The Taiwanese bicycle manufacturing group ‘Giant’ have a big say in what happens in the future of bicycles.
Bonnie Tu. the chief financial officer of the company gives her vision of the future.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article6946506.ece

It’s great to see an article written with the financial aspects of bicycles in mind,  you cannot deny the passion Bonnie Tu has for bicycles as a business, but reassuringly also as a mover for social change.

She also seems to have hit a global theme, when Bonnie says “in China the bicycle has to regain its status. It is so important. We have to break the view that status only comes from cars” you know that you can apply this statement to the UK too.

She also says that “women have been an afterthought in the male dominated worlds of both bicycle design and use”.  Anyone that looks at the photographs and articles from our friend Amsterdamize will know that a woman on a bicycle is something not to be ignored.

http://amsterdamize.com/2009/12/07/girl-power/

Bicycles are just good!

The youth centre I work at was having a clear out and I ended up tidying the workshop. No-one else wanted to do it, but then, no-one else wanted to scrounge  lots of plywood offcuts and funny shaped bits of metal for creative projects. I think this is because they have a social life. So I parked the Bakfiets outside the door and loaded up while everyone else was sweeping. This is the second load, the first being about 60kg of firewood delivered to a friend. The third was enough dowel and aluminium tube to make a steampunk oil refinery.

You could shift this in a car, but why bother?

Beautiful Wife on the way home from shopping in the next town. Despite my whining, we can get to most places we need to go in Ostfildern using traffic free routes like this, or residential and traffic calmed streets. Even better, it’s predominantly uphill to the shops, which of course means the return with a full load is easier.
Of course this may get a bit harder soon as Ostfildern has yet to wake up to the notion of clearing these roads in winter and we’ve yet to see how the Bakfiets responds to snow. There was a promise last year that the newly-employed park ranger would keep the roads clear of mud and snow, but as there are about 50km of these routes and the same ranger also has to look after the forests and other areas in Ostfildern I never believed that one, and I’ve not been dissapointed.

Most of the official (Blue circle) cycle lanes are kept clear. In one bizzaire case last year the council ploughed the lane for about 500m and then stopped. The point where the plough stopped was where the cycle lane runs out of sight from the road. Not that that has anything to do with it, of course.

Fortunately the Xtracycle seems to enjoy hard-packed snow, so I’ll just let the illegal cars pack it down for a day, then carry on as normal. Cars do have their uses after all.

From our apartment we can see the hills in the distance, and they’ve gained a light dusting of snow, so we sould get our turn soon…

dat is het antwoord op het dilemma dat ons zo’n twee maanden heeft bezig gehouden. en we zijn niet alleen in onze queeste. we zijn al heel wat volk tegen gekomen dat twijfelt. lang twijfelt. wat heeft dan de doorslag gegeven?

• we hebben het gevoel dat zo’n bak vooraan veiliger is . je ziet de kinderen, je kan beter inschatten of je ergens tussen kan laveren en bent wendbaarder doordat je minder breed bent dan een fietskar;
• het plezier van de kinderen. priceless. onze jongste telg zit heerlijk in de maxi-cosi (bedankt voor de adapters ivan). onze kleuter zit relaxed en kijkt haar ogen uit;
• de meerkost van onze bakfiets is marginaal vergeleken met de betere fietskarren;
• de testrit heeft sunny overtuigd. alle vooroordelen (te zwaar, moeilijk bestuurbaar, …) werden binnen de minuut van tafel geveegd.
• zo’n bakfiets is werkelijk enorm stabiel.

waarom de gazelle cabby?

• relatief goedkoop. een bekend fietsenmaker in leuven probeerde me een exemplaar te slijten dat ‘ongeveer de helft van een tweede wagen kost’;
• relatief licht en compleet geluidloos vergeleken met de houten versies;
• de maxi-cosi adapters werken perfect, de regentent is erg gemakkelijk in gebruik;
• twee wielen, met zo’n driewielig ding zie ik mezelf echt niet rijden;
• zeven naafversnellingen (wij moeten serieus omhoog).

de nadelen:

• als u verlegen van aard bent: niet kopen. u wordt aangegaapt, nagewezen en aangesproken alsof het een buitenaards wezen betreft.
• onze ‘tank’ is nogal imposant. parkeren aan het station is kwestie van een beetje geluk want de parkeerplaatsen voor ‘buitenformaatfietsen’ zijn nogal in trek. maar dat geldt ook voor fietskarren natuurlijk.

de eerste ritten is het wennen, maar de leercurve is bijzonder steil. we zijn na minder dan twee weken al helemaal overtuigd en onze gezinsmobiliteit is er met rasse schreden op vooruit gegaan. twee eigenaars van een identiek exemplaar waren na meer dan een jaar nog altijd even enthousiast. ik zie geen reden waarom dat bij ons niet zo zou zijn.

We have taken delivery of our latest bakfiets, both long and short version. both are available for test rides. We also have in stock rain covers from Clarijs arguably the best covers available. We hold stock of the biggest range of colours, with not just the standard UK red and black, but also cream, silver gray, pink, orange and blue. Individualise your bakfiets.
bakfiets are not just good for kids but for business and for general getting about. I take the dogs to the walk destination in mine…
We also tweek them here so that they suit the undulations of the Uk, it makes a hell of a difference.
test ride them at the dairy.
07801 150727

What started as a rainy and gloomy Saturday suddenly turned into the perfect fall day. The sun came out to warm everything, and we got the bikes out for a ride to the Farmer’s Market. I was riding a bakfiets, not my own bike: I borrowed the bakfiets from Dutch Bike Chicago (thanks!) last night to haul tables and chairs for a fundraiser that I helped organize, and had to return it reluctantly this morning.

Candy Apple!

I will have more to say about the bakfiets in a separate post. For now I’ll say, look at that thing! What an awesome beast.

The Bakfiets and Me

Mr. Dottie rode his new old bike, which I will call Sir Raleigh since he refuses to name his bikes. Sir Raleigh is waiting for his bar tape, chain guard and racks, but rides “like on a cloud” already.

Greg with Sir Raleigh

Pumpkins at the Farmer's Market

Now I’m baking a pumpkin pie. Mmmm, must go eat!

I’ll leave you with a quick and shaky video of my bakfiets ride this morning.  (Now that I know how easy it is to upload on YouTube, I’m all about the videos.)

Happy riding!

Gisteren is de Babboe bakfiets bezorgd, helaas was het gisteren slecht weer. Vandaag hebben we twee ritjes tussen de buien door gereden. Super! De eerste keer wilde Maik niet maar de tweede keer gelukkig wel. Ze vinden het helemaal leuk en wij ook.

I don’t know what is wrong at the moment, the work keeps coming. Unfortunately it’s usually annoying stuff like the health insurance asking how much we earn -for the third time this year. So todays post is a photo essay/copout, showing a fairly typical afternoon with the bikes…

Trusty steeds awaiting family. The Bafiets didn’t poop: that’s sand dumped on the drive for some reason. We were going to pick up Eldest Son from Circus School in the next town, so I’m hauling his bike and carrying Youngest Son on the Xtracycle, while Beautiful Wife has a go carrying Middle Son in the Bakfiets.

And away they go. The Bakfiets is heavy so it obviously goes faster than the Xtracycle downhill. That’s my excuse anyway.

Heading home, Middle Son now with me and smallest with Beautiful Wife as the way back is partly uphill. As far as I know there isn’t a single metre of dedicated bike lane in Ostfildern, and this is shared with pedestrians. It also becomes a gravel road in a few metres, but at least we’re away from the traffic to the right. Considering Eldest son has been learning circus skills for the last two hours, including tightrope walking and unicycling, he’s riding well.

The ‘big swing’: one of the best places in the boys current universe, and only accessible by bike or on foot. As an added advantage there are friendly goats to watch in the field alongside. What more could a small boy want? Perhaps a pack of chocolate dips, such as Middle Son is quietly finishing off in the on the swing.

Last part of the ride home on traffic free streets. Riding conditions like these are the reason we could get the bakfiets, as Beautiful Wife is very nervous about using it in traffic. Eldest son is a speck in the distance. Several parents in his school have remarked that he’s pretty fit compared to their kids. I don’t point out the obvious reason why this is: I find it’s not worth the effort.

We had to cross two slightly busy roads, but the journey was direct, straight, and 99% traffic calmed or traffic free . And this is  Ostfildern, (“Four wheels good, two wheels baaaad”) so you can bet very little money went into making this happen. Most of the time we were on field roads, although to be fair they were signposted for bikes. A few improvements would be nice, like smooth surfaces on a couple of sections (Gravel is fine as a surface, but why the potholes?) and parhaps a set of lights on the crossings so we can stop traffic instead of having to wait in the centre refuge… sorry, a bit radical for Ostfildern there.

Ah, well. Beautiful wife is getting the hang of the Bakfiets and the boys think it’s the best thing since Christmas, so on balance I’m happy.

Time to fill in the form for the health insurance…

Howard Draper, who heads up Bikedenton.org, brought his xtracycle down for Cyclesomatic and let us give it a test spin. He purchased the kit from xtracycle.com a few weeks back and attached it to a donor Diamond Back mountain bike that was being thrown away. Now, it’s extremely functional and has been hauling everything from tools and bike equipment, to heavy tube guitar amps. I threw the family on back to give it a test spin and am happy to report that it was a breeze to get in and around on. The total load on back was 75 lbs, and even going up small grades presented little challenge.

We’re going to start profiling utility bikes soon on BFOC, because we’ve noticed that cities with healthy bicycling communities typically have a large number of these on the street, to avoid an oil-based trip if at all possible. Next week, we’ll start working with students at Adamson High School to build a couple Bakfiets (pronounced BOK-FEETS), which are seen throughout the streets of Copenhagen, and are starting to make their arrival to cities like Portland, Washington D.C., and NYC. The below model is from the Dutch Bike Company in Seattle.

Writing tweets on the village green...

Technically, you should find a real camp site before putting up a tent in Germany. This works fine when there is a camp site nearby, which there isn’t. Besides, you technically shouldn’t cook dinner on an open stove on the village green directly in front of the fire station when they are having a party, but no-one seems to mind. We move on with our eyes open for overnight possibilities. A patch of woodland, preferably well away from any houses, would be favourite, but we’re stuck in suburbia. It’s not like we can camp in someone’s front garden without them noticing. Then while we’re riding along a track in a woodland Alex disappears through a hole in the hedge, (the location of which I obviously can’t disclose for securit… never mind). When we follow him we get the bakfiets stuck in the undergrowth of what was probably once a carefully tended orchard. It doesn’t look promising, as the only ways through the seeds are trails left by dog walkers, but Alex doesn’t know when to give up and finds us a small Garden of Eden which looks like it hasn’t seen humans in years.

The morning after.

We don’t want to attract attention, and nothing attracts attention like people whispering, waving torches about and falling over in the dark, so there’s a rush to throw the tent up while we have some light. We’re feeling pretty smug about our improvised campsite  when we hear voices through the trees to the east. We all stop and listen, wondering if we’re about to be pounced on by mad axemen or the residents association, but they don’t come any closer. There are some lights showing about 300m north but the woods are thick so we don’t expect anyone will notice the tent. We roll out the bags and go to sleep, hoping there are no insomniac dog walkers in the area.

We are woken suddenly at seven, not by angry natives but by someone’s cell phone. It takes us some time to find and extinguish it. We all slept well. My jet-lag seems to have been cured by the riding, and Alex reports the best night so far: he was lying on a tree root which was perfectly positioned  for his back.

We take the tent down, Alex expressing disappointment at leaving his orthopaedic tree root behind, and Travis goes to make breakfast on a car park half a kilometre away. I carefully pack the bakfiets and park it, whereupon the stand-with-the-missing-foot sinks into the ground and the whole bike sedately rolls over onto its side, spewing everything onto the wet grass. Thank goodness for well-padded computer bags. We repack it, creep out of the orchard, get stuck in the gate again, and somehow manage to get away unseen. We join Travis who is boiling water in the middle of a car park, and find about ten motor caravans have had the same idea as us and are parked around the tarmac, curtains shut. After celebrating the fact we are alive and haven’t been arrested yet with coffee, tea, and cereal bars, we set off to find someone who can tell us where the heck we are, and which way to get to Düsseldorf.

My goodness but its been a week since I wrote anything here.: as you’ve probably gathered it’s been a busy one.  This week, Beautiful Wife decided it was time to master the Bakfiets, and that the best way to do this was to go out for the evening with me alongside on the Xtracycle. Even  Ostfildern manages to have sufficient cycle lanes to avoid running along a road much, and we followed these to a restaurant in the next town.

Beautiful wife getting used to the Bakfiets.

Her verdict: great bike, but a bit of a pull on hills, and probably not good to ride wearing a short skirt. She also found it awkward to make corners in a hurry. This we discovered when we missed a turning and she had to do a 240 degree turn to fit into the cycle lane. This was in no was due to my bad navigation. Not at all. And the driver of the car following was very nice about waiting for us to manouvre. We made the restaurant comfortably and parked the bikes be the hedge.

Bikes onna date.

They are locked, although it’s not obvious. local bike thieves wouldn’t know that this is, let alone have a market for it, so we felt pretty safe, especially as we were sitting on the other side of the hedge. The meal was punctuated by overheard conversations like this:

“What is that?”
“Is it a bicycle?”
“Can’t be…”

The morning after. Tent still upright.

The weather has improved. This is good news. Even better is that my camera battery survived the storm in the night, wrapped up in a ziplock bag. My shoes didn’t do so well though: despite being wrapped thoroughly in a large rubbish bag, my shoes feel suspiciously heavy and before putting them on I pour enough water out to make a small puddle on the floor. Squelch to the unheated shower hoping that’s not the way the day will continue.

Dyke racing.

We leave a bit earlier than the previous day, in sunshine, and with a strong tail wind. Everything looks great although we all know we’ll probably get at least one soaking by lunchtime. We’re following dykes again. I’m fascinated by these as they are almost unheard of in the south, certainly on this scale. They provide a dual purpose of protection against the river and a flat means of communication between villages, and all we have to do is stay on the top and they bring us where we need to go. Or that’s what we think until the road stops abruptly in a farm. We see a group of walkers appear from behind a woodland, and the path they are using appears to be bikable . More to the point no-one wants to ride against the wind so we manhandle the bikes straight down the bank -I’ll say this for the Bakfiets, it has good brakes- squeeze through a wood, and find ourselves under a signpost for the Rhine bike way. Unfortunately we annoy the walkers who don’t hear the bike bells, and shout at us that we should whistle. That’s a new one.

Soaked again.

We cross flat countryside and roll through small villages with brick built houses which still remind me of the UK. We’ve learned that the showers are short lived, and we’ve been soaked and dried off so many times in three days that no-one even mentions it when a particulairly violent squall hits when we are about a kilometre away from the nearest cover. True to form, the sun emerges straight after the rain and we’re dry in minutes. I suggest to Alex I could have saved myself a shower if I’d known. He grins.
„I’m sharing a tent with you, so I’m glad you didn’t know“

Fair comment.

Blast furnace as village ornament

Duisburg creeps up on us. We’re riding through a picturesque village when we turn a corner and there is a blast furnace at the end of the street. A few kilometres later we reach the river once more and suddenly we’re in one of the centres of German heavy industry. Duisburg exists by an accident of geography. It’s where the Ruhr meets the Rhine.The Ruhr isn’t the biggest tributary of the Rhine, in fact it’s the 6th largest, but when the only option was hordes over some pretty steep hills, it made a handy route across the north of the country. The fact this link also led directly to the longest river in Western Europe, giving access to the sea and the cities to the south was an even greater bon us, so so there has been a harbour in Duisburg since records began, and probably long before. In the 19th century someone a few kilometres along the Rhur noticed that if they dug down a bit, there was lots of coal for the asking. Coal is heavy stuff, so this would have been of limited use, but with a but with a nice big river to take it away on, there was money to be made: the Rhine/Ruhr area became the centre of German heavy industry, and Duisburg, at the junction of the rivers, thrived.

Why Duisburg exists. Rhur meets Rhine.

More recently the city has become known for its enlightened approach to cycling infrastructure, as we cross the Rhine into the city we find ourselves on the sort of infrastructure that you dream about when following narrow painted ‘bike lanes’ through the door zone: segregated from traffic, bright red, wide and clean. Even better, we get a great view of the point where the Rhine and Rhur meet, so we stop for a few minutes to look at the meeting point of these two rivers which have affected the history of Germany so much.

A real bike lane being ignored by Alex.

A few minutes later I lose a foot. Not personally you understand, but from the Bakfiets. I stop to take a photo, and when I lift the stand the foot falls off onto the road. On closer examination it looks like the bolt holding the foot was overtightened and split the rubber. The bike wobbles a bit on its stand without the foot but that’s the only difference, well, that and the fact that for the rest of the journey my progress will be shown by small scratch marks wherever I stop. I’m literally making a mark wherever I go.

Edge of the Rhineland

We get a lot of time to appreciate the infrastructure in Duisburg, mainly because we get lost. I don’t know what it is with cities on this trip, we don’t seem to be able to leave without making a grand tour. After following the road we think is correct for several kilometres, we stop to ask for directions. The pedestrian we meet is helpful and gives detailed advice, but clearly can’t understand the map we’re using, which leaves us none the wiser. Finally after some more asking around we meet a restraunt owner who not only tells us where we are (on the Rhine cycleway) but also how to get out of this maze of streets and south. It doesn’t look promising. We end up on a road bordered by some pretty shabby apartments on one side and a massive steelworks on the other, but then we cross the railway, go through some woodland, and suddenly we’re in fields again. Duisburg has stopped as suddenly as it started.

And out in the fields again... Long way to Düsseldorf though.

However, all this getting lost and then finding the way means it’s now mid-afternoon and we’re a long way north of Düsseldorf, which itself is north of our campsite on the banks of the Rhine. Either we have to ride through one of the biggest cities in Germany in a few hours, or we have to try some wild camping.

Life is moving so fast at the moment I’m pushed to keep up with it, let alone blog about it. Apart from the bike tour, which I still need to write loads on, I’ve  other people powered stories to tell. And I’m supposed to be writing a guest post for another blog, and…

In the meantime I’m trying to live in the real world, where both the Xtracycle and the Bakfiets are seeing a lot of use. Someone asked me to fetch and deliver an empty box which will soon find a use in a community theatre production or on some other project. Ironically the piano this box transported was made in Hamamatsu, Japan. The person who asked me to move this was convinced it wouldn’t fit on the Bakfiets, on the basis it wouldn’t fit into a car… Mwahahahaaa…

That's better...

All this schepping stuff about can wear a chap down, so here’s a new use for the Bakfiets. Shortly afterwards it was comandeered by Beautiful Wife to ride home. I was hoping she’d let me ride in the box, but she made some excuse about carrying the boys instead. I ask you…

First decent pic of the Bakfiets

Today everything is different: the rain has been replaced by sunshine, the sky is blue, and even the yesterdays side winds are behind us, literally: we’re riding due east so they should be pushing us along today. There is one thing missing: Travis. To lose what is effectively 33% of the group by day 2 may seem careless, so let me explain…

Where we camped. The source of much hilarity for the farmer next morning.

Alex and I set off from the campsite at about 1000 for a relaxed detour around Wijk. I wanted to think deep thoughts about our journey where the Rhine-Amsterdam canal meets with the Rhine, and I’d promised Eldest Son I’d take a photograph of the ferry. Travis, on the other hand, wanted to think deep thoughts with his coffee and journal. We didn’t have mobile phone coverage in the Netherlands, but I was on the Bakfiets, and Alex was on my Xtracycle, and we were going around three sides of the village whereas he would be going directly east, so we were pretty sure Travis would get there before us.

Wijk ferry

I didn’t get any deep thoughts at the river. We loafed about at the junction taking pictures of the ships, I went down to the river for the promised ferry pictures, and, then we found ourselves on the old side of Wijk, and stopped and wandered into the town to take some photos of the streets and the windmill, and some of the house boats in the harbour, one of which I’d buy tomorrow if I had the money, and could swim.

Space saving ideas at Wijk.

If only I could swim...

Dyke road. no sign of Travis, but is that Darth Vader in the distance?

So that’s how you find us on the dyke road towards Arnhem missing one of our group. Not that we were concerned about this. I’ve long known people have different riding styles. Mine is to hit about 18km/h and keep churning out the kilometres. Travis rides in a series of sprints, stoppng every few kilometres to enjoy the view, and racing on. We  typically pass each other several times during the day, so we figure he will pass us, or we’ll find him on a bench. He knew where we were going and the route was well signposted. We keep going at a sedate 15-18km/h through pretty villages, remarkably like villages in the UK, without the traffic, and along the dyke of the Rhine towards Arnhem, stopping periodically to take pictures, get lunch, check for mobile phone coverage and on one occasion to send a postcard.

Like a British village without the shunting 4x4's.

The bridge at Arnhem. The bikes are where some of the fiercest fighting took place.

Arnhem is the destination for the morning. It’s the site of one of the hardest fought battles of the Second World War. On the 17th of September 1944, British, Polish, Canadian and American airborne troops landed around to capture of the bridges and hold them long enough for land-based troops to come and relieve them. Operation Market Garden was supposed to allow the Allies a route over the Rhine, directly into Germany and end the war within a year. Apparently some soldiers, believing they would be part of an occupation force in Germany, packed leisure things in their kitbags. The Allied troops met far stronger resistance than expected, including several divisions of German and Dutch SS troops, and German reenforcements poured into the area throughout the nine-day battle. The allies lost somewhere between 15000-17 200 troops, and the German forces 10000. There’s a memorial just below Arnhem bridge to troops from both sides, and this morning someone set up a table decked in a British flag, with photos, books and some of the things the troops were carrying, like a shaving brush. I never liked war memorials in the UK -they always seem a bit triumphalist- but this one is quite moving and personal.

Still no sign of Travis, but a few kilometres beyond Arnhem, we find a Mammoth looking as if it was waiting for us to pass before crossing the road to find a bit of tundra. Unfortunately he (or she) is only a sculpture, placed next to the bike path, and as the information is all in Dutch, we don’t know why.

Where the ferry wasn't

Suddenly we ride through some trees and over a narrow bridge, and there in front of us was the Rhine proper, much wider than the northern ‘old’ Rhine we’ve followed until now. It’s here that according to the map, we should cross to the south bank and enter Germany, but we are planning to save a few Euro by staying on the northern bank and cross using a bridge at Emmerich in Germany. Hopefully said bridge will have a bike lane.

Now the other side of the river is a different country, and we follow the dyke expecting the usual European Untion ‘Welcome to Germany’ sign when the border turns north. Unfortunately when we reach the border, there’s nothing of the sort: the only sign says „Diversion“ in German, and behind this there is a hole where the bike lane should be.

Welcome to Germany

We end up following a very unusual street: houses on the left are in the Netherlands, and those on the right are in Germany. Road markings are a mix of the two countries and Dutch and German street signs vie for attention. I wonder what it is like to live here- how do you talk with the neighbours? Do the two sides have seperate rubbish collections?

Which country am I in?

Just after a Dutch post box we turn right, into Germany. A few kilometres further we find our first major obstacle, a sort of wicket gate for bicycles which is too short for an Xtracycle or a Bakfiets. We consider the situation. To go back would mean a long detour and a busy road, but we can’t lift the bikes over the wicket. After looking around it dawns on us that the fence alongside is made of plastic and wire, designed as a portable electric fence for cattle. It isn’t electrified…

Five minutes later we are riding along the dyke.

After another quick fencing operation and a wiggle over some traffic lights, we arrive at the bridge in Emmerich, which fortunately has a bike lane. Even better, we have a signal, and can call Travis. It turns out that he’s behind us, still in the Netherlands.

Longest bridge in Germany, yes, it has bike lanes...

While Alex directs Travis to us I make a futile attempt to find a place for the night. When I return I find Travis tired and annoyed. I understand this: I’d be annoyed in his position. Unfortunately there’s nothing for it but to push on for the last few kilometres to the campsite. On the positive side the tailwind is still with us. Just as we are approaching the campsite we pass the massive bulk of the former Kalkar SNR-300 fast-breeder nuclear reactor. It was built from 1972, cost billions of Euros to build and run, and never produced a single watt of electricity. The project was cancelled in 1991 and the place was turned into a theme park called „Wunderland Kalkar“ Obvious when you think about it. I was hopeful it might have slogans like „You’ll glow after staying here!“ but unfortunately there isn’t (there was never nuclear material on site anyway) Just an open gate and a bicycle sign advertising the cafe.

What do do with a useless fast-breeder reactor? Make it a theme park, of course.

Finally we arrive in the village our campsite is in. Then we have to find the campsite. This is not helped by the owner assuming we came by car and giving directions from the Autobahn. Then the rain hits again. We find a campsite, not the one we booked, but by then we don’t care. We throw the tent up as fast as we can, tying the guy lines to the bikes because pegs won’t hold in the soggy ground, and insert our soggy selves into it.

Uses for a bike #2675: holding a tent up.

We add up the miles and I’m astounded to find we’ve managed a cool 110,99km, my first metric century. Suddenly it all feels worthwhile, to me anyway.

Room for more...

I’m catching up after being in Japan and then riding across Germany for several weeks, so the trip report is likely to be delayed a bit.

In the meantime, the bakfiets is seeing lots of use, from picking up a bowl of plums to rides like this one with the boys and one of their friends. What you can’t tell in the photo is that we are going downhill, and they are all jumping about and howling as if this is a rollercoaster. There was a small mobile party going on there. Okay, so I did make the bike slalom back and forth a bit, but it’s nearly impossible to tip the thing when it’s moving and full.

So far the reaction is mainly positive: almost everyone who sees the Bakfiets smiles, and drivers seem to give us plenty of space and little aggression. I’ll report on hills etc and stuff as I get more experience.

The Xtracycle should be getting some well deserved rest, but is still being used a lot, as it’s clearly faster than the Bakfiets for errands not involving large objects or small children, and I’m still more confident on that in traffic. I’ll be doing some trial run commutes with it as well soon, so expect more photos.

Xtracycle approaching Amsterdam

We join the sleeper train in Plochingen at a cold 1 am. I’ve never been on a sleeper train before, and it’s a lot more comfortable than I expected. I wake occasionally at stops, and signs in the gloom show names from our maps like Koblenz or Bonn. At Amsterdam we detrain and squeeze the bikes in the lift. Unfortunately when we arrive on the bottom floor, we can’t get the bikes out again, and we have no alternative but to let the lift go up again and restart the entire process, to the bemusement of a lot of commuters.

We wander out of the station past the famously huge multi-storey bike park. The sun is shining and the skies are clear- until we get about 100 metres into the city and the rain pours down. We eat bread huddled under the awning of a bakery, hoping it will lay off a bit, but eventually we settle for a gentle drizzle and walk to the Workcycles shop which is full of bikes of all shapes and sizes.

Coveting bikes in the Workbikes shop

The Bakfiets looks pretty mundane surrounded by the various creations around it. I take a test ride which is a bit unnerving at first, mostly because of a close shave with a street cleaning truck. It appears Amsterdam drivers are the same around cyclists as others elsewhere in the world, judging by the amount of near-misses I have. I manage to find time for some pictures though, including the mandatory boat-and-canal shot:

The mandatory 'canal and boat' picture

We’re just about to set off to see Amsterdam when the rain starts again. It’s even harder than last time and after about twenty seconds we’re as wet as if we ‘d gone for a swim in the Canal. There’s no way we’re going to get to all he tourist spots in this weather, but I make a quick personal pilgrimage to ‘De Waage’, for reasons I’ll explain another time.

De Waage, the place that shouldn't be.

After an interesting if unintentional detour around the suburbs of Amsterdam we reach the Rhine-Amsterdam canal by accident. We’ve dried off nicely by now, and as we begin to follow it south, we immediately run into more foul weather including what feel like hailstones. We ordered the Bakfiets with a raincover, the better for keeping the boys dry on the way to Kindergarten, etc, so everything in the bike is kept dry, but the cover itself seems to think it’s a sail. The bike keeps drifting towards the left, and Every now and again a bigger gust of wind comes along in a spirited attempt to blow me into the canal. Several times it’s so extreme I lose control and have to jump off the bike and the bike and put the stand down. I’m so slow, I’m getting overtaken by canal boats, which is embarrassing.

Getting overtaken by a ship

This is prbably the worst day to try and ride a Bakfiets across country, and by lunchtime we’ve barely made 30 km and I’m full of doubts: Can we make it home? If so, what then? Can my wife handle this heavy bike? What about the traffic and hills which are in abundance in Stuttgart?

The city of Utrecht offers relief from the wind, and lots of people are remarkably willing to stop and help three soggy english speakers out. One friendly commuter tells us he’s headed the same way and with a brisk “Follow Me” he shoots off into the swarms of cyclists with us following as best we can, over level crossings, through intersections, and down cycle lanes we probably wouldn’t have found ourselves, and wouldn’t have had the courage to trust if we had. On the other side of the city he points at a road with absolute authority, tells us “That’s the quickest way to Wijk bij Durstede…” then vanishes home before we can ask who he was. I wish we had found his name, if only to say thank you: I think we’d still be going around the city now if it wasn’t for him.

We take a short break to eat sandwiches in a doorway while another storm rolls past. We reckon we are about 20 km from Wijk, where there is a campsite for the night, if we can find it. The screaming rain eventually abates to a grumpy drizzle, and we follow bike lanes all the way to Wijk, which we chose because it is built on the junction between the Rhine-Amsterdam canal and the northern Rhine river itself, the route which we’ll follow most of the way into Germany.

Having found Wijk, we have to find the campsite. Fortunately the pedestrians of Wijk are as kind as those of Utrecht, and we have no shortage of help. Eventually we find a narrow lane running through the fields which we are assured is the way to our campsite, and sure enough after some nervous riding in the gathering darkness we find a sign, and then a friendly farmer who not only shows us a place to pitch the tent but also a ranschackle but waterproof shed to store the bikes in. We’ve had three soakings already today, and the wind is trying to carry the tent into the next field, we squeeze ourselves, the bikes and the tent into the shed for the night.

Campsite at last...

It’s about 10:00 by the time we are ready to crawl inside the tent. We’ve covered 77,74km in five and a half frustrating hours. Go to sleep wondering if this was such a good idea.

Evening meal in a village north of Düsseldorf.

I’m writing this on a village green north of Düsseldorf, while we have dinner and wonder where we’re going to stay tonight. so far the Bakfiets has held up to the ride pretty well, although 16km/h headwinds through the Netherlands didn’t help, and we’re a bit behind schedule. The plan was to stay in the cmpsite just south of the city but as we’re north and it’s 19:03, I’m not sure it’s going to happen- probably we’ll end up camping wild somewhere.

Youngest Son and Travis pack the tent.

It really is happening.

The hallway is full of stuff ready to grab when I go through the door, the bikes are packed and we are ready to leave for the night train to Amsterdam.

Tomorrow morning, all being well, we’ll pick up the Bakfiets and start coming home. I’ll get online when I can and try to at least post occasionally on Twitter when we cross the border into Germany and the phone contract works.

Time to get an hours sleep before we have to leave…

On our way up to Santa Maria we stopped at Wheelhouse Bike Shop to test ride a Bakfiet. The shop was reminiscent of an old auto garage – super cool. The showroom floor was completely opened to the parking lot. I haven’t ever seen a shop quite like it. They carry lots of euro-spec accessories [bern helmets, and BASIL bags and baskets] plus lots of different Oma style bikes, and commuter/touring bikes.

Jake and I both took the cargo bike for a spin. They handled better then I expected and were really comfortable. It will take a little getting use to [once i eventually get one, of course] I’m interested to see how it fares on hilly routes.

They also had a Conference Bike. This thing was amazing. Basically 6 people peddle – one person steers – everyone has fun! We took it for a spin around the parking lot and had a blast. It turns on a dime, which was kind of freaky.

Check out the website … http://www.wheelhousebikes.com/

-or-

swing by the shop

528 Anacapa Street

Santa Barbara, Ca

On our way up to Santa Maria we stopped at Wheelhouse Bike Shop to test ride a Bakfiet. The shop was reminiscent of an old auto garage – super cool. The showroom floor was completely opened to the parking lot. I haven’t ever seen a shop quite like it. They carry lots of euro-spec accessories [bern helmets, and BASIL bags and baskets] plus lots of different Oma style bikes, and commuter/touring bikes.

Jake and I both took the cargo bike for a spin. They handled better then I expected and were really comfortable. It will take a little getting use to [once i eventually get one, of course] I’m interested to see how it fares on hilly routes.

They also had a Conference Bike. This thing was amazing. Basically 6 people peddle – one person steers – everyone has fun! We took it for a spin around the parking lot and had a blast. It turns on a dime, which was kind of freaky.

Check out the website … http://www.wheelhousebikes.com/

-or-

swing by the shop

528 Anacapa Street

Santa Barbara, Ca

Last night I looked at a calender and realised that in a week -almost to the hour- I’d be leaving Amsterdam along the Rhine-Amsterdam canal with a very new Bakfiets. My first thought “This is really going to happen” was rapidly followed by “Can I do this?”. Never mind the 750km to cover on the Bakfiets, there’s a lot that needs to happen in the next week, not least a flight from Japan to Germany. After 12 hours in cattle class we’ll be arriving in Stuttgart on Monday evening, which leaves very little time to do the washing, meet up with the two other team members, test the cameras and other bits and pieces, build the two borrowed tents, take them down again, pack the easier one into the bikes, (in the process forgetting a small but vital part which we’ll probably rediscover in a pannier on the final night) and generally get ready.
After saying goodbye to the boys and Beautiful Wife on Tuesday night (I don’t want to think about that yet) we’ll travel to the Station where we’ll wait on a near-deserted platform in the hope the sleeper train to Amsterdam turns up and that it has our berths reserved. All being well, if I’ve not messed the dates up we will arrive in Amsterdam Centraal at 0859 on the third of September, whence we’ll walk to the Henry’s Work cycles shop in the Lijnbaansgracht to pick up a nice, shiny black Bakfiets -and then the work really begins.
750km. Hopefully my legs are up to the challenge.

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My friend Rolien who lives in Thailand and was going home needed transport to get to the Amstel train station from her house in the Jordaan. I decided upon a very Dutch way to get here across Amsterdam, in an old fashioned cargo bike. Taking a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers to enjoy the ride we sailed along the beautiful canals of the Venice of the North generating smiles and comments from passersby.

Leaving the Jordaan

Cycling one of those cargo bikes needs some getting used to. The size is of course very different but more so the fact that it’s got a big lever as a handbrake and while braking, pushing down that big lever, the pedals keep turning because it is a fixed!

Chardonnay in plastic

Dam Square

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