



Respectively, the three Dutch bicycles I’ve owned since 2017. Pictures taken on day one of receiving them.

I’ll try to keep this relatively short and simple. Ever since I came back from my first trip to the Netherlands in August of 2017, I haven’t been the same. What I experienced there changed me profoundly and it has had a cascading effect on many areas of my life. To stay on point with this blog, one main change is that the Netherlands, ie the Dutch people, got me back on a bike as an adult. I rode a lot, and I mean a lot, in my youth. However, once I got a drivers license that was it. The bike was finished. My life was spent in agriculture so most of my time was behind a wheel of something be it tractor, combine, semi truck, pickup truck, backhoe, etc. I never thought I’d ride a bike again, and honestly, I was always annoyed by those on bikes “on my streets”. Right?! Typical American motorist attitude.

I could go on and on about everything I saw in particular that caused me to rethink things, but then I’d be writing a long blog which for one, I wouldn’t enjoy putting the thought and effort into, and two, why would anyone want to devote their time to anything I’m writing paragraph after paragraph about?

A break in the writing. Here’s the day I got my new Fr8 and assembled it. This was a day or two after returning home from yet another trip to the Netherlands. The Kruisframe is in the background getting some parts taken off of it.

Trying to live a partial life of Dutch cycling is hard in the US. These bikes are big, heavy, and dont go very well with our subpar infrastructure and vast sprawl. To mitigate that issue, as you already know, I added an e-assist. This let me proudly ride my Dutch bike everywhere and use it as it was intended while eliminating some of the issues brought on by long distances to goods and services.

In the short few years I have been doing this, I have cycled over 3500km on my Dutch bikes. Most of it was on the Kruisframe, but this Fr8 is racking up the kilometers. I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve cycled for recreation. By this I mean to just head out for no reason other than to ride around a lake just to get out of the house. Every single other time was to accomplish some normal life task or errand.

My main thing is getting groceries. I love doing this. My bike is built to haul stuff and I almost feel a disservice to it if I’m riding it empty. I cycle to our gym, to mail packages, to have lunch with my wife at her work every Thursday, to the post office, and just about anything else you can think of that most people would use a car for. Yeah, I still drive our car a ton. Honestly, I’m mostly a motorist. I cant deny the feeling of needing our car. I blame my country for that. I’d trade it in a heartbeat for the infrastructure and transportation options of the Netherlands.

I’ve been sitting here writing this for the past 30 minutes and I think that’s enough. So, where words will fail to inspire anyone, I’ll just put a big handful of pictures below and let them do the talking for me. If you see a picture of one of my bikes (plus my wife’s bike), its because I was doing something utilitarian with it. I was either one my way to do, actively doing, or finished with an errand.

Dutch cycling, the Netherlands, and the Dutch people have changed me forever. I’m grateful to them for it and I constantly look to them and their country for my daily dose of inspiration. I need it. This is not an easy thing to maintain in the United States.

Also, I want to give a big thank you to Mark Wagenbuur, who you all know as Bicycle Dutch. My wife and I have gotten to know him pretty well this past year and are both thankful to call him and his partner good friends. His content helps keep me cycling, motivated, and interested in everything Dutch. Dankjewel.











































































































































Me and my Netherlands Workcycles Fr8 on the train. Thanks, Henry Cutler!

One last thank you to the company and people over at Workcycles. You guys build the best Dutch bikes out there and I’ll never personally own anything else. I look forward to a lifetime of popping into your shop when I’m in NL and continuing to promote your bikes everywhere I ride.