News from other websites

Amsterdam's historic canal rings will be included on the Unesco World Heritage listing a Unesco official reportedly said on Monday.

Acting Amsterdam mayor Lodewijk Asscher is considering using police offcers posing as Jews in an attempt to stamp out anti-semitic violence, the Parool reports on Monday.

The Amsterdam city council wants to experiment with coffeeshops -- those establishments where soft drugs like marijuana and hash are legally sold and consumed.

In one variant drugs would only be consumed on the premises. The other consists only of a take-way counter open during established store hours.

A 43-year-old British man has been arrested at Amsterdam's main railway station in connection with child pornography charges in Britain, police said on Friday.

Amsterdam will soon see its first private student hotel.

City Living provides accommodation for people who are still studying or in the first two years of their professional life. The company's Amsterdam facilities will include 625 rooms.

Hoeve de Schoor in Baexem, Netherlands

This past weekend we took our first little holiday as a family of four. We loaded the kids into their safety certified car seats in a rental Renault and headed south. Despite the documented danger of driving automobiles we chose not to wear helmets. First stop was our friends’ wedding party at a tranquil old (“old” as in dating to at least the mid 1300’s) farm complex in Leudal township in Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands. The farm, called Hoeve de Schoor, was very similar in format to some old farms I know in France; a continuous ring of buildings forming a sort of walled complex with an inner courtyard. One or more of the buildings are residences for the family, workers and guests and the others are for the farm: barns, storage areas, workshop and so forth. As is typical with these places the encroaching nature combined with the “patina” of curvy thatched roofs, wood- and stonework rounded and polished by hundreds of years of feet and hands is utterly charming and relaxing.

After a night’s stay in the farmhouse and a lazy brunch with the family and friends the kids were in good spirits and we didn’t need to head directly back to Amsterdam. Both Kyoko and I had passed through Limburg many times on my way south to Belgium, Luxembourg, France and destinations further but we’d never actually spent any time in the area. We decided to get some more use out of the car (which we only have a couple times each year) and continued 45 minutes further to Maastricht, the main city and nearly southern point of Limburg. Actually Maastricht is more like a Dutch peninsula jutting into Belgium and Germany.

Along the way we checked out some notable villages along the way. In one we happened upon some local fellows riding a sort of bicycle train contraption. One fellow demonstrated to Kyoko (-taking the pictures – I was focusing on the road, driving being a life-threatening activity) his remarkable intelligence: He could actually recognize that she’s an Asian!

Little did Fuckface realize that 2000 visitors per day would now be viewing this image here. But hey, I assume he stands behind his opinions, probably being one of the 27% of Limburgers who just last week voted for extreme right, anti immigration, muslim-hater Gert Wilders and his PVV (Party for Freedom). But I digress… we were enjoying a relaxing family trip.

Once installed in a Maastricht hotel we set out to explore the city. Maastricht is much older and richer in very old stuff than Amsterdam: city walls, cathedrals, tiny buildings with tinier doorways, water flowing under and through buildings and streets of rounded cobblestones. The architecture is also far more ornate than in sober Holland. Amsterdam has lots of buildings from the 1600’s and 1700’s but not much older. In Maastricht you come across things from the 1000’s and 1100’s. That’s old.

Of course whenever I visit a city I look at the bikes, bicyclists and infrastructure. In this regard Maastricht was hardly recognizable as being part of the Netherlands. There were certainly some cyclists here and there but only in quantities comparable to a typical German or Swiss city. In other words nothing at all like most of the rest of the Netherlands. I spotted one Gazelle bakfiets and in two days only once did I see a parent carrying a child on a bike. There were bike racks and perfectly good bike roads and lanes… just largely unused. I actually saw an empty bike rack getting overgrown with nature – a redundant impossibility in Amsterdam. We did, however, see an amazing number of groups of racing cyclists on Sunday morning.

Trams were also notably absent in Maastricht. I assume there are buses though I cannot recall actually seeing any. Instead of bicyclists and public transport there seemed to be a large, underground parking garage every few blocks in the city center. That’s apparently what it takes to hide all those cars. Ah, but at least there were Segways in abundance! Has Segway maybe hired Geert Wilders as their spokesperson?

What is it about Segways anyway that universally makes their riders look like total dorks? See above for evidence.

I’ll round this one off with a valuable message from Maastricht. A number of shops had these stickers on their windows. Should we maybe get some for WorkCycles too?

The man whose lengthy scream caused a panicked stampede of a crowd gathered at Amsterdam’s Dam Square for the national Remembrance Day commemorations last May is in trouble again.

Released from pre-arrest just four days ago, the Dam Screamer -- as the media has baptized him -- was reported to police by Amsterdam municipal workers for defamation.

The giant drilling machine tunneling its way through the ground underneath Amsterdam's centuries-old inner city has reached Dam square.

At a speed of 15 meters a day it has already passed two state monuments -- the former stock market and the Bijenkorf warehouse. The historic buildings incurred no damage.

I saw this group playing/singing on Prinsengracht a couple of weekends ago. They were singing all the old songs of the Jordan area. In this song they’re singing about the “Jordanese” the people of the Jordaan and the pride they have. (I’ve looked for lyrics online but can’t find any)

Tagged: Jordaan, live music, Music

Photo by Marc of Amsterdamize

Some industry insiders, myself included, were at least suspecting things weren’t going smoothly at Amsterdam’s populair transport bike producer De Fietsfabriek. Yesterday their filing for bankruptcy got leaked and now the press is all over it like flies on poop. That’s not really surprising considering the uncanny knack those guys had for keeping the media’s attention. It is (or was) indeed a very charismatic story about a temperamental and driven Kurdish immigrant’s success with that most Dutch of products; the bicycle. I have to admit that it sounds far more exciting than “Highly educated industrial designer and ex bike industry guy from New York makes conservative, high quality bikes in Holland”. But I suppose the downside of celebrity status is that you’re even more newsworthy when things go wrong.

A lot of people apparently think it’s really important news for WorkCycles since friends, colleagues and acquaintances have been sending me links and commentary all day long. Just for the record: We’re not exactly cheering here. Regardless of the situations that led to their financial difficulties I sympathize with their situation as a fellow business owner. According to the news reports the two partners are looking at personal responsibility (Fietsfabriek was an unincorporated partnership) of about 1.2 million euro. How on earth does one dig themselves out of such a hole?

Most who’ve forwarded the news do so both because WorkCycles and De Fietsfabriek are often compared as Amsterdam colleagues/competitors. Magazine and newspaper articles have often featured both of our bikes and interviewed both myself and either Dave or Yalcin from Fietsfabriek. However the suggestion is really that WorkCycles would benefit hugely from the disappearance of Fietsfabriek. I’m no so convinced of this. It is true that both firms produce their own unique lines of heavy-duty city bikes, transport bikes and trikes (bakfietsen) and both are based in and have multiple shops in Amsterdam. We’ve even sold our bikes through a handful of the same dealers, though for what it’s worth the WorkCycles line has generally (or always?) replaced the Fietsfabriek line.

But as Dave Deutsch, one of the Fietsfabriek partners, and I have discussed several times we’re very different companies that make very different bikes that appeal to different audiences. WorkCycles are mostly black or grey or other boring colors. We’re willing to paint them anything you wish but that’s just what our customers want. Our bike designs, and perhaps our entire company “look and feel” is straightforward, the focus being an admittedly nerdy, no-BS, technical perfection. Fietsfabriek, on the other hand, has been much bolder: bikes with frame designs that are fun bordering on silly, in colors spanning the rainbow. I’ve seen them quoted as saying they’ll build whatever the customer wishes. Sorry to disappoint you but WorkCycles won’t make such claims; We’re flexible but we build bikes with a collection of parts and principles we’ve thoroughly tested and trust. Of course I have to think that WorkCycles bikes are better, but I suppose they think the same of their own product.

Photo by Marc of Amsterdamize

The differences between our products and approaches have fortunately led to each company appealing to different audiences. Fietsfabriek is much bigger and better known in Amsterdam while WorkCycles is stronger elsewhere, particularly in other countries. Regardless Fietsfabriek’s extroverted charm and constant media attention has brought them a much younger, hipper customer base than ours. When customers go “shopping around” for a bakfiets or sturdy city bike in Amsterdam they’ll likely visit both but the experiences are so different that customers seem to choose where they belong.

But still, isn’t the Fietsfabriek one of WorkCycles main competitors? Only from a tunnel vision perspective. Our competitors are everything else people might spend their money on instead of transport bikes: kitchen remodeling, cars, travel, a flat screen TV. In particular the rampant bike theft is worse for our turnover than another bike company that brings considerable media attention to small bicycle manufacturers. If Amsterdammers could perceive it as safe to park their bikes we would sell far more, better equipped, more expensive bikes.

Will WorkCycles benefit anyway? Of course, probably to some extent. All things considered Amsterdammers will continue buying bikes at about the same rate so some of the would-be Fietsfabriek customers will inevitably come to us in their absence… and just order their bikes with different specs and in brighter colors than have been typical Workcycles. But while these types of bikes were totally novel in 2003, now in 2010 they’re fairly mainstream and can be found in many hundreds of shops all over the country. Thus whatever vacuum that opens will be filled not just by WorkCycles but also by many dealers offering bikes from a variety of large and small manufacturers. And therein lies one of the fundamental challenges for both of our companies: There’s far more competition now than just a few years ago. Compete or die.

Photo by Marc of Amsterdamize

The newspapers first all published approximately the same piece which simply reported that Fietsfabriek has filed for bankruptcy as a result of huge debts and that the curator is working on a continuation. According to those in the know there’s a debt of 1.2 million on a yearly turnover of about 3 million. There are 60 employees for which permission for layoffs has been requested. (To me these are strange numbers: a debt of almost half the yearly turnover and 60 employees for just 3 million turnover.)

If you can read Dutch or wish to read an online translation you can check the article out in Het Parool.
Fascinating are the reader’s comments that follow: Some blame the bankers. Some blame the saturated market. A few bakfiets haters take the opportunity to demonstrate their moral superiority and insult some parents. And a surprising number imply fraud, one claiming rather specific knowledge of an enormous tax fine for avoiding customs charges. That’s some pretty hefty stuff to be accusing in the comments section. Truth or just an axe to grind? Who knows.

Later in the day Het Parool published an UPDATE. Herman Stil apparently researched further, calling around to Fietsfabriek dealers, their bike designer and partner Yalcin Cihangir. Ouch, this piece paints a much uglier picture. One former dealer announces that they opened a bottle of bubbly upon hearing the news and goes on to run off a list of problems. (In the comments below the same dealer denies the bubbly part but supports the rest of the statement.) Other dealers offer similar descriptions including poor quality, many broken frames, chaotic delivery and administration and add that their critique only led to intimidation. Several dealers listed on their site replied that they haven’t done business with the Fietsfabriek in years. Michael Kemper, the German designer of the Fietsfabriek bikes claims he hasn’t been paid the agreed royalties in two years. Yalcin denies all of the accusations and fires back that his critics aren’t bike makers, just people who want to share in his success. Concerning Kemper’s accusations he turns them around claiming that Kemper began producing the bikes himself and selling them to the dealers behind his back. Cihangir is quoted as saying “I’ll come with new models, a new Fietsfabriek. Just wait.”

What to believe? It’s really hard to say. I assume some of the worst accusations are hyperbole or half-truths on both sides. But my impression has always been of a company with a genius for seat of the pants marketing and promotion but not for organization, infrastructure and long-term relationship building.

The irony of all this is that perhaps the biggest publicity they ever got was from a hugely successful two-part documentary in 2004 by Frans Bromet called “Failliet of niet? – de fietsfabriek” (“Bankrupt or not? – the Fietsfabriek”) in which Yalcin struggles getting his new Fietsfabriek business on its feet out of an imploding bike builder called ‘t Mannetje, a criminal Jan Willem Deijmann and seemingly everybody doing their best to cheat everyone else.

Business-wise I’m not particularly fussed about where it goes but I certainly wish the best for Dave, Yalcin and their employees.

The famous Amsterdam-based bicycle factory De Fietsfabriek is bankrupt.

Insiders report that a 'large number of creditors' are owed money, with debts amounting to 1.2 million euro on a yearly turnover of three million euro.

A mannequin on top of a billboard holds a sign asking “How long do I have to sit around?”, it’s part of a campaign relating to high numbers of young people unemployed in the Netherlands. The site claims that the numbers of young unemployed is 121,000 which constitutes 1 in 10 of all people under 27.

Today there is an election, so there have been billboards covered with posters from all the parties around town. Some, like this one, have extra campaigns added to them drawing attention to specific issues.

Currently we have a centre – left coalition. But in a crisis there is very often a swing to the right, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens here.

The campaigning has been tough, with candidates of various parties making direct attacks on each other, including Job Cohen (former Amsterdam Mayor) who seems to be campaigning specifically against PVV, the anti-islamic party led by Geert Wilders. I admire him for trying – and his statesmanship was part of keeping Amsterdam calm after the murder of Theo van Gogh by a young Dutch-Moroccan guy – but I’m not sure that it’s a good platform, and the reaction I’m hearing from Dutch friends is that they don’t think Cohen makes a good politician. (The Amsterdam Mayoralty is a royal appointment so not a political post in that sense).

Usually with Dutch elections there is a gap of a week or so between the results of the election and the formation of a stable coalition. Lets see how long it takes this time.

Tagged: election, Politics

Amsterdam city council has abandoned plans to experiment with an extra tax on rush hour motoring because there is not enough support for the plan.

In News & Events on the Dutch Volvo website:

Bij Volvo staat veiligheid voorop. Niet alleen van de mensen in een Volvo, maar ook van iedereen eromheen. Daarom introduceren we nu de POCito: de Volvo onder de kinderfietshelmen.

Translation: At Volvo safety comes first. Not only for the people in a Volvo, but also of everyone around it. Therefore we now introduce the POCito: the Volvo amongst the children’s bike helmets.

Am I being simplistic in seeing this as essentially the same as Smith & Wesson introducing and promoting children’s bulletproof vests to protect them from the guns they make?

Volvo continues in their press release to explain that each year in the Netherlands 35 children under 12 die “in traffic”. They don’t qualify whether this gruesome statistic has anything to do with bicycles, but actually that’s fairly irrelevant: Deaths and serious injuries amongst children while cycling are almost entirely inflicted by automobiles. As Mikael Colville Andersen frequently comments: They’re conveniently “ignoring the bull in the china shop.”

Later in the same press release Volvo explains their promotion of mandatory helmet laws in the Netherlands. From a business perspective it’s the obvious choice. The Dutch city planners widely recognize the danger that automobiles present to other street users and have been working hard for decades to minimize it. The primary safety tactics include excluding and slowing automobiles, and separating autos from bicyclists and other road users. This has very successfully led to both the safest roads in the world and the highest cycling rates. Promoting or enforcing helmet use, on the other hand, has shown to reduce cycling rates while safety gains are debatable at best.

Though we should always strive for improvement cycling is already mighty safe here in the Netherlands. Let’s just briefly look at Amsterdam, the capitol city in rough numbers:

Amsterdam counts 750,000 inhabitants. The average person, all ages considered, cycles year-round approximately 2.5km per day. In an average year there are six cycling related deaths in the entire city of Amsterdam.

Thus…

Amsterdammers cycle 684,375,000 kilometers per year. There is one death per 114,062,500 km cycled. The average Amsterdammer cycles 900km per year but not everybody cycles; Let’s assume that an adult daily cyclist averages twice the average distance: 1800km/year. This daily cyclist will, on average, die from a cycling-related incident once per 63,368 years.

As noted in an earlier post…

You’re more likely to die of murder in the US than by cycling in the Netherlands. You’re more likely to die by drowning in the Netherlands than by cycling.

Heck, we can even go further and note that universal helmet use would indeed probably prevent death in a couple of those six yearly incidents, but certainly not all of them. And then there’s that other pesky problem: It’s been demonstrated that helmet laws and promotion decrease cycling rates and reduced numbers of cyclists increase the danger of cycling. So aside from deflecting some blame what does Volvo expect to accomplish through widespread helmet use?

Cartoon by Wulff Morgenthaler via Copenhagenize.

My excuses for the lack of precise numbers and supporting statistics; There’s an impatient toddler tugging on me and it’s time to head to the office. But I can assure you I didn’t pull the above facts out of a hat or sleeve. If you want to investigate further there are plenty of numbers to be found elsewhere in this blog and far more on David Hembrow’s excellent blog.

Sorry loyal readers. Between high season business and a new addition to the family (Pia, born 28 May 2010) there just hasn’t been much time for blogging. Here’s some fun stuff to tide you over:

Yeah, it’s been done before, but not so well.

And while we’re talking about motor vehicles wrap your head around this one…

The city streets are gradually being repared and modernised. At the moment Prinsenstraat is a sandpit, Herenstraat – a sandpit until recently is now almost finished and remains closed to traffic. So all the restaurants on the street have set out their tables outside so that you can enjoy your meal in the last of the day’s sun.

Tagged: herenstraat, restaurants

I saw this outside the Noorderkerk on Saturday, presumably the owner was in the market somewhere.

The decoration is fantastic; bright colours, tiny mirror tiles, windmills, flowers and lots of toys.

You can’t help but smile!

Tagged: bike, pimp my bike

Passengers using buses, trams and the metro in Amsterdam will have to travel using a public transport smart card, or ov-chipkaart, from Thursday.

Situated in a series of monumental 17th century houses Restaurant Vermeer offers top-quality gourmet dining.

The restaurant in located within the NH Barbizon Palace Hotel, just across from Amsterdam Central Station.

Oil company Trafigura and others involved in the Probo Koala toxic waste scandal put their own interests above those of the public and the environment, prosecutor Luuk Boogert said at the start of the trial in Amsterdam on Tuesday.