An introduction to the introduction from editor Henry:

About a week has passed since this post first went online and as of this moment there are 109 comments, quite a few of them rather extensive, a couple mildly angry or at least indignant. A few people have expressed dismay that I would publish such a piece, even if I didn’t write it myself. Another has requested that I add something to the introduction to further qualify the post below. That last request seems the most appropriate approach and what I’ll try to do now.

Interestingly though the post is widely criticized and has even apparently sparked offline discussions in coffee shops (both flattering and a little scary) nobody has suggested that I remove it. This is good since that would be quite a disappointment to all those who’ve invested time in writing, editing, commenting, discussing and even writing their own blog posts about this post. So now I have to actually figure out what it is that really needs to be said to further qualify this post.

That the post is, in retrospect, a grand faux pas is an understatement. But every now and then I just do that: I make a weird misjudgment and stick my foot deeply in my mouth. As one miffed commenter noted it doesn’t matter so much that it’s a guest post; It is my blog and I determine its content. Fair enough.

But what is exactly the problem? I’ve reread the post and slogged through the comments several times. I see two basic issues:

1. Several commenters dispute Josh’s experiences and opinions about two of the bikes discussed: the Bullitt and the Metrofiets. The Metrofiets I’ve only seen in photos so for the sake of discussing the post I’ll focus on the Bullitt which I’m familiar with.

Concerning the Bullitt I had already added from the beginning an editor’s comment that Josh’s opinion about aluminium being an unsuitable frame material was unsubstantiated and probably unjustified. Nonetheless a discussion raged about whether aluminium is a suitable material for such a bike, something I found rather silly.

Yet for all the defense it’s received here the Bullitt IS, in all fairness, a quirky bike. I’ve ridden several of them, loaded and unloaded (as well as being a noted bike designer who’s ridden a LOT of bikes) so I’m not in the dark here. Aside from the still underground CETMA the Bullitt really has no competitors in the world of light, sporty Long John type bikes. Structurally and conceptually it’s brilliant: light and apparently quite tough. But come on folks, please accept that it’s got its quirks too: The steering geometry is far from ideal and the ergonomics are strange. By no means is either factor a deal killer; After a little while you get used to the handing and forget it was ever a problem. You either adapt to the bike’s sitting position or swap out a few parts to make it fit better. My own bike designs have their own quirks and I really don’t mind hearing about them either.

I suspect that any criticism of a bike with such a cult following as the Bullitt will deliver some angry fans to your doorstep but Josh unfortunately digressed too far into opinion instead of more objectively addressing the bike’s virtues, faults and eccentricities. Interestingly, Josh’s Metrofiets critique stuck more closely to his own experiences but was also met with resistance.

2. Interesting material but in the wrong place: I believe the crux of the issue is that posting critical reviews on the forum of a person or company playing in that very field is just tricky business. It isn’t impossible: I do it regularly and somehow seem to find shelter in a steadily more developed mix of obvious irony, humor, absurdity, self-reflection and hard-core objective criticism that’s just difficult to argue with honestly. And, yep, sometimes I just plain old shoot myself in the foot. That I accept as a necessary consequence of keeping Bakfiets en Meer, and by extension Workcycles honest and real. There’s no fluff here folks and I’m not a professional writer.

But that’s all much more difficult to keep straight in a guest post. Josh has a lot of experience and insights and a lot to say. I was game to let him take a crack at a post and I take full responsibility for the results. But then as he notes in one of the now 110 comments below, he’s more comfortable working with metal than with words. And I have only so many hours for blogging. I do also run a company, have a wife and two little kids and like to ride my racing bike fast with my friends when possible.

We’ve discussed this experience offline and Josh seems game for another try… ahem yes, with a somewhat different approach. We’ll see how it goes.

Regards,
Henry

An introduction from editor Henry (the original introduction that is):

Over the years I’ve offered several colleagues the opportunity to do a “guest post” but maybe only once before has somebody gone for it. I’ll begin this one with an introduction and preface:

I didn’t write the post below nor do I necessarily even agree with some of the things Josh wrote. It’s an opinion piece. Nonetheless I found it an interesting and discussion provoking read and after somewhat too many hours editing chose to publish it. Even though it’s written by somebody completely independent of Workcycles, I founded Workcycles and this is my blog. So no, I can’t really avoid taking some heat for the criticism of colleagues’ bikes but I can live with that.

I’ve known Josh Boisclair for six or seven years now. He’s worked for two of our dealers, visited us in Amsterdam a couple times and spent a week or two “learning” in the Workcycles workshops. Realistically he was learning much more about Dutch culture and cycling than about building Dutch bikes because he’s one of those few, gifted mechanic types who doesn’t really need to be shown how something as simple as a bike works. With a couple hints about what to be looking for he’ll figure out the rest. Josh has spotted and solved a couple of our production irregularities from afar.

Such characters don’t generally come without their eccentricities and Josh is no exception. Perhaps Josh’s tick is that he’s brutally, sometimes painfully honest. If he sees that something’s been poorly designed or made… he’ll say it regardless of the political ramifications. If he digs something you’ll hear that too. He doesn’t kiss ass and that makes a great barometer for the thick-skinned. And I suppose that’s why you get to enjoy Josh’s take on cargo bikes ca. 2011; If he didn’t like my own bikes he’d have explained exactly why and then there wouldn’t really be any point in me publishing such unflattering stuff on my own blog.

The other tick is a rather humorous tendency toward conspiracy theory or at least a belief rooted in the misconception that everybody has innate technical understanding. Thus one who sells something that’s less than “as good as they can be reasonably expected to produce” is quickly categorized as dishonest, rather than possibly naive or disinterested.

So my dear colleagues apologies in advance for any bruised egos that result from the report below. I didn’t write it but I do trust both the technical understanding and honesty of its source. Put your hardhats on and have a fun ride!

Regards,
Henry

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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.
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A man travels with his home-built home on a bicycle. That’s all I know about this one. Thanks to artist friend Abner Preis for the tip but don’t go searching for his website – it seems to have been hacked into a porno site, I assume NOT Abner’s doing.

Speaking of houses on bikes I’d forgotten about this fantastic camper bike from Kevin Cyr:

UPDATE: Jason Moore in the first comment below reminds me of another bicycle camper/motorhome, this one traveled with and lived in full-time by Brian Campbell. His bike, which has gone through several iterations is ingenious. Brian’s situation though isn’t one to be envied; I’m under the impression he doesn’t live in his bicycle entirely by choice. You can read about Brian on Bike Portland, and also the sites of many others who’ve met Brian during his travels. Photos by Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland.

But then I begin to google camper bikes further and find that a whole new world has opened to me: bicyclists not content to merely travel by bicycle but who also insist upon sleeping in or on their bicycle. Take these Midget Bicycle Campers from Australia for example:

And then there’s this one by Paul Welkins, as seen on the Design Boom site:

Check out Welkin’s site for an amazing array of self-built, efficient vehicles and other random stuff.

Even the sober “doe maar normaal” Dutch are at it. Check out “Met een bakfiets op vakantie“.

And a family from Zeeland (as in the original Zeeland that New Zealand is the new version of in the same way that New York is the new version of Amsterdam… or something like that) who used to ride their old bakfiets as a camper, kids riding alongside on their own little bikes.

A few years ago there was an Italian firm called “Tasso Italia” that offered (though probably didn’t ever sell) a copy of the Main Street Pedicabs trike with a pop-out camper tent on the bed but they seem to have disappeared into the ether.

Of course that’s all good fun but we shouldn’t ignore the countless rickshaw drivers in Indonesia, India and elsewhere who sleep in their bikes out of necessity and not for kicks. It’s about as easy to forget as the fact that a great number (a majority even?) of transportation cyclists in the US are neither “cycle chic” nor “cycling enthusiast”. In fact they’re people who cannot drive; they’ve either lost their licenses or are too poor to own a car, and their accident statistics are so appalling that they skew US bicycling safety stats markedly toward the danger direction.

North American cyclists are busy envying the Dutch love and use of bicycles for transportation but is everything so rosy in the Netherlands? Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland recently posted an piece about Loek Hesemans, the Senior Policy Officer at the Netherlands’ Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Hesemans recently visited Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC with the goals of learning how policymakers there promote and plan for bike use, and examining the role bike culture plays (or doesn’t) in increasing ridership.

For our Dutch and Danish readers “bike culture” seems to be when people who ride bikes identify as “cyclists” (or even better specific types of cyclists), hanging out together, writing about bikes/cycling, custom-building and taking pictures of their rides, and generally being “into” bikes and cycling. Ironically “bike culture” is a phenomenon of a place where few people cycle. In a place like the Netherlands where most people cycle, the machine and activity are generally regarded with the same degree of interest and reverence as washing machines. Either Cycleliciousness or Copenhagen Cycle Chic had a nice piece on cycling culture from a Danish perspective. I just can’t find it right now.

Here is a good summary of Heseman’s research in Pricetags.

Hesemans observations largely seem very insightful and some of the photos and examples are priceless. However there is one key “statistic” mentioned that doesn’t seem correct. According to Maus, “Hesemans estimates that country-wide, the number of people that ride is less than 30% — and he says, due to several factors, those numbers are trending downward.” There are some elements of truth here, but I don’t buy it entirely.

I’m not going to provide thorough statistics to back up my statements but what I’ve read and seen paints a different picture:

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An acquaintance Todd Boulanger in Portland Oregon (USA) spotted a new “4 in one” bike called the Zigo at the Interbike trade show and sent a note with a mention that was like the “very nice European bike that does the same” but much cheaper. I’m not sure whether Todd couldn’t remember the name of this European version, or simply didn’t want to mention it.

Regardless its called the TrioBike and I’d almost forgotten it until Todd’s mail. The TrioBike is a Danish designed product and its something of a joke amongst my colleagues here in Holland. Some laugh about it but how such a horrible product has won design awards, gotten mountains of (internet) press and glowing reviews from around the globe is both puzzling and troubling. One more lousy bike on the market doesn’t concern me, but the power of armchair internet reviewers does. Then again there are hardly any TrioBikes on the road so maybe its only a matter of perception and annoyance.

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This probably not really news for those in Portland, Oregon since it seems the entire city has been anticipating the opening of Portland, Oregon USA’s first retailer totally dedicated to bicycles for daily, practical use. That means at least bomb-proof WorkCycles-Azor Dutch Bikes, the ridiculously popular and charismatic Bakfiets Cargobike and the unmatchable Brompton folding bikes. Various other makes from Holland and the USA will fill in the line-up of bikes for commuting, carrying children, doing groceries and all the other things we in Amsterdam regard as nothing special to do on a bicycle.

But such bicycles and attitudes are still very special in the US, and the folks at Clever are amongst those leading the charge to change that situation as fast as possible. My experience as supplier from the other side of the pond is that Clever has what it takes to do more than their share to popularize practical cycling in Oregon. Unlike others who’ve produced a handful of load-carrying bikes, Todd, Dean and their colleagues are professional, technically proficient and thorough.

So pay them a visit and find out just how satisfying and fun it can be to pedal around with ten times as much weight as any glossy cycling magazine will tell you is acceptable.

Clever Cycles

The Oregonian from Portland OR, USA has an article today on the fantastic Bakfiets.nl Cargobike. We already know how this cargo and child transport bicycle simply makes families happy, but its still nice to read it in the newspaper. Its not bad for sales either, considering that WorkCycles is the exclusive exporter of Bakfiets.nl to the USA and Canada.

Kids and cargo: This bike can haul it all

Thursday, May 17 2007
By Anne Lauf

When Marko Muellner rides his new bike to the grocery store or his daughter’s school, crowds gather around to ask questions: ” Is it hard to maneuver?” “Is it heavy?” “Do the kids like it?” And invariably, “Where can I get one?”

Muellner is one of the first cyclists in Portland to own a Bakfiets (Dutch for “box bike”), a Dutch cargo bike made for hauling kids and groceries.

Unlike the delivery bicycles popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, with boxes mounted upfront, Bakfiets bikes are designed with the lightweight marine plywood box in the middle for easier handling and better stability.

continued here…

Here are links to the relevant companies:
Clever Cycles, Bakfiets Cargobike dealer in Portland
WorkCycles, cooperates in Bakfiets Cargobike development and handles exports
Bakfiets.nl, maker of the Cargobike

The article has no photos of the Bakfiets Cargobike so I’ve added a couple here: