May 26, 2017

Bike rental company in Amsterdam told to vacate parking stands

Filed under: Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 6:32 pm

donkey-republic-bikes-amsterdam-branko-collin

The Amsterdam West district is cracking down on a new player in the bicycle rental market, De Westkrant reports.

Instead of using its own parking facilities, Denmark’s Donkey Republic parks its bright orange rental bikes in the street, often using public bicycle racks. The intended customers for these rental bikes are tourists, as locals already own bikes. Fenna Ulichki of Amsterdam West has now told Donkey Republic that if it doesn’t remove its bikes from public parking spaces, the district will remove the bikes themselves. It is not clear what the legal basis would be for this, considering other company bikes are also parked in public spaces.

Amsterdam is undergoing a double tourism and cycling boom. For example, the city registered four million overnight stays in hotels in 2000, and expects 8 million stays in 2017 (source: Dashboard Toerisme on amsterdam.nl, May 2017). Meanwhile the share of bicycle trips went from about 23% in 2000 to 27% in 2015 (source: Amsterdamse Thermometer van de Bereikbaarheid, amsterdam.nl, 2017). The bicycle is a hit especially among locals—currently 36% of all trips by citizens is undertaken by bike, handily beating out the car (24%).

It is not surprising then that car owners are increasingly satisfied about the amount of parking space they have. If you ask me, instead of framing this as an unsolvable and self-induced bike parking shortage, the city should simply start converting parking spaces for cars into bike racks.

(Photo: three Donkey Republic rental bikes take up most of the space in a bike rack on the Willem de Zwijgerlaan in Amsterdam West. Meanwhile, three cars easily take up three times as much space in the background.)

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May 20, 2017

Policeman tracks ‘unsuspecting’ bike thief

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 8:34 pm

Recently a policeman in Leiden was tracking a stolen bicycle that appeared to be very close to where he was driving in his cop van. He followed it around because dispatch told him that the bicycle was nearby, tracking it using a GPS signal, as it was a bicycle cops use to lure bike thieves in order to catch them, a ‘bait bike’.

Then he spotted another van that possibly had the stolen bike in it, followed it, and stopped it. However, once the van pulled over, the policeman figured out that the stolen bike was in the back of the police van he was driving, and promptly became the joke of the day at the police station.

The policeman in question usually bikes on the job, but on this day, he decided to use a van. While he was driving, dispatch told him about the stolen bike, but then they didn’t seem to know it was in the back of the van in the first place.

(Link:rtlnieuws.nl, Photo by Facemepls, some rights reserved)

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May 5, 2017

Pizza delivery guy goes viral during commemoration

Filed under: Bicycles,Food & Drink,History by Orangemaster @ 3:54 pm
pizza

Yesterday’s Remembrance of the Dead commemorated in the Netherlands on May 4 remembers all kinds of civilians and soldiers who died in WWII, Dutch or foreign, and nowadays also includes the fallen from other wars and major conflicts.

And then there’s this guy, a pizza delivery cyclist who stopped rushing around Groningen and joined in on the traditional, nation-wide two minutes of silence, taken at 20:00 on May 4.

After seeing the picture on Facebook, his boss said of his employee that ‘he did what he thought was normal’. The employer had told the staff of its 220 branches to honour the two minutes of silence, but didn’t expect someone to snap a picture of it.

(Link: www.pzc.nl, Photo of Pizza pie by Adam Kuban, some rights reserved)

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April 3, 2017

Why is there a lamppost in the middle of a bike path?

Filed under: Bicycles,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:43 pm
Pink bike

Back in 2015 we told you about a woman who got a lamppost on the head while cycling in Zoetemeer. This time around, almost two years after this incident, the city of Schiedam has placed a lamppost right in the middle of a bike path (see pic).

The story goes that the bike path used to be a foot path, so it made sense to have a lamppost there. However, now the lamppost is waiting for a cyclist to crash into it. “Something went wrong in the planning”, said a spokesperson – well duh. Apparently the lamppost has a fence around it and will be moved, so that’s good news.

It just goes to show you that even in our ‘bicycle monarchy’, things sometimes go wrong.

(Link: ad.nl)

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March 24, 2017

The Dutch Royal family and cycling

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 10:05 pm

Dutch people cycle mainly as a mode of transportation. The Dutch Royal family enjoys doing normal Dutch things, and one of them is cycling. A quick Google search tells me that the British press coined the term ‘Bicycle monarchies’, making a link between less ceremonials monarchies like the Dutch one as if that was a bad thing.

Watch this film from 2013 as generations of Dutch royals take to cycling and even some racing. Enjoy the funny moment when one of the members of the Royal family gives a lift to a stranger and find out why royals used to be banned from cycling.

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January 8, 2017

‘No more bike wheels stuck in tram rails’

Filed under: Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 8:30 pm

A Dutch friend once told me about when he was a student in Amsterdam and went on a date, which involved the girl hitching a ride on the back of his bicycle (on the rack) and instead of having a typically fun and possibly romantic moment of her having to hold on to him, the front wheel of his bike got stuck in a tram rail and they both fell.

SafeRails solves the well-known problem of getting your bike wheels stuck in tram rails. Invented by two engineering students, Ward Kuiters and Roderick Buijs, SafeRails is a profile made from recycled plastic that can be inserted into existing tram rails. The idea is that bike wheels cannot get stuck in the rails and the tram can ride right over the profile as if they weren’t even there.

SafeRails is sustainable, durable and makes cycling safer. The guys’ goal is to start with The Hague, the political centre of the country, but first they need to win The Hague Innovators Challenge 2017 and are currently in second place. You can vote, too.

In Dutch with English subtitles:

(Link: www.bright.nl, Photo of the Kinkerstraat by Wikimedia user Ilonamay, some rights reserved)

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January 4, 2017

A new year, a bigger bike rack for cargo bikes

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 5:08 pm

Not too far from 24oranges HQ, the city of Amsterdam is trying out a new bike rack that fits cargo bikes and bikes too wide to fit into normal bike racks, usually with crates in the front.

People with bigger bikes usually park them willy-nilly, taking up more space, which is a bit inconvenient. As well, instead of jamming your bike front wheel first where it may bend because the bikes are stacked too close to each other, the front fork of the bike rests on the rack, as the slots are wider, and hopefully morons won’t lock their bike to yours catching your brake cable in the process.

For anyone living in Amsterdam, you can even e-mail your opinion about the rack to help the city decided whether it should install more.

(Link: parool.nl)

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December 30, 2016

Branko’s favourite postings of 2016

Filed under: Bicycles,Food & Drink,General,History by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm

It’s that time of year again where we look back and tell you about some of the things we wrote about, and this year we had one clear theme that stood out and that, sadly, was ‘tastelessness’.

First the weird junk food combos:

Spring: the discodel

Summer: frikandel ice cream

Winter: smoked sausage and kroket

Dear Dutch snack bars, please follow our neighbouring countries and sell halloumi, and stop mixing crap already.

Next up, we have a tasteless escape room with Anne Frank as a theme.

The entire year saw some tasteless bashing of Ukraine. What did Ukraine ever do to us? Oh yeah, they gave back stolen Dutch paintings to a museum to show how classy they are.

As well, we found out in 2016 that supermarkets sell fertilised eggs, chicks prove it, we saw a food bank snub the poor over a Facebook like and had a good laugh at this organic fries truck stuck at a junk food chain drive.

And then to move towards some more classy bits, here’s the bicycle tunnel built in a single weekend in Utrecht, police training eagles to attack drones and a woman as the world’s first ever Professor of Fatherhood.

To finish off, here’s a story that went from classy to tasteless, an elderly woman sews bags from abandoned umbrellas, but then a few months later is pushed off her mobility scooter and robbed of her gold chain.

We’ll leave it at that, thanks for all your comments, and a reminder that next year is our 10th year anniversary in February, so I guess we should think about doing something special.

Happy New Year!

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August 15, 2016

Riding the green wave on your bike

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 11:06 am

The city of ’s-Hertogenbosch’ (Den Bosch) came second in this year’s Dutch “Traffic light region of 2016 Election”, after Helmond, both in the province of Noord-Brabant, and below you can watch a video shot in Den Bosch about how intricate and tech-savvy traffic lights for cyclists are. Den Bosch also features the country’s’ first Cycle-DRIP (Dynamic Route Information Panel) for cycling, an interesting read as well.

The video voice-over calls the traffic light button a ‘reassurance button’, which is mildly funny, but I’m guessing the contraption was taken over by pedestrian crossings. However, when you’re a visually impaired pedestrian, the ticking sounds the button makes after pressing it and when the light is green is very reassuring. Yes, the cyclist ‘reassurance button’ is possibly just for show and doesn’t make a sound, as it would be drowned out.

UPDATE: Wrong video, changed it.

(Link: bicycledutch.wordpress.com)

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July 26, 2016

A singing bike path gets its own sign

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 9:43 pm
Pink bike

The town of Drimmelen, Noord-Brabant has built a one-kilometre long ‘singing bike path’ (an official traffic sign), encouraging people to sing on their bikes and hopefully continue singing when they see another cyclist rather than stop singing.

The idea came from artist Mapije de Wit, a former columnist for the Fietsersbond cyclists union. The special bike path was officially opened by city council member Jan-Willem Stoop for which local troubadour Rinus Rasenberg wrote a song, saying he got some of his best ideas while cycling. In 10 minutes of cycling you can belt out three hit songs or maybe one or two if you keep forgetting the words.

The bike path is a comfortable three metres in width and is part of a nice 17-kilometre network of paths around the town.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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