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?

I have to admit that I have a lot of bicycles, and I’m referring to bikes that are really just mine and not somehow part of the WorkCycles fleet or inventory. I periodically cull the flock but some have too much sentimental value to sell, even if I almost never ride them. There’s the Daedalus mountain bike from 1990, designed by me and built by Kent Ericksen of Moots in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There were six made of which I still know the whereabouts of four. I don’t think I could ever see my lovely De Rosa go. I bought it a year or two old from a friend in about 1982 and raced and trained on it for years until breaking one of the silly diamond shaped chainstays. My friend Brian Spitz (who built some of the world’s cleanest race frames for a while) repaired it but then I hung it up and forgot about it for 15 years. A couple years ago I decided I wanted to get back on a racing bike, found it still wrapped in paper and built it up again. Now it gets ridden regularly, much closer to it’s birthplace in Italy. There are many others, in order of how long I’ve owned them:

Those are all complete, rideable bikes. I also have a number of bikes in various states of incompleteness and a rather absurdly large collection of (mostly old enough to have no monetary value) parts. The semi-complete bikes include:

At least all of the old transport and city bikes are destined for the WorkCycles museum and a few are already on display. A few bikes including the city bike, Brompton, papa bike and racing bike are ridden regularly. Some of the others will return to service when the time is right. Amsterdam has, for example, a fantastic indoor velodrome and I’ve been itching to get back on the track, though that might have to wait until Pascal is old enough to ride too.

Anyhow this is a long intro to noting that I got another bike. This one is a transportfiets (Dutch delivery bike) from the firm “Yankee” in Hoogeveen (where Azor is now and Union once was). I’d never heard of Yankee but that doesn’t mean much; until the 1960’s there were hundreds of small firms building bikes in the Netherlands. Lugs, tubing and components were bought in from various suppliers and the bikes were built from scratch. The quality was typically excellent but the designs were very conservative. Only experts can tell many of the bikes apart and little changed from the 1920’s through the 1960’s or even 1970’s in some cases. A few of the manufacturers were known for particularly high quality (Empo, Fongers, Gazelle, Simplex) and/or unique design (Fongers, Locomotief, Maxwell, Simplex). Yankee though has somehow disappeared into the gorges of history.

Despite it’s near anonymity my Yankee is a beautiful bike, even after at least 50 years and perhaps even a decade or two more. I purchased it from a neighbor. When he brought it in it wasn’t pretty but it was clearly solid, complete and quite original. He’d originally bought the bike some 15-20 years ago for his catering business but no longer needed it. Since then we’ve mostly stripped it down, thoroughly cleaned and polished everything, straightened the front carrier and handlebars, replaced the tires (with better old ones) and assorted other improvements. Only the pedals, which weren’t original anyway, are “incorrect”.

You might not be familiar with the old Dutch transportfietsen and aside from the lovely brass head badge this one’s as typical as they get. Here’s a rundown of some of it’s features:

Perhaps the most obvious feature of a classic transportfiets is the front carrier, always fixed to the wide, 1″ diameter handlebar, very heavy fork crown and front axle. Thus this giant carrier swings with the wheel making it a handful to ride when loaded. Typically a huge basket or wooden crate was mounted on the carrier to carry bread, meat, milk or whatever else the tradesman (or his son) delivered. The load capacity was huge, both in volume and weight. This carrier was made by the firm “Roelewiel” who made the carriers for many brands of bikes.

The reason these bikes still exist despite their hard lives is the extraordinarily robust construction. This bike weighs almost 40kg. There’s not a single dent in the fenders or frame tubes and the frame was still perfectly straight. The drive chain, chainring and cog are 1/2″ x 3/16″, like on mopeds and small motorcycles. The crank bearings are larger diameter and wider. The cranks are massive chunks of steel.

Bonus for the hardcore nerds who spotted that the left crank is mounted backwards: Yes, I’m aware of it. It’s that way because the crank was apparently bent in an accident and after straightening it still has a little “S” bend so it now fits better backwards.

Before WWII all Dutch transportfietsen had 28″ wheels, generally 28 x 1.75″ like this bike. For those keeping up with current fads and trends that’s the same size known now as a “29′er”. After WWII they were built with either the 28″ wheels or fatter 26″ wheels (for even heavier duty applications). My Yankee has the classic Vredestein “Transport Extra Zwaar” tires. This translates to “transport extra heavy” and they weren’t kidding; these tires weigh some 1500g each and they’re supported by special steel rims that weigh a couple kilos each.

The early transportfietsen were mostly or all fixed gears, meaning they had no means of freewheeling nor did they have brakes. The rider slowed the bike by means of resisting the rotation of the pedals. This was no mean feat on a heavy and heavier loaded bike with the further momentum of such heavy wheels. Of course these bikes were only ridden by professionals, though even they indulged in competitions. During WWII the occupying Nazis banned fixed gear bicycles (really, I’m not making this up) perhaps for a couple reasons:

The Yankee has a coaster brake hub I’ve never seen though. It’s a Bendix like the American hubs I grew up with, except that this one is different. Inside and out it looks much like the German Torpedo but still different, most notably that it has a helical actuator instead of the roller clutch used in the Torpedo. In any case it’s definitely a special, heavy duty model with a 3/16″ cog threaded in place with a locknut.

Am I going to ride it? Nah, probably not for a while. I’m just going to hang it up in our Lijnbaansgracht shop as one more constant reminder of what “quality” means.

Before I moved to the Netherlands in 2000 I was hardly aware of carrier bikes, especially anything more exotic than a Schwinn Cycle Truck or Worksman hot dog cart. Even in cycling capital of the world Groningen where I first lived here transport bikes were very uncommon. The streets were swarming seas of cyclists but everybody just rode normal Dutch bikes. The only unmotorized bakfiets I recall was a loaner at a second hand shop called Mamamini. It was big, old fashioned bakfiets just we sell at WorkCycles. Mamamini even shows the bakfietsen in front of their stores on their website. But somehow that trike didn’t interest me. Maybe it just seemed too absurd, as if it were just a prop. In reality these bikes are actually quite easy to ride as long as the terrain is flat.

[Show as slideshow]

But in Groningen I met Marjette, crazy about bikes, probably ten centimeters taller than me and fond of riding her bike in absurdly short skirts. Marjette had (and still has) a hand-built carrier bike of a type I’d never seen before (not that that was a challenge). It’s a Long John type bike cobbled together from an old city bike, a folding bike, an upright from a heavy duty shelving system and random scrapyard bits. Most importantly it has a big rack in the middle to carry stuff: a couple crates of beer, a fridge or a chest of drawers etc. It might be crude but it is strong. The steering system was very cranky making the bike difficult to ride but after tweaking it here and there and lubricating the pivot points it was much more manageable. In any case that relationship didn’t last long but the obsession with transportfietsen stuck with me.

How Marjette got this bike is a good story in itself. It was made by the neighbor of an acquaintance who lived on a boat in the Oostelijk Eilanden (eastern islands) area of Amsterdam. This is the 19th century docklands area where WorkCycles Veemart shop is also located. Like a handful of the area residents this guy had a yard full of rusty, old stuff. Marjette brought him 20 liters of paint from a Groningen paint factory where you could get “seconds” paint for free. As payment Marjette could choose something from the scrap pile. She chose the Long John bike and believes the guy was very happy she didn’t go for the motorcycle next to it.

I can’t believe I’ve never come across this quadruple tandem before. I was parked on the Keizersgracht in the center of Amsterdam and looks as if it’s been there for years.

It’s a sweet bike too: a Gazelle, probably built in the 1950’s or 60’s mostly from bakfiets and transportfiets parts. A few cool details:

It’s also really heavy. I tried to set it more upright for the photo but realized that would have required a helper.

Bas of www.transportfiets.net, (that’s trans-port-feets-poont-net for english speakers) turned me onto this super little video. It’s genuine film footage from a 1933 race in Bussum (near Amsterdam) on baker’s and butcher’s bikes. Back in those days most transport bikes had fixed wheels (“fixies” you young folk) and like all those modern-day urban hipsters on track bikes, these bikes had no brakes either. There’s a difference though: A transportfiets weighs an easy 50kg, and that’s before it was loaded down with 50kg of meat. The wheels alone weigh a good 10kg each. Can you say mo-men-tum?

I have a handful of old “transportfietsen” in various states of disrepair and disassembly. They’re glorious machines; Very simple but so solidly made that they put all other bicycles to shame. Riding them is a great sensation. It takes a while to get up to speed but once all that mass is rolling there’s no stopping it.

These bikes were employed by practically every baker, butcher, milkman and other business in the Netherlands from perhaps the 1920’s until perhaps the 1960’s, when cars and delivery vans became affordable for small businesses. Keep in mind that the Netherlands was quite a poor country through modern history until the 1960’s. The bikes were ridden by delivery kids, much like pizzas are now delivered by annoying kids on mopeds with boxes on the back.

Note also that the Dutch Transportfiets predates the similar format but rather esoteric and much lighter duty French “porteur” or “veloporteur” by decades. Transportfietsen were also made in quite large quantities which partially accounts for the remarkably large number still on the streets, considering that the last of them went out of production in the 1970’s. Of course the fact that they were quality built like tanks also helps.

Transportfietsen were made by hundreds of firms, small and large and most of them look essentially the same: double top tube, huge front carrier fixed to the handlebar and (large) front axle, generally no rear carrier or parking stand. Pre-WW2 examples all had 28 x 1 3/4 wheels and usually fixed wheels. Later both 28″ and 26″ wheels were used and most were made with a single-speed Fichtel & Sachs Torpedo coaster brake hub. Parts such as chains and sprockets, forks handlebars, cranks, pedals etc were all bigger and stronger than on normal bicycles. I have never seen an old transportfiets originally equipped with gears or a front brake.

Have a look around transportfiets.net for tons of examples, including a number of bikes in restoration and also lots of old archive photos and catalogues. Bikes like this will never come back so it’s great that some enthusiasts are keeping them alive as examples of the values of another era.

Nu zijn de houten planken vervangen door ramen en mooie nieuwe dubbeldeuren met grote ruiten: veel breder dan grote ouderwetse bakfietsen. We hebben ook tonnen slechte gips verwijderd (en enorme wolken stof gemaakt) om de warme rode bakstenen te zien. Wat een verbetering! Een WC met ruimte voor een babytafel staat klaar – heel handig als je moederfietsen en bakfietsen voor kindervervoer verkoopt. Veel van de slechtste muren en de plafond zijn nu bekleed. Het basis werk aan het pand schiet dus op. Nog een paar weken totdat alles mooi geschilderd staat.

Daarna hebben we nog en heleboel werk met electra, licht en IT bekabeling en daarna onze werkplaats, kantoor, loods en verkoop showroom inrichten. Onze plan is om genoeg klaar te hebben om WorkCycles Jordaan begin Juli te openen. Dan kunnen we doorgaan met inrichting en aanpassingen terwijl de winkel al open is. We verwachten niet dat klanten onmiddelijk naar binnen gaan stormen.

Het is heel leuk dat bewoners uit de buurt regelmatig langskomen om te leren wat het grote pand gaat worden. Ze zijn bijzonder nieuwsgierig omdat het leeg stond en steeds lelijker werd voor enkele jaar nadat de Dirck III drankwinkel vertrok. Totnutoe is iedereen wel enthousiast dat WorkCycles hier gaat zitten, of tenminst blij dat iets hier gaat zitten.

Maar wat we een klein beetje vervelend vinden is dat iemand blijkbaar had gehoord over een fietsenwinkel die bakfietsen verkoopt en dat in “Fietsfabriek” vertaald. Nou even voor de duidelijkheid: Beide WorkCycles en Fietsfabriek ontwikkelen en verkopen bakfietsen, transportfietsen en stevige stadsfietsen, maar ze zijn twee verschillende, helemaal onafhankelijke bedrijven. Er is, trouwens, ook geen ruzie tussen deze twee bakfiets leverancier collega’s.

Typical WorkCycles als de nieuwe winkel klaar staat gaan we een feest vieren voor alle onze klanten, vrienden en collega’s. Nog geen datum – midden Juli als we ongelofelijk geluk hebben… anders laat September/begin Oktober voor onze jaarlijks Oktoberfietsfeest.

The usage of these Dutch words is a constant source of confusion for English speakers so here’s some clarification. I’m no etymologist, but I can at least explain some of the most obvious Dutch-English language connections surrounding our beloved bakfietsen…

Bak (pl: bakken)
Translation: Tray, pan
Related English words: Box, bucket

Bakken
Translation: To bake
Related English words: Baking

Bakker (pl: bakkers)
Translation: Baker
Related English words: Baker

Gebak
Translation: Pie, as in “baked in a pan”
Related English words: none

Gebakken
Translation: Baked, fried, sauteed (dutch is not a language of cuisine.)
Related English words: none

Fiets (pl: fietsen)
Translation: Bicycle
Related English words: none, roots disputed; questionable relation to “velocipede”
(note that “fiets” is singular thus “fiet” is not a word. Nor is there an “omafiet”, for that matter.)

Bakfiets (pl: bakfietsen)
Translation: tray bike, box bike; traditionally with 3 wheels, subset of “transportfiets“
Related English words: none
(again “bakfiets” is singular and “bakfiet” doesn’t exist)

Bakkersfiets (pl: bakkersfietsen)
Translation: Baker’s bike, subset of “transportfiets”
Related English words: none

(photo from transportfiets.net)

Transportfiets (pl: transportfietsen)
Translation: Transport bicycle, carrier bicycle, freight bicycle
Related English words: none

Thus we see that the bakker (or the son of the bakker) rides a bakkersfiets, which could be but is not necessarily a bakfiets. Regardless it is definitely a transportfiets. There is certainly a bak on either a bakkersfiets or a bakfiets, and its quite likely that gebak will be transported in or on the bak of the bakker’s fiets. Clear?

Dit verhaaltje gaat eigenlijk niet over een fiets, maar over het slecht en aggresief gedrag van vele Amsterdammers, specifiek tegen iedereen die als “vreemdeling” gezien wordt. In Amsterdam kan dat vele soorten mensen betekenen: touristen, buitenlandse bewoners, weekend bezoekers van elders in Nederland…

Lotte, zus van webdesign-genie Doede kocht een paar maand geleden een mooie Monark Transportfiets. Deze bepaalde fiets werd aanvankelijk gemaakt en in helder geel lak gespoten als proeffiets voor een postbedrijf. We praten dus over een opvallende maar wel stoere fiets.

Nou even voor de duidelijkheid, zelfs als het helemaal niet uit zou moeten maken: Lotte is Nederlandse en in Amsterdam opgegroeid. Ze heeft haar hele leven op en om fietsen besteed en weet dus de verkeersregels, hoe een fietspad er uit ziet, het verwacht rijgedrag van een Amsterdam taxichauffeur enz.

Met dat als voorstelling geef ik je Lotte’s bericht:

Sinds een paar weken word ik als ik rond rij op mijn fiets van alle kanten afgesneden. Mensen halen mij bijvoorbeeld in in de bocht en gaan vervolgens de andere kant uit. In plaats dat ze sorry zeggen, kijken ze mij geïriteerd aan!!! Vandaag wilde ik oversteken bij het stoplicht en reed er een brommer bijna tegen mij aan. Het scheelde werkelijk een haar!! Hij reed door rood en lachte me uit. Ik vroeg me af waar deze agressieve fietsers en brommers ineens vandaan komen. Komt het doordat ik nu tijdens de spitsuren rondrij in Amsterdam? Is iedereen aan vakantie toe?

Maar toen ik bijna thuis was, begon het me te dagen. Ik kwam namelijk een vriend van mij tegen die verbaasd vroeg waarom ik op een ‘Yellow bike’ fietste. Sinds een paar weken heb ik dus een nieuwe gele fiets…..

Walgelijk eh? Lotte wordt gezien als een tourist op een “Yellow Bike” en daarom vinden Amsterdammers het acceptabel of zelfs nodig om haar slecht te behandelen en voordeel van haar te nemen.

Ik en mijn buitenlandse vrienden hebben vaak soortgelijke ervaringen gehad, natuurlijk niet alleen maar terwijl aan het fietsen. Als oud-wielrenner op een matzwarte herenfiets ga ik dat niet vaak krijgen en een paar locale autorijders hebben helaas hun spiegels verloren. Maar in andere gebieden maak ik het vaak mee. Spreek je het nederlands met accent of doe iets anders dat je een buitenstaander maakt ik kan je wat nare en soms bizarre gedrag garanderen.

Ik steel geen verklaring voor maar weet alleen maar dat het wat waarheid heeft. Ik ben zelf in New York opgegroeid, ook niet een stad bekend voor zacht of gevoelige bewoners. Maar daar is er ten minst weinig verschil tussen hoe binnen- en buitenstaanders behandeld worden. Daar gaat het voornamelijk om geld, maar dat is een ander verhaal.

Deze post is afkomstig uit een post van Doede’s Journal over slecht gedrag van sommige fietsers in Amsterdam.

Laatste, in het geval dat je de Yellow Bike fietsers of de Monark Transportfiets niet kent heb ik een paar afbeeldingen toegevoegd. Zelf verklarend vind ik.

Touristen met hun Yellow Bikes

Het lijkt alsof ik wat geïnspireerd werd door die mooie Germaan transportfiets met kruisframe in een andere post – zie hem hier. Maar nee, eigenlijk bouwt WorkCycles regelmatig degelijke semi-transportfietsen op basis van een stevige kruisframe. Deze frames worden in België met de hand gesoldeerd met lugs en dikke buizen.

De fiets in deze afbeeldingen is een “special” voor een Amsterdamse kunstgallerie en schoenwinkel (een bizondere combinatie maar echt waar) die “Le KunstWinkel” heet. Als ze maar een website had zou ik een link moeten plaatsen.

Tenzij dat deze fiets leuk is en moderne onderdelen heeft is zeker geen nep-ding. Alles behalve mischien de open-kettingscherm (gewoon om het te proberen) is echt bedoeld voor het zware werk.