Friday Richard was locking up some bikes in the parking spot in front of our Lijnbaansgracht (the “gracht” part means “canal”) and accidentally dropped a loop of the cable into the canal… where it got hooked on something under the water. After some stout pulling Richard found the following:

Bingo! Free bike. We pulled it out of the water while tourists watched and laughed at this amazing Amsterdam phenomenon. Possibly only moving one’s furniture through the window with a rope and pulley suspended from the hook in the roof can gather more pointing tourists here. And for a better look at our prized catch:

We see that it’s a Gazelle Omafiets at least 40 years old though it definitely hasn’t been in the canal that long. Forty years ago there was no need for such a huge chain lock. The fish have eaten the rubber blocks from the pedals though apparently didn’t like the taste of the tires. The bike is equipped with rod operated brakes indicating that it was quite a chique model in its time.

The rear hub has since been replaced with a Fichtel & Sachs Torpedo coaster brake instead of the original Sturmey Archer drum brake hub. Note also that the rear wheel spokes are entirely intact (stainless steel) while the front wheel spokes are almost entirely rusted away (galvanized steel).

Restoration project anyone? It’s still standing in front of WorkCycles Lijnbaansgracht shop if you want it.

The question whether cycling is decreasing in popularity in Amsterdam or the Netherlands has been raised here several times. Each time the answer has been “No, transportation cycling is actually increasing here.” Today yet more statistics were listed in the Bike Europe trade website that show that bike use continues to rise.

from Bike Europe (via Fietsberaad though I couldn’t find it there) with my commentary mixed in:

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.

There are not many places in the world where bicycle use actually exceeds car use, and certainly no other capital cities. But it gets better…

In 2006 the inhabitants of Amsterdam engaged in some 2 million trips a day, an 8% reduction compared to 1990. This is due to the number of trips per person per day falling from 3.6 to 3.1. The number of transfers has fallen in the old city within the ring road in particular.

These seem to be the total numbers of trips, made by all means of transportation.

The number of trips by car, compared to 1990, has fallen in all districts (-14%), whereas the number of trips by bicycle has only risen within the ring road (+36%). The bike is used most often in the town centre (41% versus an average of 28%) and the car least often (10% versus an average of 28%). This can be attributed to the restrictive parking policies enacted here since the 1990s.

Not surprisingly the higher the density, the more bike use is favored. Thus where we live and the WorkCycles shops are the number of bicycle trips is at least four times as great as car trips.

‘Dienst Infrastructuur en Beheer’, the infrastructure department of the city registered approximately 235,000 car movements in both directions at the city centre in 1990; by 2006 this had fallen to 172,000, a decrease of over a quarter. Over the same period the number of daily movements by bicycle rose from 86,000 to over 140,000 (+60%).

Let’s keep up the good work so that in a generation cars will be an insignificant part of the traffic and street scene in Amsterdam.

Paul Steely White has had a long day

New York celebrity speaker and bike transport advocate Paul Steel White of Transportation Alternatives stood from dawn till dusk on “Drive Your Bike to Work Day” commending bike commuters for their good behavior and imploring them not to join the spawning bike salmon this spring.

Eventually even tireless White couldn’t take it anymore but his WorkCycles Opafiets wasn’t fazed. (Why would it- It’s just a bike!) But rumor has it the Opafiets even continued on for a rendezvous met a certain desirable Omafiets in his neighborhood, saying something about wanting a Brooks saddle.

Actress Famke Jansen rides her WorkCycles Omafiets through the streets of New York

Actually it concerns me less that she’s a semi-famous celebrity type (former Bond-girl etc.) than that it’s just a cool photo of a good looking Dutch woman nonchalantly riding her good looking Dutch bike through Manhattan. Yes, the bike is a WorkCycles-Azor Omafiets, purchased from WorkCycles dealer Dutch Bike Seattle.

Whoever the photographer is, he used a seriously high resolution camera. Amongst the photo series are a couple that zoom in on details of Famke I didn’t specifically need to see. Look here if you DO want to see that but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the “adult” content.

Word on the street has it that an anonymous cyclist has put a €50,000 bounty out for anyone who can steal her bike seat and deliver it to his office in a zip lock bag. Famke, keep that bike and saddle well locked!

All WorkCycles bikes are built to order for their new owners, but we generally keep them quite understated. After all they’re workhorses. Sometimes, though, we just enjoy making something more special. This bike was an experiment in combining the beautiful, curved tube Oma frame with the lighter parts of the Secret Service… and perhaps we then got a little overzealous. The result is still an omafiets but definitely not the one your grandmother rode. Nonetheless it remains a tough, utilitarian bike with full LED/dynamo lighting, fenders, front carrier, chaincase etc.

We were a little sad to see her go but she’s clearly going to a good home; a lovely, sporty woman in Amsterdam who rides 1 1/2 hours per day. Her husband also rides one of our bikes.

In case you’re wondering what one of these babies will set you back, it was €1200 as you see it. Really, that’s a bargain for so much hand-made love you can enjoy every day for decades.

Rick Wilson of Café Vélo in Portland, Oregon sent me this pic of his snowy WorkCycles Fr8. Its one of three Fr8′s in the USA, and was actually the very first Cross-frame made. The other two Fr8′s are at Clever Cycles (possibly available to purchase).

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Rick writes:

“In accordance with proper snow driving guidelines i added some ballast to the frontal load area of the Fr8 to ensure the front wheel had plenty of traction.

The Fr8 handles wonderfully in the snow with the Fat Franks and the bakfiets tracks well, but U turns are a bit tricky on slick snow covered pavement as would be expected. Would not want to be under the FR8 if it goes down, however ”

I’m assuming Rick is referring to the Bakfiets.nl Cargobike in the photos above, and not his giant, three-wheeled Classic Dutch Bakfiets a.k.a. “Café Vélo” since that one would be a snap on snow and ice… unless the road surface turns downhill.

Rick seems to be quite a fan of our bikes considering that his family has four of them, or rather his family and business have four of them.

So, anyhow, a lot of people are asking why the Fr8 isn’t to be found on the WorkCycles site yet and that’s a perfectly reasonable question. There are a few reasons:

But we’ve now got the design details sorted out and we’re ramping up production to vastly improve availability of Fr8′s in Spring 2009. In fact we’re even building a special, little factory to build the Fr8 and its future brothers and sisters. I’ll let you speculate just what those will be.

Fr8 pages on the WorkCycles site are finally in the works, and as you’ll note on our dealer page our network is expanding.

In the meantime a few teaser photos…

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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.

Nu is je kans om een super mooie en degelijke WorkCycles stadsfiets met 20% korting te kopen. Wij hebben nog wat fietsen met iets oudere specificaties (2007-2008 modellen) en het is gewoon tijd om ze uit onze winkels te krijgen. Er is, trouwens, helemaal niks mis mee meet deze fietsen. Ze verschillen alleen maar in enkele details van onze nieuwste uitvoeringen: bijvoorbeeld mischien een andere velgtype, een gewone dynamo of 7 versnellingen IPV 8 versnellingen.

We hebben een redelijk breed assortiment van modellen, frame types en maten beschikbaar o.a. omafiets, opafiets, kruisframe heren (pastoorfiets) en dames, transport dubbele stang en abdij (een andere type kruisframe). De meeste fietsen zijn martzwart maar eer zijn ook enkele in hoogglans.

De uitverkoop loopt totdat de oude fietsen op zijn of 31 december 2008. Nu staan deze fietsen in beide winkels maar we gaan ze allemaal naar de Lijnbaansgracht winkel verhuizen.

Bel of gewoon langskomen om een fiets uit te zoeken:

Stadsfietsen op WorkCycles’ website

And now in English for our foreign friends…
Now is your chance to purchase a beautiful, tough WorkCycles city/utility bike with a 20% discount. We still have some bikes with older specifications (2007-2008 models) and its simply time to get them out of our stores. There is, incidentally, absolutely nothing wrong with these bikes. They differ only in certain details from our latest bicycles: for example maybe another rim type, a standard dynamo or 7 speeds instead of 8 speeds.

We have a reasonably broad range of models, frame types and sizes available including the oma, opa, kruisframe men’s (pastoor or cross-frame) and ladies, transport double-tube and abbey (another type of cross-frame). Most of these bikes are matte black though a few are gloss black.

The sale runs until the old model bikes are gone or 31 December 2008. The bikes are currently divided between the two shops but we’ll move them all to the Lijnbaansgracht shop.

Call or just stop by to find a bike for you:

City bikes on WorkCycles’ website

Or perhaps a crank or handlebar for your old omafiets? It seems to be fair game at this point in the lifecycle of this old omafiets.