness. The Amsterdam Velodrome is great way to stay fit when it’s like this outside. It’s just warm enough to wear shorts and even in a snowstorm there are 30 or 40 riders in a training session paceline.


Here’s a picture I coincidentally found of Toon at the Velodrome. See? Nice and warm and dry and fast; sure beats sitting on a stationary trainer at home.

The only challenge today was that I had my track bike at home, not in the storage at the velodrome. Carrying a bike while riding a bike is no big deal; usually I do it with the bakfiets. The front wheel comes off and I strap the handlebar against the back of the box. The rear wheel stands on the front edge of the box and a pair of straps hold the whole rig upright. Looks a little funny but it works like a charm. You might be thinking “Why doesn’t he just ride with the track bike rolling alongside like most normal folks would do?” Or alternatively “Why doesn’t he just ride that darn track bike like the entire world population of skinny-jeans with U-lock wearing, butt-crack showing hipsters. And there is a reason: At a wooden velodrome it’s not allowed to ride on tires that have ever been ridden outside. They can pick up debris that would damage the track surface.

Anyhow Kyoko needed the bakfiets to bring the kids to the daycare this morning and for reasons to mundane to explain our Fr8 city bike was at the shop. That left me with my Brompton folding bike, which actually sucks in snow much less than you’d expect. It is sketchy handling on the slippery, squishy stuff but it’s also very low to the ground making it really easy to do the one foot “outrigger” or tripod thing. So for lack of a better option I set the saddle a few cm lower than usual, tossed the track bike on my right shoulder and set off through about 10cm of unplowed snow holding the Brompton’s handlebar with my left hand. Comfortable it was not but neither was it dangerous; I just had a few kilometers to ride, almost entirely on separated bike paths. I didn’t fall until I tried to dismount at Toon’s house. Then I discovered that the neighborhood road I’d been cycling on was as slippery as a greased pig and fell immediately on my butt with two bikes on top of me. So much for grace.

I did consider the other transport options this morning:

Car: Well, we don’t have one of our own. I could probably have borrowed a friend’s car but it’s parked about half as far away as I had to ride anyway. In any case auto traffic around the city was a mess. The few snowplows they have here were running way behind the heavy snowfall and cars were stuck everywhere.

Tram: There’s a tram that runs between our two houses, with just another few minutes walk on his end. Problem is that the trams and buses were all getting stuck behind the floundering cars and trucks. One of my Workcycles colleagues spent half the afternoon trying to cross the city by tram and finally ended up walking most of it out of frustration. The trams that are running smoothly are jam packed so I also wouldn’t have made any friends carrying a bike frame and a pair of wheels.

Taxi:That would be convenient aside from sitting in traffic while watching the meter tick away at the alarmingly fast Amsterdam taxi rate. Oh, yes, I’d still have to disassemble and reassemble the bike to fit it in the trunk. Basically we only take taxis in Amsterdam when headed to deliver a baby or return home with that baby. Four times thus.

Walking: The distance was just too far for a reasonable walk. It would have taken well over an hour.

This evening after work I rode the Cargobike (bakfiets) to the daycare to pick the kids up. By then quite a bit more snow had fallen and it was either packed down into ice on the car roads or half packed and half sliced up into zig-zag tracks on the bike paths. The bakfiets is actually quite good in such crappy cycling conditions. Though the front wheel is lightly loaded and slides fairly easily the low center of gravity and long wheelbase make for very forgiving handling. Kyoko and I both prefer it to our city bikes when it’s slippery. When it’s as slippery as it was this evening falling is more an inevitability than a bad scenario. Falling with the children under a tough canopy in the wooden box of the bakfiets is annoying for you but probably just funny for your kids. Falling with kid(s) on child seats on a regular bike will result in at least one snowy, screaming kid.

I did drop the bakfiets once this evening; After successfully navigating the paths, roads and sidewalks (hey, whatever works when it looks like this out) to our home I once again today fell on my butt after dismounting at my destination. Two year old Pascal’s response while on his side under the canopy? “Bakfiets Boom! Bakfiets Boom!”

One morning about a week ago I walked outside with the kids on the way to their daycare to discover that our beloved bakfiets had disappeared. A number of Workcycles customer bikes have been stolen recently so theft was our first thought. Nonetheless I walked across the street for a closer look and found the bike hanging from its front wheel. The second lock, which I usually leave behind on that rail, wasn’t connected to the frame. I’m really careful about locking so this all seemed very strange.

A neighbor, headed to unlock his own bike, commented that he’d just seen some guys busy here. Probably they’d tossed the bakfiets over as a joke. He was kind enough to help me pull the 40kg bike back onto land and I continued on to the daycare and work. Aside from some scratches on the box and canopy there was no visible damage.

The bike had been sitting in the water past the rear hub so I asked our shop guys to open the hub, clean the taillamp and chain etc. They found surprisingly just a few drops of water in the hub but that’s still too much. Cleaned and re-lubricated, back in the bike, and the hub now actually feels much better than before. This hub, not uncommon for early Shimano Nexus 8 speeds, was noticeably rough in the fourth gear. Freshly lubed and adjusted, this has all but disappeared.

Fast forward a few days to Friday morning. A storm was passing through (as it often is) and the wind was blowing like mad last night. Bikes, scooters, branches, motorcycles are all over the streets and pavements. Kyoko looks outside and yep, the bakfiets has disappeared into the canal again. From our third floor (fourth to those counting American style) dining room perspective we can just barely see the bottom of the box and a parking stand leg poking into the air. As sentient beings we put 2 + 2 + 2 together and realize that it was, in all likelihood, the wind that tossed the bakfiets off the pavement and not some local, malcontent youths.

But why, all of sudden, does the bike get knocked over by the wind twice in a week when it’s never happened before in the last two years of parking it in the very same spot? Our new habit must be to blame: About a week ago we began leaving the canopy on the bike instead of bringing it inside every evening. It seemed more convenient… and I suppose it would be
if we didn’t park the bike in such an exposed location. Thus a word of warning: Don’t leave your kids in a bakfiets with canopy up in a windstorm next to a canal.

Staten Island Criterium 1982, I’m the kid with orange helmet, blue jersey, red arm pieces.

Speaking of windstorms my old bike racing buddy Chris sent me this photo from our bike racing days as young teens. It was March 1982 and I’d just moved up to the Junior category (ages 15-18) as District Champion in the Intermediate category (ages 12-14). The race was a criterium on a highly exposed course along the beach in Staten Island, NY. We did thousands of such, little races but I remember this one vividly because it was freezing cold and the wind was absolutely howling. Only those with glasses wore eye protection in those days and clouds of sand kicked up from the beach got in our eyes. Lots of it. At least half the field called it quits after it was too painful to continue. The wind and resulting echelons sliced up what remained of the field and finally only a handful of us finished. Our home was just a short drive away and my dad had lived on Staten Island so my folks came along to watch. Even given the awful conditions in such a meaningless race, quitting was not an option today. Instead I won a meal at a local Italian restaurant (or something like that) and washed sand out of my eyes for days. Those were the days.

Thanks to Paul Steely White of the almighty Transportation Alternatives in New York, and Freeman Transport makers of custom bikes and some tasty and tasteful accessories such as this great T-shirt:

Speaking of T-shirts… WorkCycles has them too, along with a fresh supply of hoodies and also handy shop/kitchen aprons. The silkscreen detail of the WorkCycles kruisframe bike is quite amazing on these. As always, supplies are limited to act fast to get one!

- Hoodie: €35
- T-shirt: €15
- Apron: €20

Here’s artist Kyoko modeling the hoodie sweatshirt with the family Brompton. The design is essentially the same on the T-shirts and aprons. Both hoodies and T-shirts are heavyweights of great quality. The aprons are quite long and have pockets.

Contact WorkCycles for more info.

We were back at the panda portrait thing on the way to dinner this evening on the bakfiets cargobike. Still haven’t gotten around to mounting the camera to get Kyoko in the shot too. I guess we don’t really plan these things.

One could actually debate whether these are truly “pandas” considering that the one taking the picture (Kyoko) is not the one piloting the bike (me). But, in our defense all three of us are riding on the bike and considering that poles, remotes, tripods are acceptable for pandas I cannot see why a passenger photographer would not be accepted.

Actually I’d like to take some shots of how we usually ride as a family: Pascal in the box, me piloting and Kyoko side-saddle on the rear carrier. But to do that we’d have to mount the camera and operate it remotely, something that would actually require planning.

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.

A little background here: Many moms carry their babies around by bicycle here in the Netherlands. It’s pretty much a necessity when families live in densely packed cities where driving an automobile is neither practical, pleasant or affordable. At WorkCycles we’ve always recommended that this be done by putting the child in a Maxi-Cosi (by far the most popular make of car seat for infants), secured in the box of a bakfiets. We mostly do this in the Bakfiets.nl Cargobike but a number of others are good as well. We have a lot of experience with this system and haven’t seen any problems. Customers have even told us stories of accidents that their babies SLEPT through. In short a baby appears to be fairly safe in a protective car seat, in a sturdy wooden box, only several centimeters from the ground.

But not everybody wants to ride a Bakfiets and we customers regularly ask us to mount the Maxi Cosi on the front or rear carrier of a standard format bike… which we’ve steadfastly refused. Colleagues of ours do this regularly and quite a few customers have left one of our shops and gone straight to “brand X” where they’ve bought a bike equipped this way. We haven’t really helped the customer in such a case and we’ve lost a sale as well. I wanted to research the matter further.

Photo: Example of a bike equipped to carry a baby in a Maxi Cosi over the front wheel, NOT from WorkCycles.

Setting the Maxi-Cosi on a front carrier seemed like a BAD idea but perhaps acceptable with our new, super heavy duty and stable Fr8 bike. So I built a test rig and experimented with Pascal, then 2 mo old. Kyoko and I each rode the bike for an afternoon on a variety of (quiet) roads and smooth paths in Amsterdam.

One of our complaints with carrying babies on standard type bikes is that the parking stands are inadequate to hold the “load” stably. This is particularly true since the baby is set high over the front wheel while most bikes have their parking stand beneath the crank axle. That’s just not stable. The Fr8 is built differently: The rack is mounted with just enough clearance over the front tire and a very wide and stiff stand is integrated into the “Massive Rack”. This rack and stand are actually rated for over 150kg of cargo so a few kg of baby, Maxi-Cosi and the overbuilt system were not going to tax it. Test one passed with flying colors.

The system holding the Maxi-Cosi looks cheesy but it’s actually extremely solid and secure. I wouldn’t have put my 2 month old son in there otherwise! I bolted a board to the carrier and strong tie-down straps secure the Maxi-Cosi. In the bag below the Maxi Cosi are a stack of blankets and cushions for shock damping. It’s not visible in the photos but Pascal IS strapped into the Maxi Cosi under the blankets.

Riding the bike with baby aboard was obviously no problem, but wasn’t nearly as confidence inspiring as having the baby low in the wooden box of the bakfiets. There remained something unnerving about having the baby so high and in your sight line.

While riding we discovered the real problem with such a system: damping of large amplitude vibrations from the road surface… shaking the baby in other words. On perfectly smooth surfaces it was fine, but even the smallest irregularities in the road caused Pacal’s head to shake up and down. Even with the giant 54mm tires of the Fr8 so soft that they almost rolled on the rims, a small pothole or root pushing through the road caused unacceptable shaking.

Project over thus:
The shocks transmitted through the bike in such a format are simply unacceptable for a small baby, and short of an elaborate suspension system there is no way to counter it. An adequate suspension would require much more vertical distance between the baby carrier and front wheel and this setup was already as high as I would consider acceptable. Thus any further work in this direction would require a bike with a much smaller front wheel.

We maintain our position that carrying a baby on the front of a “normal” format bike is not acceptable and will not offer this until we’ve found a better approach.

Keeping with the international spirit today here’s a beautiful video featuring “Dekochari”, Japanese bikes decorated with enormous amounts of lights and effects, and beautiful music by Bunta Sugawara and Kinya Aikawa. I’m guessing that “deko” stands for “decorated” and “chari” for “chariot” like for “mamachari” which are the women’s bikes with built in baby seats for one or two kids. Kyoko could provide more info here but she’s sleeping.

These bikes have lots in common with the Queens, NY “boom box bikes” I wrote about in 2007.

And there’s also more than a little in common with the crazy, dressed-up Japanese kids bikes of the 70′s, also from about a year ago here.

Thanks to customer Wendy Monroe for the tip!

[Show as slideshow]

Keeping with the spirit of “practice what you preach” its to be expected that Kyoko and I would be transporting our son Pascal around in a Bakfiets Cargobike. We actually considered bringing him home from the hospital in a bakfiets but figured we’d just be tired and Kyoko would have no interest in sitting on or in a bike at that point. In fact we we’re totally wasted tired and definitely in no mood for cycling, even those two flat kilometers. It was one of the few times we’ve ever been happy to see a taxi in Amsterdam. Come to think of it it was also the only time Pascal has been in a car in his 11 week life.

After four weeks Kyoko was cycling again and Pascal seemed ready join his mom. I hadn’t even begun building our own bakfiets so I “borrowed” one of the WorkCycles rental/loaner bakfietsen for a few days and bolted in one of our Maxi-Cosi carriers. Its probably an exaggeration to say that Pascal “enjoyed” the ride, but he did sleep soundly the entire time; It certainly wasn’t bothersome for him.

We’ve had pretty terrible weather this fall and that’s good for keeping customers out of the shops. Thus I finally had time to build Kyoko’s own bakfiets. Perhaps I went a little over the top with the custom wheels with orange hubs (Sram i9 9-speed and Shimano dynamo hub with IM70 rollerbrake), orange painted fenders, lighting wiring run completely through the frame and rear carrier and a hundred other little, obsessive details. The Sram hub is in there just to get some experience with it. We generally avoid Sram gear hubs but Shimano’s are sometimes unavailable so its good to know the alternatives.

But wait… didn’t I recently write that I don’t obsess about my own utility bikes? Yes I did, but this is my wife’s bike, not mine.

Just to note, you might wonder whether its significant that I chose an “old-model” Bakfiets Cargobike instead of the new Cargobike 2.0. The answer is simple: No, Kyoko just wanted an ivory white bike with colored parts and we had a Cargobike 1 and parts that fit the bill. In any case the differences between the two models aren’t enough to really care one way or the other.

Now at 11 weeks old Pascal sometimes stays awake while cycling, gazing back at mom or out (mostly upward) at the world. He seems very content tucked in his Maxi-Cosi, inside the canopy. The Maxi-Cosi snaps into his pram (a compact Bugaboo Bee, yes we’re very happy with it)… which easily fits into the rear of the Cargobike box. So Kyoko or I can bring the baby and a complete pram along in case the destination requires a fair amount of walking. Very handy!

The bike is parked in front of our house, where it will mostly live. We figure the very open location on the canal and next to a bridge makes it very visible from two streets and dozens of apartments. A thief would be very bold to fire up a disk grinder to cut through those hardened 10mm chains, though I doubt it’ll stop the local urchins from tagging the box.

You’ve probably never even thought about what bike the owner of WorkCycles rides every day. Fortunately that won’t stop me from showing you anyway. So here it is, in all its unwashed glory, plucked right from the street for its own, unglamourous photo shoot. I left the lock on the handlebars because I never ride without it. No gleaming, lustrous paint, polished anything, fancy parts, hydraulic anything or obsession about saddle care to be found here. Just to note: this Brooks B66 saddle was found on an abandoned bike and had probably sagged to death before I was even born. All the better – nobody will steal it.

My bike is an outdoor dog and that’s just a fact of life around the center of Amsterdam. Its about three years old and always sleeps chained to a lamppost right in front of our house. I ride it a couple times almost every day, for everything from commuting to riding to the station with a suitcase for traveling. There’s also a hitch that tows a nifty Carry Freedom trailer when the load gets too big. My wife Kyoko sometimes sits on the top tube, since I’ve no rear carrier… or at least she did until we had a baby a couple months ago. We have no car and I’m not much of a tram fan so the bike gets ridden in sun, rain, hail and snow. I enjoy almost all of it.

This bike gets cleaned only during repairs, which are extremely seldom. Nonetheless, it is smooth and silent and has never let me down: the lights have worked without a single failure, there are no gears to go out of adjustment, the brakes brake just fine, nothing has ever broken and probably never will. I can’t even recall ever having a puncture in this bike. Yes, I’m knocking wood right now. I pump the tires up either when I remember to, or the rims begin bottoming on the ground.

My bike has, however, been damaged for me, as described in this earlier post. Occasionally my bike falls or gets knocked over while parked. It has also inadvertently (and maybe not so accidentally) inflicted damage on some cars, as seen in the red streak of paint on the front carrier. That resulted in a car mirror flying though the air. Oops.

By no means is this my only bicycle but it is my only city bike and the one I ride 99% of the time. I love it but don’t obsess about it.