Dutch Bike Co Weblog

Just thought everyone might like to know what happens when Dutch Bike Chicago heads over to Dutch Bike Seattle. Watch until the end to see who forms the head.  Who is that guy?

Welcome to the Dutch Bike Café!

This is Brian, the lead Barista at the new Dutch Bike Café that is located right in the heart of old Ballard in the Dutch Bike Co. Take a break from shopping for your Workcycle or a Bakfiets and check out our new coffee locale! I’m excited to let you know about the refined focus on coffee and espresso in our warm and inviting new café.  

We are using locally roasted Lighthouse Coffee, and getting compliments and winning loyal regulars right from the start. The espresso profile is rich and warm with lingering notes of cocoa and a dry finish, much like a good red wine. To showcase the fresh roasted beans we are offering great drinks like the macchiato: which is espresso with a touch of steamed milk. We call it “the world’s tiniest latte." The doppio -- simply a double shot of espresso in a cute little cup & saucer -- is another great way to savor the flavor of the espresso. If you’re a traditionalist we have piping hot French press coffee all-day for your “drip coffee” experience.

 

Pair any of our great espresso drinks -- like the cinnamon and vanilla infused cappuccino -- with a lunch sandwich hot from the grill or one of Julie’s famous Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies and you are in for a tasty and enjoyable treat!

Plenty of folks are stopping in for a cup of morning joe and a breakfast sandwich. We also see a lot of you swinging in with your bikes for a tune-up and to test ride the great selection of bikes at the shop and to have a latte with friends.

Stay tuned for more updates on our fabulous baked goods, ice cream sandwiches, and espresso delights!

Dutch Bike Chicago customer Andrew Coffey and his son JP share their fall day with us.

Seems over the last few weeks here in Chicago we've had a snow storm every few days. Eddie, our property manager, begins his snow shoveling rounds many times before 4:00 AM. Shoveling sidewalks is The Law here in the windy city and property owners are fast (and smart) to mitigate their liabilities. Buried under the covers, as I drift in in and out of dreaming my next tropical vacation, I can hear the shovel scraping.

Now for many cities, this sort of weekly winter onslaught results in municipal paralysis (to the delight of all school-free children).  In Chicago, four or five inches of snow quickly succumbs to battalions of snow plows, running day and night on all the major boulevards, strewing salt behind them as if the roads are salmon fillet and we are curing  gravlax for the holiday.  Due to this saline seasoning, the roads remain wet to well below twenty degrees.  Cars shoosh by as if it just rained.  Truly icy main roads are a rarity, and on the occasion the roads do dry, they just imitate ice like the flats of Bonneville

I do not ever remember applying the adjective awesome to the cold, but today it applies.  On my morning Bakfiets ride to the gym,  ice formed on my nostril hairs.  My breath escaped into giant steam clouds only to freeze as layers of ice on my sunglasses.  I suppose there is a point where a gob of spit would freeze before it hits the ground, but it's not quite that cold yet, but seemingly close.  NOAA says it's -3 degrees Fahrenheit, that's -19 degrees C for you Swedish astronomy fans.  Did I mention it's sunny and the wind is blowing 30-40 mph?  That makes the wind chill -30 degrees F.  Santa says wear a hat, eye protection and some good gloves. The ride to the gym is less than two miles, so I savored less than ten minutes each way of the invigorating awesomeness that is today's blowing cold.

When it's this cold the accumulated snow, well, it does just that: accumulates.  It has no place to go other than under and around parked cars.  It doesn't melt, no matter how much salt the DOT Head Chef throws on the pig.  Even the randomly strewn blue salt crystals on my Bakfiets cargo cover were encased in ice.  I passed several motorists digging out their cars, one, stuck in a rocking back and forward, howling tire dance (with a tip of the cap to Sammy Hagar) called "I can't drive 55" (like it's 55 degrees, that is).  No problem for a post-apocalyptic, wool overcoat-clad, studded tire riding Bakfiets pilot.  I just plow my bike into the snow bank, hop off and push the guy out of his predicament.  Subsequently, we both drive off much happier about the state of motorist-cyclist relations.

Because Chicago is really, truly, unbelievably, billiard table flat, it is universally "Bakfiets-able".  The only hills are bridges and valleys, freeway underpasses.  This makes it easy to carry whatever I like, wherever I like.   About 40 lbs of "stuff" (anything will do, even snow) in the front of the Bakfiets will help the front wheel cut through even the most peanut-buttery snow.  Because Bakfiets and rider are together as aerodynamic as a cathederal, wind can just as easily be an enemy as a friend.  I ride the narrower tree-lined side streets, where the wind is less ferocious and pedal like a liquor store bandit whenever the wind is to my back, because it is just as likely to be blasting me in the face by the next intersection.

The Seattle staff are all in Chicago this weekend to assist with the grand opening of the Chicago store. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause our customers and visitors to the shop. Just give us a call in Chicago 312-265-0175 if you need any assistance. We all have access to email, so you can still reach us that way as well.

Our inventory has arrived. Thanks to Henry at Workcyles for packing more bikes into a 40 ft ocean-going container than seems humanly possible and seeing to it that they arrived in perfect time for our Grand Opening.  Thanks also to the Chicago area US Customs for making this the smoothest and swiftest clearing process we have experienced. Thanks especially to Gerson Development and Exit Management for making possible and welcoming us into our new home.

For those of you who grew up enjoying Sylvester Stallone as Rocky - and you know who you are - you'll be pleased to know that his arch-rival Apollo Creed, the smooth-voiced actor Carl Weathers is fit and busy.  He's riding a Bakfiets around Seattle and sharing a zen-like stream of non-sequiteurs, musings about change and encouragements to a variety of speechless individuals in a series of ads for the Washington State Credit Unions.   Titled "Change is Beautiful" the ads take you around town, from Gasworks to the bike trail along the the canal in Fremont, all the while with Carl making his way in our Dutch Bike Seattle Bakfiets with a bucket full of flowers.  The subtext to the ads is "change is calling" and when you watch them you will agree, change IS calling.  We just don't yet know to what it is calling us.  Stay tuned as Carl leads the way... In other media related news the Bakfiets has become the recent focus of the comic series at Yehuda Moon.

Since we've nary a June day where the temperature has broken sixty degrees, it's easy to imagine that it's still winter here in Seattle. Save for the fact that the gray days now last from 5:00 AM to near 10:00 PM, we are just cold and damp like any day in December. So, what better way to celebrate that holiday spirit than unpacking a 40' container of shiny new bikes from Holland? Donde esta Santa Claus? We'd like to thank the US Customs inspectors for their thoughtful and efficient inspection of our longed-for cargo and releasing it to Ivan our charming and exuberant truck driver. We'd like to thank Henry and his crew at Workcycles in Amsterdam for his impeccable packing job. All of the bikes arrived in perfect condition. We'd also like to thank all of our patient customers who will soon have their own longed-for bikes. We could have run to sunny Mexico with your money — and you trusted us not to. Thanks.

Apparently we missed catching Lance Armstrong roaming around NAHBS last weekend, where the builders are celebrities and the cyclists are the fans. Lance is going to earn a whole new legion of fans as he gets into the commuter cycle business. The Austin American Statesman reports that Lance is opening an 18,000 square foot retail bike shop called Mellow Johnny's (apparently after his Tour de France nickname) in his hometown, Austin, Texas. To emphasize the significance of getting Joe Average into cycling, project partner Bart Knaggs was quoted as saying: "If you're a commuter, you're just as important to us as the state champion on a road bike." To which Armstrong added, "Potentially, more important." This spells good news for the commuter cycling movement in general and certainly bicycle advocates in Austin have to be thrilled. Wow, 18,000 square feet of mega-store-sized retail space may be more retail space than all of the other bike shops in Austin combined. Could this be the equivalent of having the REI (Costco or Walmart!) of bicycle stores move into your neighborhood? I see Mellow Johnny franchises on the horizon... Regardless the retail market implications, addressing the new cyclist or returning cyclist thoughtfully is paramount. Joe and Jane Average should have recreational and commuting options which are comfortable and require no special regalia. The NAHBS show highlighted the art of the bicycle and celebrated the builder. Where do we in our industry celebrate and serve the everyday or novice rider? Most trade shows focus on technology. We have created a culture of object worship. I prefer to liken the bicycle to a toaster. Not that it can't and shouldn't be beautiful , but that it is a simple conveyance, an appliance which serves our daily needs. In order for bicycle use to once again (anyone remember the 1890's) proliferate amongst the masses, we need to celebrate the utility and joy which can be found in everyday bicycle use. To that extent, I would like to celebrate some of the people who came by to play with us at the shop today, as well they brought their friends and family along. David Stonich Laura McMullan, editor of Oh! Baby Buy Products Anne, co-author of Car Free Days. We will look forward to sometime meeting her husband Tim and sharing laughs and rants about our ever chubbier "bicycle advocate" mayor.

I've been riding my Bakfiets all fall and now into the winter. It has become my favorite vehicle, two, three or four-wheeled, motorized or not. I ride it everywhere, all times of day and night, in my civilian clothes and even my suit on a fancy night out to dinner. I throw whatever (wine, sandwich, camera, presents, extra clothes, giggling friends, groceries on the way home...) in the front and go. Even with all of the bikes from which we have to choose, more often than not I see Dave riding his Bakfiets to and from the shop too. Above you see Julie making her way down Ballard Avenue. We bakfiets everywhere. We love bakfietsing. Now the etymology of the word bakfiets is better explained by someone who uses the word etymology more often than I do. Suffice it to say that "bak" (say bahk, as in Bachman Turner Overdrive) means pan or box and "fiets" (say feats, as in feats of courage) means bike. Now it's also a brand, like Kleenex, but we're not going that far (today). Hence, simply, you see, a bike with a box. They can be two-wheeled or three, it doesn't matter. I prefer my two-wheeled variety because it's nimble and a not much wider than a city bike, though a lot longer. How long? A fireman friend described it as driving a hook and ladder truck from the back. We always coach a first-time backfietser to look beyond the front wheel (seems like magic, that you can steer it from so far away) and off into the direction toward which they wish to ride. So it goes, quickly a bakfietser and their cargo are one, jauntily backfietsing their way over hill and dale, receiving unsolicited complements from admiring bakfietsless others at every stop and turn. The joy. As you can see, to better illustrate my bakfiets-amor, a new lexicon is in order, a bakfietsicon, if you will:

• bakfiets noun - a cargo bike
• bakfiets verb - to ride a bakfiets, to transport goods or friends or one's children or oneself by cargo bike
• bakfietser noun - one who rides a backfiets
• bakfietsing verb - to merrily make ones way about on a cargo bike in a liesurely manner while carrying cargo or conveying nothing but willingness to carry cargo, or performing the illusion that you are carrying cargo, all the while making it look effortless and fun
• bakfietsless adjective - the state of being without the conveyance of a bakfiets or the ability to transport cargo or the joy of carrying whatever you want while you ride
• bakfietsy adverb - the quality of being able to carry cargo; the quality or look of a handsome or hot bakfiets owner or operator; the quality or look of a sexy-sturdy cargo bike

Now are you down with the bakfiets? Excellent. Use these new words in a conversation with your friends or family and impress the heck out of them with your superior command of a made up language.

On September 21st, The Trust for Public Land sponsored National Park(ing) Day an initiative designed to inspire citizens to imagine more green space in their cities. David and I had the pleasure of joining 40 or so volunteers in assembling temporary parks in parking spaces throughout the city. I hauled a 12 foot tall hawthorn tree around in my Bakfiets from one park to another, several times parading my tree through the Pike Place market. The Seattle Times posted this little video snippet in which you can spy our Bakfiets in the background. David hauled, among other things, a videographer for StreetFilms and a kayak, which you can see above in our blog header.