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.

After work Kyoko, Pascal and I walked over to a sunny cafe in the Singel, chilled out for a while and took a few pictures into the low sun. Pascal is really getting the hang of this Amsterdam cafe life.

Just a little trivia: The cafe is called Zeezicht, meaning “sea view”. It’s probably been there forever, certainly since before Centraal Station blocked the view to the Ij river. However it still seems unlikely that one could have seen the river from here and seeing the “sea” will not be possible until global warming puts most of this country too far underwater for dikes and pumps to keep it only moist.

I periodically see fellow bloggers denigrating the “lycra crowd” with the basic idea that recreational cycling (at least if it involves wearing special clothes) is the antithesis of utilitarian cycling and just plain old bad. But why? Cycling is just plain wonderful, whether riding the bakfiets across town to bring the kids to school, or riding up a mountain with friends. All work and no play makes a dull boy! There has to be a place in the world for objects and activities without productive function. Otherwise there would be no art, sports, play, hobbies or fun… and that world would suck.

And many activities (productive or otherwise) are enhanced by donning specific gear. The doctor pulls on scrubs for surgery, the construction worker wears tough trousers with gear loops, knee pads and steel toed boots, and the fireman stays warm but not crispy in his Nomex coat and helmet. If you’re going to spend the day in the saddle you’ll probably be most comfortable in cycling clothes. Whether you’ll look good in them or not is another story.

I’m also perplexed by why people believe it’s impossible to be both a cyclist for transportation AND and cyclist for fun. I ride a no-nonsense utility bike every day to get around the city, and then (weather, work and family permitting) I get on one of my lovely sporty bikes and ride for a few hours. For much of my life that meant riding fast: training and competing in races. With the addition of Pascal our recreational cycling has generally become a family activity. Today we took maximal advantage of a Sunday with perfect cycling weather: We were out for 6 hours, though one doesn’t ride very fast while holding a sleeping baby in one arm, nor cover much distance with multiple cafe stops.

Anyhow, just ride your bike. Certainly do it for transportation, but don’t let the hair-shirt idealists stop you from going nowhere useful on your bike… in the tightest lycra sausage suit if you wish.

Pascal, Papa practicing plural panda portraiture.

On our way to see friends for dinner at super yummy New King in the Zeedijik. Sun was directly into the camera, making things tricky. We’ll have to try again later.

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.

Not all use of our bakfiets is strictly for transportation. Sometimes we go for little tours with Pascal. One of our favorite routes winds from Amsterdam along the Amstel river to Oudekerk or maybe further to Abcoude, Nes or Uithoorn. We ride for an hour or so to a cafe, have lunch and coffee, change diapers and feed the baby, and then head back. We’re looking forward to better weather and more daylight in the spring and summer to do much longer family tours.

Last week it looked as if rain was impossible so we even went sans canopy for the first time since the fall. Of course it rained anyway but Pascal stayed pretty dry with my rain jacket wrapped over his Maxi Cosi and a Dirk van den Broek shopping bag over his legs. I got wet but as the Dutch say: “We’re not made of sugar”!

Lots of rowers train and sometimes compete on the Amstel, as seen here. Rowing is very popular in the Netherlands and I believe one of the handful of sports where the Dutch consistently rank amongst the world’s best.

Here’s Pascal suited up for a late winter ride in his giant, super-warm suit. The toys are really only needed when stopped since while cycling he’s either endlessly amused or sleeping. The blue bag behind him contains all the baby essentials.

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.

Despite absolutely horrible weather WorkCycles Oktoberfietsfeest 2008 was a huge success! Thankfully we were able to stay warm and dry in our giant, new shop on the Lijnbaansgracht in the cozy Jordaan historic district. Friends, colleagues, family and neighbors braved the elements to heartily showed their support and hunger. Please forgive me if I can’t remember half your names – its tough being a host!

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

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.

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.

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”.

And without further ado, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: The Oktoberfietsfeest Lottery (Raffle). The inside joke is of course that everybody wins, but you do have to put a ballot in the box (teaching good voting habits to the youngsters) and you do have to be here for the drawing. Take off for the next party or to visit your dying mother in the hospital… your loss, sucker!

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.