12 Responses to “The stickers begin appearing”

1. BlueMingo Says:
   June 6th, 2009 at 22:35

   Priceless !!! I would love to have some – where can one get them ?

2. Jenn Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 04:51

   What does it say? Please translate for your kinfolk in the other Breukelen…

3. henry Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 08:28

   BlueMingo,
   We’ve got them at the Lijnbaansgracht shop and will shortly bring some over to the Veemarkt as well. They’re €0.50 each (just to cover costs).

   Jenn,
   So far there are four versions:
   “Oud ijzer boer gezocht” = Scrap metal man sought.
   “Tijd voor een goeie fiets” = Time for a good bike.
   “Wrak This” = Wreck this! (but sounds almost like “fuck this”)
   My other bike is a WorkCycles… no translation needed.

4. Debora Gallo Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 07:07

   I was wondering about these ! So they take the bikes away after a while right? Are the bikes then offered for sale somewhere?
   cheers,
   Deb

5. henry Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 07:34

   Debora,
   The city cuts away “Fietswrakken” as bike wrecks are called here and takes them to the AFAC bike depot. Normally a sticker with a date of removal is stuck on the bikes to be removed, giving the owner (if there is one) some time to remove/repair/move the bike. However sometimes, in obvious cases they just take them away. The city got rather zealous here for a while but heard too many complaints so they’ve become more careful.

   The problem is that the checking is rather random and the fietswrakken accumulate quickly. Sometimes a bike rack will be 25% wrecks if nobody’s cleared it out in a few years. If residents call the AFAC they’ll often send a crew within days but in a neighborhood where people don’t care they’ll come very seldomly.

6. Mark Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 22:13

   Is this a response to the people putting stickers on the bakfiets? Seems like there is a lot of stickering of other peoples property in Amsterdam.

7. henry Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 09:26

   Haha. No, we were working on our stickers long before the pink bakfiets stickers showed up on the scene. There are also a couple major differences:

   1. The bakfiets stickers are obnoxious and mean spirited. The workcycles stickers are just ironic and non-confrontational.

   2. The bakfiets stickers are placed on somebody else’s property. The workcycles stickers are placed by the owner of the bike itself or on abandoned bikes. Abandoned bikes are, by definition, ownerless… a sort of no man’s land nuisance to the residents of the city. They’re neither private nor public property at this stage and they’ll be cleared away in due time anyway.

8. Todd Edelman Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 11:11

   I like “… no man’s land nuisance…” referring to them being neither public nor private… is that the common analysis?

   Also, would you take advertising from a car company in order to pay for installing the new micro-GPS transmitters into the stickers themselves?

9. henry Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 11:19

   Todd,
   I think it’s the common attitude about bike wrecks. Bikes in general are not seen as terribly private or special here; they’re left all over the place, parked against each other, moved haphazardly by construction crews, frequently damaged by the cleaning crews etc etc.

   What would be the purpose of installing micro-GPS transmitters into stationary bikes? To follow them through their future lives after they’ve been picked up, discarded, recycled…?

10. Todd Edelman Says:
    July 10th, 2009 at 10:57

    Oh, the GPS thing was a joke.

11. Doede Says:
    September 11th, 2009 at 16:39

    HA Henry! I just viewed all the new wrakken with stickers, wonderful! But eh… you wrote: Friends and customers keep on sending in their photos of WORKCYCLES stickers on wrecked bikes around Amsterdam.

    I think you’re pulling a leg here, or you don’t have any friends nor customers, which I doubt very much… (facebook 386 and many WorkCycles-dealers around the globe!)

    Oh.. why I think you joking around? Eh… why are all pictures # Taken with a Canon PowerShot S3 IS on August 12, 2009…? Or do you just have 1 one friend/customer?

    Enjoy your weekend Henry!

12. henry Says:
    September 11th, 2009 at 17:04

    Doede, There’s a very simple explanation for that: A bunch of customers had a “sticker party” on August 12, 2009 and apparently it got totally out of hand. They rampaged around the city putting those stickers on every trashed bike they could find, taking pictures with that one camera as they went along.

    Yeah, that’s the ticket… that’s how it went!

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