“The SUV of bikes”
June 22nd, 2009This video just came to my attention via Stephan Schier’s (of Dutch Bike Seattle) twitter feed. Great stuff.
I really mean to get round to writing up my experiences at the Town and Country fair. I tried a Taga, a Zigo Leader, a Burrows 8-Frieght, and a Christiania. I don’t think the Christiania trike was a light; it had high sides. I had a play around with each, thanks to very generous exhibitors. It was a really fun day. I dropped by to see Hugh from dutchbike.co.uk, as he’d brought along a couple of his electric bakfiets, and a couple of normal ones, plus some BSP mummybikes and an Onderwater. The combination of all those, plus the other bikes I tried meant the places was overwhelmed with “weird” bikes. Great fun. Still, my son’s favourite thing was the flatland demo. Apparently I can look forward to him doing these tricks on his Likeabike.
Christiania “Cargobike”: the 2-wheeler!
June 6th, 2009
Click to view
Copenhagenize previewed these last year (and there’s another shot on his flickr account), but the then untitled Christiania Bikes take on the child carrying Long John now has a name and is up on their Danish site. So here it is; the Christiania 2-wheeler. Looking at the pics, headroom under the hood looks good, and the box is handsome. The handlebars are a bit fruity for my tastes, but it’s hard to see how it’d look with when the low seat makes it look so unbalanced. The front wheel looks like it’s a 24″ like a Metrofiets, but I think it’s that the rear is 24″ and that’s making the front look bigger. I think the box is about 10cm shorter than a Cargobike long, and it looks deeper. If children do sit deeper in, that’ll be a plus as far as I am concerned. I am hoping to get a chance to try one really soon.
For what it’s worth, the 2-wheeler isn’t on the 2009 Christiania Bikes pricelist. My wife thinks it looks lovely, and having had a good look over a Christiania trike this afternoon, and noticing how low the seat goes, she is getting very excited about it…
Bank Holiday Bakfietsing
May 26th, 2009
Picked up a motherbike (BSP Seine).
Went to the park. Read the rest of this entry »
Party on the Prom, Cambridge Bike Fair
May 20th, 2009I am on the Practical Cycles mailing list, and saw that they supported a “cycling party” on Morcambe Promenade. I asked if Zaynan had any photos, and he got back to me saying that the light was bad, but that he got a couple. I’d be interested in hearing more, as there’s Cambridge Bike Fair coming up, and my boy and I are going to take our bakfiets along to support Hugh from dutchbike.co.uk who’ll be doing demos of a few bakfiets.nl cargobikes, some motherbikes, and a Christiania (and maybe more?). It’s on Parkers Piece in Cambridge on June 13th. I am looking forward to trying the Christiania, as the only trikes I’ve tried are the Winther Kangaroo and the Pashley Picador. Below are the photos from Zaynan - there’s a Madsen, an Xtracycled Electra Townie (semi crank forward), a Yuba Mundo, a Surly Big Dummy and a Bakfiets.nl Cargobike there. Having only tried the bakfiets out of that lot, I wish I’d been there. It’s a very practical stable… (boom tish).
What is DeFietsfabriek up to?
May 20th, 2009
What is De Fietsfabriek up to? I spy a new cover… and a bizarro bakfiets to Oma plus stroller conversion where the handlebars steer the stroller. Wha? Any Dutch speakers want to help me out? Either that convertable bakfiets is for giggles, or they are on the same stuff the Taga guys got hold of. The cover looks like an improvement to their old collapsable unit. Looks nice. Anyone got one yet?