Let’s begin with the Monsterfiets. That’s “Monsterbike” for those of you who haven’t yet noticed that “fiets” = “bike” in Dutch and that the Dutch have absolutely no problem with appropriating words from other languages, especially mighty, media-friendly Engels.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that every Burning Man and Kinetic Sculpture race features two dozen “bikes” more amazing than this one. However the Monsterfiets seems to have piqued the interest of the Dutch and the above YouTube video has been watched almost a million times. I suppose, a la South Park, builder Wouter van den Bosch must be headed to Canada to collect his You Tube popularity paycheck.

I suppose the most remarkable thing about the video is that nobody seems to find the Monsterbike remarkable. “Sure, whatever. I see a billion bikes every day. So what if yours looks like a kid’s tricycle with a bigger front wheel.” I guess we call that “nonplussed”.

Moving right along we see that the Dutch also build carbon fiber bicycles, though somewhat differently than the Taiwanese and Chinese build them for all of those megbuck racing bike brands. Tjeerd Veenhoven’s Ordinairy Carbon Bike

…is made by mounting parts of a bike into a jig and running carbon wires drenched in epoxy resin between them. After a while the resin sets and the parts are united again.

Before you go wild with critical commentary about the technical merits (or lack thereof) of this design note that Veenhoven makes it very clear that this project is not about ultimate performance. That is, ultimate performance as if the average owner of a €10.000 racing bike, sausage-compressed into his favorite pro team uniform could ever explore such a bike’s capabilities. No, this bike is a creative reaction. In Veenhoven’s words:

This project was partly conceived to react on the so many beautiful bikes that are designed and produced at this moment. They all are real pretty but some or most lack any innovation. Of course, especially when it comes to bike design, a lot is happening and prices are (sky)rocketing, but with this bike I at least made myself think about redesigning the basics, regardless of the end result.

I’m very happy that I’m not the only one disappointed with the cookie-cutter bike industry laser focused on marketing hype laden micro-innovation with little relevance to most people who (would otherwise) ride bicycles.

Somehow though I can’t avoid seeing the possibilities of this concept as a smugness-free version of the bamboo and carbon-fiber bikes hand crafted in various developing nations. I certainly don’t mean to diss Craig Calfee’s admirable project but Veenhoven’s bike makes the bamboo part seem rather gratuitous. Can’t one fashion some suitable fork pads, a head tube and a bottom bracket shell… and then just string it up with resin impregnated hemp or other locally grown fiber?

Thanks to my friend Selby Gildemacher, singer and guitarist for “The Geert Wilders“, amongst other creative enterprises for passing the above tip along.

Meanwhile some engineering students at Technical University Delft have been tinkering with theit “Vrachtfiets” (Freight Bike… sounds a little familiar).

The Vrachtfiets is of course a modern take on the classic bakfiets, with a few advantages and a few disadvantages. Looks like a good start in any case. I particularly like the double rider configuration instead of the current standard solution of adding an electric motor. Finding a friend or even picking up a pedestrian to help pedal is far more reliable and lower maintenance than a motor wired to a bunch of electronics and a pack of highly tuned batteries that’ll certainly need an expensive replacement in a couple years.

Will it be a commercial success? No, it’ll almost certainly disappear into the annals of innovation history but it is a thought-provoking design exercise.

This last entry doesn’t even have wheels, travel on roads or have any practical function whatsoever. However you do pedal it and it’s certainly creative so it thereby merits inclusion. Meet Steve Ellis’ Ice Bat, a propeller powered ice racer. Invented by an Englishman in the Netherlands the Ice Bat requires a speed skating track, most of which are also located in the Netherlands

My initial thoughts here are, in stream of consciousness order:

The first Ice Bat competition will take place on Saturday 15 January in Assen. Thankfully they’ve chosen an individual pursuit format to avoid any competitors getting sliced and diced during heated passing maneuvers. More info about the Ice Bat can be found on David Hembrow’s blog, where I found it in the first place. Thanks David.

And since it’s winter and blizzarding everywhere in the western hemisphere here’s yet another gratuitous image of a cyclist just going about his business with the kids on a bike in Amsterdam. Yep, it’s one of our best fans Eddy again, on his galvanized Workcycles Fr8 with Massive Rack. Eddy has graced these interweb pages before:

How the Amsterdam Papa Rolls
Eddy’s Rogue Loopfiets Strikes Again
Eddy’s Galvanized Fr8
Bike on a Bike Fr8 Style

Recommended way to carry the kids? Well, given the safe cycling environment and Eddy’s cycling experience I suppose it’s fine. Like it or not this sight is commonplace here. Outside of NL or DK I think you’d better use your own judgement to assess the situation.

Happy cycling!

Espresso is good. Bakfietsen are good. So why not combine them into mobile coffee vending trikes? It’s a business with low barrier to entry, catchy and probably fun too. Great idea and though you write us weekly to build such a beast… you’re actually not the first one to think of it. You might have first seen it on TV.

Around five years ago Paul Sabin from Kent, England bought a couple of our classic bakfietsen, fitted them with a gas-fired espresso machines and the necessary plumbing and called his business “Tradecycle”. It’s kind of like “Workcycles”, except a little different. Paul’s trikes were featured in an episode of “The Apprentice” on BBC1. Somebody’s coffee trikes were also featured on Eastenders, though I’m not sure whether they were Paul’s. Paul bought a couple more bikes over the next couple years but somehow the publicity didn’t jump-start their business. It has, on the other hand, generated an endless stream of potential entrepreneurs writing to WorkCycles to have one of these bikes made. The Tradecycle website is still online but they’re no longer in operation.

Below the original Tradecycle coffee trike. All were built on a WorkCycles chassis but each one was a little different from its predecessor.

Meanwhile mobile coffee vending specialists Coffee Latino from the other end of England took a look at the offerings and decided they could do better. Being the only such vehicle in the world they also begin with a Workcycles classic bakfiets chassis as the basis. They then fit their Fracino LPG-fired espresso machines with gas and water plumbing that meet UK standards. It’s a fair guess that with a few modifications these systems will also meet the regulations of most other countries. These new coffee bakfietsen are sold under the name of On Your Trike. If you want a turn-key coffee trike you needn’t look any further; contact On Your Trike.

So will WorkCycles build you a complete espresso bakfiets / coffee trike? No, that’s just a bit too specialized for us. Thanks for asking but we’ll happily build you the chassis, box, canopy and stabilizer legs. Then the experts can select the most suitable espresso machine and coffee grinder, as well as safely rigging up gas, electricity and water in the same compact and mobile space. Only complicating matters further is that each country and sometimes municipality has its own laws about safety, food hygiene and mobile vending. Mobile coffee vending is thus a great idea but you’ll either have to contact On Your Trike or research and build it yourself.

Another customer, Sven Boerner in Leipzig, Germany did just that; He built his own beautiful espressobakfiets for his coffee vending business. You can check it out on Sven’s own site (in German language): Das Kaffeefahrrad

Meanwhile I was thinking about selling Dutch “peperkoek” (“spice cake”?) from a bakfiets but it doesn’t seem to be catching on.

A while back I wrote about how some goon stole the rear wheel of Doede’s antique bakfiets. After some measurements we determined that this bike was quite strange in that the rear hub axle and crank axle were narrower than usual. Consequently the chain line is much closer to the center of the bike meaning that even if we widened the frame (40mm!) to fit one of our wheels the rear cog wouldn’t line up with the chainring in front anyway. It was decided to bring the bakfiets to the WorkCycles shop for further investigation and repair.

So how does one transport a non-functional bakfiets? On another bakfiets of course! Here Mette van der Linden (brother of web genius and maker of these photos Doede) rides the bakfiets ambulance across Amsterdam. Mind you, an old bakfiets is not exactly something you can just toss in your car, even if you happen to have one; This particular example is over 300cm long, 130cm wide and weighs probably 130kg… OK somewhat less since it’s missing it’s almost 10kg rear wheel thanks to some knuckle-dragging cretin.

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.

WorkCycles didn’t make this one and I haven’t seen it yet myself. The Amsterdam city District “de Baarsjes” is using this brilliant “Asbakfiets” to promote smoke free and butt free surroundings. They’re giving out little cigarette and gum wallet/baggies to hold the nasties until a suitable trash container can be found.

A little background:
Ashtray = asbak
Cargo trike = bakfiets

The “bak” part of the words is the same: means “tray”, “box”, or “bin”. I suppose “bucket” probably also comes from the same origin.

Here’s more (humorous) bakfiets etymology

Thanks Iam sterdam for the great photo!

Just browsing through the old photos here, and I came across some nice oldies: January 2004, WorkCycles‘ first shop in the Veemarkt in Amsterdam under construction. We’d cleaned it up from it’s former (extremely dirty) life as a truck garage and installed the platform that’s still in place.

The large beams were purchased new but the rest of the wood was second hand. I bought an entire truckload of used “betonplex” which is an extremely tough and water resistant coated plywood. It’s a very expensive material and I scored it cheaply but… it was covered in concrete molding residue and had thousands of (bend and broken) screws to be removed. It took a friend and I a couple weeks to clean these boards but to this day almost all of the flooring and shelving in the shop is from this purchase.

A few bikes are visible: Gustav Transport trike on the right and on the left a handful of Monarks including a Long John. Except for those big beams, the Gustav transported practically everything needed to build this shop. Sometimes it was loaded with 250+ kg of materials. That bike remained in rental service until 2008 when Melissa Halley purchased it. I’ll tell that story in a following post.

June 2004, WorkCycles Veemarkt shop is open for business. It wasn’t busy yet and here artist friends Sietske Tjallingii and Eric Staller are using it as HQ for a film shoot nearby. I was happy to participate, especially considering the attractive women involved. Kyoko and I didn’t meet until a couple years later.

June 2004, Gustav Transport cargo trike in service as a rolling film platform… for the Conference Bike. That’s me pedaling. They filmed this movie about the CoBi.

Above a couple more recent pics of the WorkCycles Veemarkt shop from Marc of Amsterdamize fame.

…while hauling about a million styrofoam boxes on a cargo trike. All in a day’s work in China. Photo by Elyse Sewell, a fashion model living in China (I think). Her copious posts are sarcastic and insightful, filled with photos of the absurdities of her daily life as a “ladyposer” and all the weird things she comes across. Such as a guy talking on the phone while cycling with about 40 cubic meters of styrofoam. We don’t even see that in Amsterdam.

Thanks to Sally Applin for the tip.

WorkCycles mechanic Tom Resink has been traveling through China and Tibet and snapped this photo of a family on their cargo trike in Chengdu.

This cargo trike in Barcelona is equipped with rather sophisticated electronics is used to draw giant “graffiti” with light on buildings. See a video of the graffiti bike in action here.

More photos of their laser graffiti can be found here on Flicker.

The Dutch are doing “L.A.S.E.R. Tag” too, though in a reversal of roles… from a Hymer camper van.

Wanna get in on the action? Here you can find LASER Tag how-to information and source code.

Image found on Treehugger

I find this Indian rickshaw converted to a school bus to be particularly bizarre. There’s nothing at all strange or bad about carrying kids to and from school in a trike. In fact WorkCycles sells trikes specifically made for this purpose and they’re becoming quite popular in various cities around the Netherlands. The kids love it. See the examples below:

No, what’s bizarre about the Indian bicycle school bus is how is almost seems to have been designed to be unpleasant for the kids yet not out of economic necessity. A couple of the kids inside are smiling but I suspect its just for the camera. The others don’t seem too happy about the situation and who can blame them? I count at least nine kids in the box. There’s no way to make a bike to carry nine kids in spacious comfort but I’m sure it could be better than this.

I just don’t get it. It looks as if the child carrier box has been built especially to fit this rickshaw chassis, as opposed to having been adapted, second-hand from some other vehicle. But maybe that’s not the case – perhaps the box was originally intended to carry livestock such as sheep, a task it seems better suited for.

Otherwise why make such a cramped and enclosed kid carrier in a place that gets so hot? The roof could easily be higher and still carry the backpacks and protect the kids from sun/rain. Why are the windows so tiny… and further covered by a metal cross bar? Would the kids otherwise jump out and run away? I would. Likewise, with no significant additional cost the box could be extended to the side over each wheel to create more space inside.

Call me arrogant but I don’t believe this situation has anything to do with economics. It just seems like lousy design. Can anybody shed more light on these bikes and/or schools and/or children in New Delhi? Are there reasons beyond my narrow-minded, egocentric comprehension that have dictated this design? Is “public school” actually just a euphemism for “jail for juvenile delinquents” in New Delhi? Please help because my head is spinning.