Category Archives: Vintage

Dutch Bicycles

August 25, 2014 1:06 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

Cycling in has grown more interesting in the Dutch Culture. Today, the world is fast getting to notice this unique culture in the Dutch bicycle brands. A good way to define a classic Dutch bike is by frame type. One most popular frame in the Dutch city of Amsterdam is “Omafiets”, and is widely viewed as Dutch cruiser bike. Traditionally, a Dutch bike is usually a day and night, shine or rain bike that takes one to any destination in the most convenient and comfortable manner all round the city and the suburbs where you may be residing. Moreover, the Dutch bicycles allow you to enjoy the ride while you are dressed in your normal clothing fashion or in the best choice of your shoes. Again, Dutch bikes are designed to provide carriage for a number of persons or items that the rider would love to carry. Interestingly, Dutch bicycles can last for decades with an all time low maintenance cost.

The most admirable features in Dutch bicycle include an upright comfortable riding position. This is unique as the Dutch bicycles are not designed for racing but for normal day’s routine for the cyclist. this is more so to models such as Ladies Vintage Bikes. This further allows the bicycle to carry more persons and items as well as allow the rider to look around. Additionally, the bikes have got a totally enclosed drive chain. Although traditionally, most bicycles have a metallic casing, the modern Dutch bikes have a plastic casing to make the lighter as well as reduce noise produced by the metal casing. Again, a plastic casing is not prone to corrosion or denting. A casing prevents dirt and water from getting to contact with the chain, while protecting the cyclists’ clothes from grease. With a casing it is always possible that clothing will not be caught up in the moving bicycle parts. The casing will last for long and requires little maintenance.

Dutch bicycles are ever improving in their designs. One attractive model is the ladies vintage bike. The bike is modeled to help carry small items for the cyclists. This bicycle has a relaxing and a sit up riding style for women, a characteristic that enables women to have an easy ride on a typical Dutch bicycle. Further, the bicycles it is fitted with three speed gears that help improve on speed of the bike and climb up the hill with all the ease. A carriage fixed at the front enables women cyclists to place items or their hand bags and ride in full comfort. Dutch vintage bikes are of different sizes featuring all potential riders from young girls to elderly women. They are of high quality and are not overly expensive. That is, they are well affordable to all. The bicycles are further designed with internal hubs brakes thus reducing dust particles from getting into the braking system thus leading to failure. The lighting system is also well effective and performs to the best. To reduce the power cost, the system is fitted with a dynamo that charges as the bicycle cycles.

Check out these vintage bicycles.

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Antique Bicycles

August 4, 2014 9:51 pm ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

Almost all of us have owned and cherished a bicycle at least once in our lives or longed to. And we grow attached to them. It’s this fondness that has ensured a strongly-rooted hobby in restoring, selling and collecting antique bicycles that spans generations. This love bloomed in many of us as children. Then, it wasn’t just a bicycle. It was a gallant steed, a motorcycle fit to make even James Bond envious, or a rocket ship exploring the boundlessness of space. When we grew up and entered our adults years, the bicycle became something more practical and less magical. It became an inexpensive and simple mode of transportation, a way to keep fit or something to race competitively. But the love of the machine never seems to fade.

A Brief History

The bicycle has been around a long time. The earliest sketch of a bicycle-type vehicle surfaced in 1493 envisioned by Gian Giacomo Caprotti who studied under none other than Leonardo da Vinci. Unfortunately, the authenticity has never been verified. The first practical working bicycle was produced by a Baron in Germany, Baron Karl von Drais in 1817. He patented his design and in 1818 it became the very first cycle to be commercially-produced successfully. It was known then not as the bicycle but as the velocipede and tritely nicknamed “the dandy horse”. So I guess we weren’t the only ones to imagine our bikes as horses. These strange two-wheeled vehicles were originally manufactures in Germany and France but the British were quick to jump on the bandwagon, or bicycle as it were, in 1818 and produce their own improved mode. After that production and use spread over much of Europe and America. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Common Types of Antique Bikes

Velocipedes: Although these cycles can have any number of wheels, the most common is the bicycle. The term was first used in 1818 by Nicephore Niepce in France.

Boneshaker: This term was first used in 1869 for what is considered the first true-type of bicycle. It’s name was born of it’s rough unyielding ride.


The penny-farthing is probably what you first imagine when you think of an antique bicycle. This is the model with the enormous front wheel and a much smaller rear one. These began to appear around 1870. The larger the wheel, the faster the speed. Safety bicycles: This style of cycle gained popularity toward the end of the 1880′s and was an alternative to the penny farthing bicycle, It’s considered the forerunner of the modern bicycle.

Famous Collections

  • The Bicycle Museum of America is located in New Bremen, Ohio and boasts one of the largest private collections antique bicycles in the world.
  • The National Cycle Collection, Llandrindod Wells, Mid Wales, in the UK displays a collection of over 200 bikes, some dating back as far as 1819 and covers 6,000 square feet.
  • In Bad Bruckenau Germany, Ivan Sojc’s Velicious Bicycle Museum houses almost 230 bicycles most still in their original condition covering everything from the first velocipedes to modern bikes.
  • There are many more museums and collections open to the public, so be sure to check your local listing. It may spark your own love affair with antique bicycles.
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