Archive for the ‘Child and family transport’ Category

Test: Carrying a Newborn on a Bike

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

A little background here: Many moms carry their babies around by bicycle here in the Netherlands. It’s pretty much a necessity when families live in densely packed cities where driving an automobile is neither practical, pleasant or affordable. At WorkCycles we’ve always recommended that this be done by putting the child in a Maxi-Cosi (by far the most popular make of car seat for infants), secured in the box of a bakfiets. We mostly do this in the Bakfiets.nl Cargobike but a number of others are good as well. We have a lot of experience with this system and haven’t seen any problems. Customers have even told us stories of accidents that their babies SLEPT through. In short a baby appears to be fairly safe in a protective car seat, in a sturdy wooden box, only several centimeters from the ground.

But not everybody wants to ride a Bakfiets and we customers regularly ask us to mount the Maxi Cosi on the front or rear carrier of a standard format bike… which we’ve steadfastly refused. Colleagues of ours do this regularly and quite a few customers have left one of our shops and gone straight to “brand X” where they’ve bought a bike equipped this way. We haven’t really helped the customer in such a case and we’ve lost a sale as well. I wanted to research the matter further.

bike-steco-baby-mee-maxi-cosi

Photo: Example of a bike equipped to carry a baby in a Maxi Cosi over the front wheel, NOT from WorkCycles.

Setting the Maxi-Cosi on a front carrier seemed like a BAD idea but perhaps acceptable with our new, super heavy duty and stable Fr8 bike. So I built a test rig and experimented with Pascal, then 2 mo old. Kyoko and I each rode the bike for an afternoon on a variety of (quiet) roads and smooth paths in Amsterdam.

One of our complaints with carrying babies on standard type bikes is that the parking stands are inadequate to hold the “load” stably. This is particularly true since the baby is set high over the front wheel while most bikes have their parking stand beneath the crank axle. That’s just not stable. The Fr8 is built differently: The rack is mounted with just enough clearance over the front tire and a very wide and stiff stand is integrated into the “Massive Rack”. This rack and stand are actually rated for over 150kg of cargo so a few kg of baby, Maxi-Cosi and the overbuilt system were not going to tax it. Test one passed with flying colors.

The system holding the Maxi-Cosi looks cheesy but it’s actually extremely solid and secure. I wouldn’t have put my 2 month old son in there otherwise! I bolted a board to the carrier and strong tie-down straps secure the Maxi-Cosi. In the bag below the Maxi Cosi are a stack of blankets and cushions for shock damping. It’s not visible in the photos but Pascal IS strapped into the Maxi Cosi under the blankets.

Riding the bike with baby aboard was obviously no problem, but wasn’t nearly as confidence inspiring as having the baby low in the wooden box of the bakfiets. There remained something unnerving about having the baby so high and in your sight line.

While riding we discovered the real problem with such a system: damping of large amplitude vibrations from the road surface… shaking the baby in other words. On perfectly smooth surfaces it was fine, but even the smallest irregularities in the road caused Pacal’s head to shake up and down. Even with the giant 54mm tires of the Fr8 so soft that they almost rolled on the rims, a small pothole or root pushing through the road caused unacceptable shaking.

Project over thus:
The shocks transmitted through the bike in such a format are simply unacceptable for a small baby, and short of an elaborate suspension system there is no way to counter it. An adequate suspension would require much more vertical distance between the baby carrier and front wheel and this setup was already as high as I would consider acceptable. Thus any further work in this direction would require a bike with a much smaller front wheel.

We maintain our position that carrying a baby on the front of a “normal” format bike is not acceptable and will not offer this until we’ve found a better approach.

Chinese Family Trike

Monday, January 19th, 2009


Chinese Family Trike, originally uploaded by henry in a’dam.

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

Creative “baby seat” on a Kronan

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009


swing seat on kronan bike 1, originally uploaded by henry in a’dam.

This is just a bright green bike child seat, right? Look again. It’s a cheap and broken swing tied to a Kronan bike with the rope normally used to hang it from a a tree. I don’t think this baby seat is approved by any official bodies.

It is a good example of the relaxed attitudes about child transport and cycling in general in the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. Cycling is simply not regarded as a dangerous activity and for good reason: the statistics demonstrate that it isn’t.

Nonetheless, I’ll be taking somewhat more care than this with my own kids, thank you.

swing seat on kronan bike 3
Note the use of an old mouse pad as a cushion.

swing seat on kronan bike 2
Here’s a better view of the old swing rope used to “secure” the seat to the Kronan’s (flimsy, sheet metal) rear carrier.

Kyoko’s Bakfiets Cargobike

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Keeping with the spirit of “practice what you preach” its to be expected that Kyoko and I would be transporting our son P1 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 P1 has been in a car in his 11 week life.

After four weeks Kyoko was cycling again and P1 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 P1 “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 P1 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.

WorkCycles and Bakfiets.nl win Kassa bakfiets comparison test

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

Yesterday “Kassa” (cash register) the popular, prime-time, Dutch consumer program broadcast their test of family bakfietsen. Like some other consumer-rights organizations Kassa reports are widely regarded as quite reliable and honestly conducted. Despite my usual cynicism I felt the testing procedure they showed was quite rigorous utilizing two professional experts and a panel of experience experts, namely parents with children. A retailer specializing in child transport bikes and trikes provided lessons to get the parent testers proficient on the bikes as quickly as possible.

It was not a long-term test though, and it would be expected that some conclusions would change with further use of the bicycles. Our experience has been that the two wheelers gradually become more favored as parents get comfortable with them, while riding a trike tends to get “old” after the novelty wears off. This is apparently a particularly Dutch sentiment as our colleagues in Denmark, England and Germany swear by the trikes. Different strokes for different folks.

The testing appeared to have been conducted over a few days and many interesting moments and comments were captured on video. Amongst the most notable:

  • A woman overturning a Christiania trike, complete with two kids in the box
  • One expert noting that some bikes ride well empty but poorly with a loaded box, others ride well loaded but poorly empty and a couple ride well regardless of the load.
  • Moms trying to push loaded bakfietsen up a tall curb
  • (more…)

    New page: Bakfiets Cargobike Tips & Tricks

    Monday, August 18th, 2008

    At the request of numerous readers I’ve begun compiling a sort of FAQ list for Bakfiets.nl Cargobike riders. I’ll add to it and flesh it out with photos as time allows. Your suggestions, especially with photos, are appreciated.

    School Bus Tricycle in India

    Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

    india-school-bus-tricycle.jpg

    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:

    de redding kdv bakfiets met kinderen in de bak zes kinderen in de bak van een deredding kdv bakfiets Kinderen klimmen uit de bak van een deredding KDV bakfiets

    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.

    Bakfiets Cargobike in the Comics

    Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

    yehuda-moon-2008-07-03.gif

    I guess I’m kinda out of the “bike culture” loop here in Amsterdam where most people just ride bikes without thinking or caring about them. My WorkCycles coworkers and I are definitely exceptions in this regard, even amongst our bicycle industry colleagues who too often just aren’t crazy about cycling. I suppose this explains how I’d missed the Yehuda Moon comic, now even with a story about a Bakfiets Cargobike riding mom. Nice stuff with some good inside digs interspersed. Rick Smith, the artist “gets it”.

    Thanks to the Dutch Bike Co. Seattle Blog for the tip!

    Roundup: Reviews of various family transport bikes

    Friday, July 11th, 2008

    onderwater-family-tandem.jpg

    I’ve come across a number of thorough and well-written reviews (and some not so good) of various child-transport and family bikes & trikes:

    Bakfiets.nl Cargobike
    Let’s Go Ride a Bike
    BIKE2WORK2LIVE2BIKE
    Velo Vision
    Bicycle Fixation
    Bike Utah Valley
    EcoMetro

    Bakfietsgigant, Bakfietsweb, Couleurs, DoubleDutchBikes (USA), Redy Kangaroo, Hollandia, PImmies, Trendonline, Tricycleweb (all seem to sell the same bikes)
    “Karin” (Dutch language)

    Christiania (Trike)
    “Marga & Huub” (Dutch language)

    Faya4you
    Guest post from Haarlem in this blog

    Fietsfabriek 995
    Caliban’s experience with the FF 995 and notes on other bikes too

    Gazelle Cabby
    Bakfiets.co.uk

    Winther Kangaroo
    Musings from a Stonehead

    TV consumer program Kassa tests 13 bakfietsen from Dutch and Danish producers Included are: Bakfiets.nl, Christiania, Fietsfabriek, Nihola, Winther, ‘t Mannetje, Bakfietsgigant, Halfords, Johnny Loco, Babboe and WorkCycles
    My english language translation of the bakfiets test
    The original bakfiets test report in Dutch language
    My post with comments about the program and results.

    Bakfiets.nl vs. Fietsfabriek 995 vs. Gazelle Cabby
    Bakfiets.co.uk (again)

    Bakfiets.nl Cargobike vs. Smart Car
    Part one: Measurements
    Part two: Features

    Bakfiets.nl Cargobike & Cargotrike, Bakfietsweb, Christiania, Gazelle Cabby, New Viper, Triobike!… In French language.
    Vélo Brouette

    Now that I’ve been “collecting” these links for some time the reviews have become more balanced, covering a broader range of bikes than I first found.

    Here’s one more review in Dutch though its already three years old and wasn’t very objective to begin with: Fietsersbond bakfiets test. Its in Dutch and no direct link is available.

    Here on the “Groot Gezin” (big family) chat site there is a long thread with discussion about many of the child transport bikes and trikes. The focus is generally on the cheap bakfiets options and like any discussion the opinions are to be taken with a grain of salt. Dutch Language.

    Does anybody have any suggestions, particularly about other well-known bikes such as Nihola and Christiania? Please keep the discussion to family transport bikes and not transport bikes in general.

    Sleeping on het “bakfietsbankje”

    Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

    sleeping-baby-workcycles-bakfiets.jpg

    I can’t remember where this adorable photo of a child sleeping on the bench of a Bakfiets Cargobike Short from WorkCycles came from but its just too nice not to share. I hope nobody minds.