Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

The search for a new bakfiets has seen us trying out a lot of bikes in recent days.

On the two-wheeler front, I've ridden the CargoBike Long from bakfiets.nl and the Fietsfabriek's model 996. Both bikes are longer than the Fietsfabriek 995 that we currently use.

Deciding which bakfiets to buy is, to a large degree, a question of deciding to what extent one is prepared to sacrifice manoeuvrability for cargo volume. The three-wheelers generally have much larger crates than the two-wheelers, which means that they can carry more children and/or cargo. They're also much more difficult to manoeuvre in a busy, compact city like Amsterdam.

Since a bakfiets is a significant outlay and the desire for a new bike is primarily motivated by the need for more cargo and child space, we owed it to ourselves to test the current crop of both two- and three-wheelers alike.

Starting with the trikes, I've ridden the bakfiets.nl CargoTrike, a Christiania bike (either the Light or the H/Box; I'm not sure), the trioBike Carrierbike and the Fietsfabriek FF16.

A bakfiets is a very personal and subjective experience. One person's ideal bike may prove utterly unusable by someone else, even if the two have similar requirements. I certainly had no problem distinguishing the suitable from the unworkable.

Of the tricycles, I was most comfortable on the Fietsfabriek's FF16. The reason for this is both obvious and simple: its front wheels steer independently of the crate.

Most three-wheelers have handlebars (or a single horizontal bar), a crate and front wheels that do not move independently of one another. This means that one must use the handlebar to push the back of the crate out to the left in order to steer right, and vice versa. This can prove easier said than done, because pushing the steering in the opposite way to the desired direction of travel is very hard to get used to when one has decades of experience with the opposite principle. That's a lot of neural rewiring.

The FF16's independent steering makes the ride much more like that of a traditional two-wheeler, but the wide wheel arches that house the wheels make the bike unbelievably wide; even wider than the traditional three-wheelers with dependent steering.

The best of the traditional three-wheelers was the bakfiets.nl CargoTrike, which, in spite of its dependently steering front wheels, did, at least, have normal dual handlebars. That didn't stop me from lifting off once when sharply cornering, but that's a danger with all of the three-wheelers.

Unfortunately, in spite of the comfortable ride, it's too wide for fast cycling and overtaking on the narrow streets in the centre of town.

The Christiania bike was a bit disappointing to me. It was obviously very well-made (half of Copenhagen rides around on these), but I found the steering bar too awkward to use in daily life. Because of the difficulty involved in pushing the bar far out to the left or right -- once you are about to exceed arm's length, one is required to lean off to the side of the bike to achieve greater reach -- the turning circle is gigantic. It's like trying to turn a passenger coach. The bike is also too wide, in my opinion, for use in the centre of town.

The trioBike, too, was awkward to use, although it has the virtue of having a clever, detachable crate and wheel unit, which then doubles as a rather improbable-looking pram. The whole thing is made of aluminium, too, which makes it much lighter than you might expect. Weight is a serious issue with the three-wheelers in particular.

Unfortunately, in spite of the bike's light weight and engineering ingenuity, its width once again forces me to draw the same conclusion as I did with its brethren: prohibitively impractical on the streets of Amsterdam. I found myself unable to overtake double-parked cars on narrow streets and the turning circle was, frankly, dismal.

So, whilst having a crate the size of those available on the three-wheelers would occasionally be a boon, it's not worth the sacrifice of having to be that wide on every single trip I take. With the difference between a miss and a near-miss in Amsterdam often being measured in no more than a couple of centimetres, increasing my width in traffic is a decision likely to exact an unpleasant toll at some point in the future. It's just not worth the risk.

Some people consider the three-wheelers stabler and therefore safer than the two-wheelers, but I would have to proffer the opinion that it's an illusion in a city like Amsterdam. The ability to cycle at speed, flexibly manoeuvre, rapidly divert one's course, squeeze between two obstacles and not jut out too far to the left all contribute much more to your overall road safety than being able to balance on three wheels.

Yes, a three-wheeler can't fall to one side, but in my opinion, you're much more likely to become involved in a collision whilst riding one. You can't squeeze past cars along the canals. You can't overtake other bikes on separate cycle paths. You can't even be overtaken by other bikers. In short, I would only buy one if I absolutely could not do without the huge cargo and child space that they offer. Otherwise, they seem to offer nothing but a false sense of security to inexperienced expat riders.

It's clear, then, that I pick my winner from the duo of two-wheelers that I tried. The Fietsfabriek's 996 rides very much like our current 995 and is an obvious choice. In fact, we probably would have bought one if this model had existed in 2005, when we arrived back in Amsterdam.

I haven't been entirely happy with our 995, though. Its bench is held in by barrel bolts, which vibrate loose over the course of a few rides). Eloïse 's child seat is screwed onto this bench and has its own safety belt attached. You don't use the belts fixed to the back of the crate until the child is big enough to sit directly on the bench.

Sarah has had a couple of incidents of the bike falling to one side, which caused Eloïse , seat, bench and all to become dislodged and collapse into the crate. If a collision at speed were to occur, the child could easily be propelled into the road, still in her seat. That's because, once the barrel bolts shake loose, there's nothing securing the bench to the bike!

When I confronted the Fietsfabriek about this, I was told by the main man in the workshop that the complaint had been passed on some time ago to the design and marketing part of the business on the other side of the street. He also said that I should have opted to have the bench screwed down instead of retaining the flexibility to remove it, but I was not presented with any such choice at the time of purchase. Sloppy at the very least.

When I made the same complaint in the sales office, my account of the problem received a lot of passive nodding, but not much more than that. I asked why there hadn't been a recall of such units, but didn't receive a proper answer. Instead, I was shown how they now either bolt down the bench on new bikes or put in screws that allow it to hinge upwards and be folded out of the way when not in use.

Great. They've solved the problem for new buyers, but not informed their older customers, even though they still have our contact details on file. I suggested that they yet go ahead with such a recall, as there are still a lot of older model 995 bikes out there, many of which undoubtedly have unsecured benches with child seats on them. I don't have any confidence they will actually do this, though.

Since I didn't even receive an apology from them for exposing Eloïse to such a serious risk, I'm not inclined to purchase there again, even though their designs are innovative, their workshop service is very good and they generally enjoy a good reputation. For me, the primary reason to use a bakfiets is to be able to transport my child(ren) more safely than I can on a normal bike. If the bike cannot be trusted to retain the child in a collision, the thing is useless.

Although they do now have a solution for the problem, the fact that they didn't inform their existing customers of the potential danger and the solution says to me that the people at the Fietsfabriek don't take child safety seriously; and a bakfiets company that doesn't take child safety seriously is not one that I'm going to support with my money.

I had them screw down the bench on our 995, so it's safe now, but the reception my complaint received reeks to me of complacency and apathy. What a shame, since it's a good company in other ways.

That leaves just the CargoBike Long from bakfiets.nl. Even without the bad taste left in my mouth by the 995 experience, the CargoBike Long is a better bike than the equivalent Fietsfabriek model, the 996. And, if you buy a CargoBike at Het Zwarte Fietsenplan, it's a considerably better bike, because they supply each bike with saddle suspension and a hub dynamo. Both of these enhancements make for a more comfortable ride.

You'll also get a sturdier stand than on the 996, seven gears instead of five, and handbrakes instead of a back-peddle rear brake. Opinions are divided, however, on whether this last detail is an advantage. The optional rain cover, too, is more easily mounted on the CargoBike and opens out flat, making it more convenient to store.

Sarah needed to test-ride only one of the aforementioned three-wheelers to conclude that the entire concept wasn't for her. That made it very easy to agree on the CargoBike Long as our next bakfiets. All we have to agree now is the colour, which may take some time. Luckily, our new family member is still some weeks away.

The photos of our recent Mexican trip to Yucatán are finally on-line.

When Fenella asked me why the dining-room had no music source, it suddenly occurred to me that my Bowers & Wilkins wall-mount M-1 loudspeakers, lying in a box in the cellar, didn't have to be mounted on the wall. They come with attachable base plates to allow them to stand on a desk. How did I forget that?

I had a spare Sonos ZP100 ZonePlayer and some speaker cables lying around, so everything I needed to set up a new zone in the conservatory was right under my nose. With that realisation, music was soon playing in that part of the house.

The sound was wishy-washy, though; we needed a subwoofer. After dropping Fenella and her children at the airport, I drove back via RAF in the Rijnstraat and purchased a Quake Q108 unit. We already have one of these in the living room and I've been pleased with the results.

The extra Sonos zone has been good for filling the vacuum of silence created by the departure of Eloïse 's cousins and their mum. Their visit was short and sweet, but long enough to make a large impact.

Still, the silver lining behind the cloud of this farewell is that we'll no doubt see them all again quite soon, because they returned to England to live in January. I daresay we'll see them again before the summer's out, either here or in England.

Anyway, it's nice to have the new zone in the conservatory. It serves the kitchen and the dining-room, too. The speakers in the living-room were just too far away to benefit the other rooms.

We had a total of six zones in the old house. This house now counts four. We were unable to reuse the built-in speakers situated throughout the house, so every room that I want to add music to has to have external speakers. As such, I'm postponing each purchase until we actually intend to put the room in question into proper use.

The conservatory zone becomes the first wireless zone in the house. I have only one network socket in the area and it's currently being used to patch a phone through to the VoIP router in the stair cupboard downstairs. I may revisit this set-up later, but the range seems OK and I was able to listen to an Internet radio station for a prolonged period this afternoon with no drop-outs.

We do get a lot of pleasure from the Sonos system. I'm very glad we purchased it.

Our new bakfiets has been ordered and will be ready by the end of March. In the end, the order went to WorkCycles. The shop is up in Zeeburg, which isn't exactly our neighbourhood, and that's the reason we hadn't already been there to have a look.

However, when Henry, the owner, commented on a recent blog entry of mine, it was the nudge I needed to get on the bike and head over there. I'd already been impressed with the information on his shop's Web site and the knowledge evident from his blog, so I realised we'd actually be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't at least go and have a look.

Henry's a bit of an oddball in the Dutch cycling world, as an American who lives in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, he thoroughly understands the concept of the bakfiets and appreciates even those bicycle parts that are quite uncommon in his fatherland, such as the trusty dynamo.

We'd already decided on a CargoBike Long as our next bike, so we were mostly interested in Henry's customisations. In other words, apart from the promise of excellent service, why buy a bike from him instead of a shop closer to home?

For a start, his bikes look very distinctive. The frames are two-tone, which Henry explained is virtually dictated by practical necessity. He orders the frames pre-coated with an anti-rust layer. Once the top layer has gone on, you can't tell his frames apart from untreated ones. Therefore, the only way he can be sure that they don't get mixed up at the factory -- resulting in his being supplied with untreated frames -- is to order them in unique colour combinations. No other shop orders frames in this style.

Amongst other things, Henry fits an 8 speed internal Shimano gear hub and a riser for the MaxiCosi car-seat. This allows the child on the bench to slide its feet under the riser. The riser does get in the way of the optional second bench, but it can be removed when the child outgrows the MaxiCosi and can be tolerated for incidental use of the second bench.

Bike shops often devise their own method of securing the MaxiCosi car-seat, as there's no perfect solution to the problem of securing the baby, whilst maximising space in the box.

The standard MaxiCosi seat brace takes up so much room in the box, that a second child can hardly fit on the rear bench, never mind a front bench. Many shops therefore reject the idea of the brace, most preferring to simply fit a seat-belt that is then fastened across the base of the car-seat. That's fine, but then there's nowhere for a child on a front bench to put its feet. Henry's riser is a good solution to this problem, even if it's still not ideal.

On the subject of bikes, I bought Eloïse a LIKEaBIKE yesterday. These are lovely, if expensive, wooden bikes from Germany with proper tyres and adjustable saddle height. She seems very happy with it and has already noticeably improved as a rider in the few hours that she's had it.

We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

I'm hoping to get out of here close to nine o'clock in the morning. Eight hours on the road, plus a ferry crossing, will see us travel from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, cruising along Germany's autobahns on the way. Ah, the last haven of the legal speed freak!

This time tomorrow, we'll be tucked up in bed in the Danish capital.

Here we are in our hotel room in Copenhagen. I'm staring at the bed in the darkened room and looking forward to creeping between its sheets.

It's been a long day. We didn't start out on the journey anywhere close to 09:00. It was more like 10:45 before we got going. We were up and about in time; it's just that it takes a long time to pack the car, turn off the floor heating, put thermostats on holiday mode, program the lights to come on in the house while we're away, etc.

With surprisingly few stretches of unrestricted autobahn and several stops for lunch and the call of nature, we didn't roll into the German ferry port of Puttgarden until around 17:30. It was very busy there, with most of the cars sporting Swedish plates. Judging by the number of such cars, the omnipresent ski-rack on top and the presence of children inside, I'd guess that Swedish schools had their half-term holiday last week and that most of these families were returning from skiing trips in Bavaria, Austria or Switzerland. Honestly, the Swedes outnumbered the Danes by about five to one.

By the time we had rolled to the front of the queue and purchased our ferry ticket, we were just in time to miss the 17:45 sailing. We were literally the first car that didn't make it on. No matter, though; the next crossing was only half an hour away: enough time for a toilet break.

And the crossing to Rødby in Denmark was a fun one, as it provided an interesting glimpse of Scandinavian behaviour.

Although the crossing lasts only forty-five minutes, the passengers make excellent use of the time, racing around the duty-free shops to load up on fags and booze, and then scurrying to the on-board restaurants to scoff down curried sausage and chips. There were Danish pastries, too, of course, but those seemed to be less popular.

The ferry also had a children's playing area, which Eloïse greatly appreciated. She wasn't put off by the older children playing on it, and steamed straight in to make use of the slide.

Once we hit Danish soil, it was a straight 175 km drive through the rain and darkness to Copenhagen, where we were astonished to find that that it took no time at all to drive straight to our hotel in the centre of town. There was almost no traffic, even though it's Saturday night. We pulled up outside at about 20:40.

A late dinner was had at Chit Chat, just around the corner from the hotel, on Sankt Peders Stræde. Pricey, but good.

The heroine of the day is Eloïse . She has been as good as gold for the entire journey. No complaints about the length of time spent strapped into her car-seat, no soiled underpants, no tantrums, no moodiness... nothing. She even behaved well at this evening's restaurant, in spite of the lateness of the hour. What a daughter. She really made the drive an enjoyable one. Without her cooperation, it could and would have been a living hell.

Anyway, I need some sleep. I can't wait to get outside in the morning and see what the city has to offer.

February's not the best time to visit Copenhagen -- too cold and windy -- but at least the last couple of days have been dry ones.

Today was nice and sunny, so we decided to hire bikes. The only place we're aware of that has Christiania bakfietsen for hire is too expensive for our liking, so we went to another shop and procured a couple of normal bikes.

Sarah wasn't comfortable with the low handlebars on her bike, so we went back to the shop after five minutes and she exchanged it for another one.

Well, we must've had that second bike for even fewer than five minutes before Sarah crashed down onto the cycle path as she was coming to a standstill. She somehow caught her right foot against the frame as she was dismounting on the left side and hadn't put her left foot far enough from the bike to prevent her losing her balance.

This really isn't the kind of thing you want to happen when you're 34 weeks pregnant, but there you have it. It happened. With Eloïse in a child seat on the back of my bike, I couldn't even attend to Sarah as soon as she went down. I had to first get Eloïse out of her seat. Luckily, a couple of passers-by rushed to our aid.

Fortunately, Sarah seems to be OK. Her main injuries are a gashed knee, a sprained wrist, a bruised thigh and a bump on her forehead; to say nothing of the wounded pride. The baby, thank goodness, shows no signs of the ordeal its expectant mother went through.

Sarah wanted to get back on and continue riding, but I insisted we take the bikes back to the shop, where the unfriendly owner wasn't prepared to give us even a partial refund. 200 kr. for five minutes!

The name of the shop is Københavns Cykelbørs and it's on Gothersgade 157. You may care to boycott it, given the owner's unsympathetic attitude. He was well within his rights, of course, but I was surprised he didn't offer to split the 200 kroner down the middle. I didn't make a big fuss about it, though, because I had an injured wife waiting for me outside the shop.

We discussed going to the other shop and getting a Christiania three-wheeler, but in the end, nothing came of that idea. In spite of Sarah's bloodied knee, she was able to walk, so she was lucky in that regard, at least.

After visiting a chemist's and bandaging up Sarah's knee, we walked south and across the water to the neighbourhood of Christianshavn, home to the very unusual, partially self-governing community known as Freetown Christiania, where the bike company of the same name started its life.

It was a bit of a disappointment, really. Pusher Street was aptly named, lined with dodgy-looking dope dealers standing next to oil drums from which the flames of bonfires licked at the air. Pitbulls and other low-brow canines cavorted together in the gravel, looking as if their antics might turn serious at any moment. Countless hordes of hooded youths stood around, drinking beer and smoking. Are these the idealistic inhabitants of a latter day Utopia?

Most of the places where one might grab a snack or a drink were closed, too, because it's Monday. One establishment boasted that it was the safest café on earth, because it had had endured several thousand police raids over the years.

The Sunshine Bakery was the undisputed highlight of Christiania, serving delicious takeaway pastries and cakes.

After a quick look around at some of the houses and stopping to peer through the window of the eponymously named bike shop, we left Christiania and headed back to the centre of town, stopping for a late lunch at the excellent Café Kejzer. Through its windows, I spotted a solitary bakfiets.nl CargoBike Long being ridden by.

Speaking of good food, I must mention yesterday's lunch spot, too: Café Norden. It has a great club sandwich, plus very tasty cakes.

It seems as if the Danes simply don't countenance bad food. It must be out there somewhere, I suppose, but everything seems to be excellent, regardless of the price category.

A good example of excellent, but cheaper food was last night's simple dinner at Café Salonen. This tiny place was packed out by 19:00 and we were lucky to secure a table. A DJ span music while we ate, but it wasn't loud and the atmosphere was very cosy.

Anyway, rain is forecast for tomorrow, so I'm not sure what we'll do. A café crawl is always an appealing thought, but Eloïse might not agree. We'll see.

Most hotels -- even good ones -- are nondescript. Not so Hotel Fox. Just check out these rooms. It's not the best hotel in the world -- just a good one -- but you're unlikely to forget your stay in a hurry.

The breakfast here is excellent, too, although the cubic seating could be a little more comfortable.

Today, we went on a long walk out to the Frederiksberg neighbourhood of Copenhagen and then through a rather large park. The forecast was for rain, but it never quite happened, bar a few spits here and there.

There's a limit to what you can accomplish in a city like Copenhagen in the winter, especially with a toddler in tow. Museums and galleries aren't really our bag at the best of times. We prefer just walking around town, through the different neighbourhoods and parks, stopping every now and again for coffee and to recharge.

Given Copenhagen's excellent gastronomic reputation and the cold windy weather, it's hardly surprising, then, that we seem to be doing a lot of eating and drinking on this trip.

I must recommend La Glace, Copenhagen's oldest cake shop. This place serves the most mouth-watering cakes and hot chocolate. You simply can't come to this town and not eat here at least once. Be prepared to jostle for a table, though.

Although the hot chocolate (varm chokolade) is expensive at 57 kr. per person, the thing you need to know is that the staff will happily refill your pot for free. It comes with a plate full of flødeskum; that's whipped cream to you. Delicious, and just what you need to fend off the elements in the windy winter.

Similarly, Wanna B is a cosy little café with great food. We stopped there for lunch today. Its burgers and coffee were commendable.

Yesterday, we had lunch at Ida Davidsen's world-famous smørrebrød restaurant. You can't even see the bread underneath for the toppings piled on top. Caviar and smoked salmon on an open-faced sandwich. Or how about plaice, prawns and crayfish tails? No wonder smørrebrød (the Danish open-faced sandwich) is also world-famous.

And then there's La Galette. Tucked away up an indistinct alley, you could easily walk right past it, but then you'd be missing out on its delicious buckwheat Brittany pancakes. I found it very reminiscent of Ti Couz in San Francisco, as Breton crêpes are like no other.

Yes, at any time of year. Copenhagen is a great place to put on weight whilst treating your taste-buds.

And so our time in Copenhagen (and therefore also Denmark) draws to an end.

We made our way down to Nyhavn today for a canal boat tour, but were disappointed to discover that they are only operated at the weekend when out of season. That's a pisser, because, if we had known that, we would have gone on one last Sunday. Oh well; something to do next time.

Instead, we walked down to the harbour to see the statue of The Little Mermaid, or Den Lille Havfrue, as she's known here.

One international study rates Danes as the happiest people in the world. It's not hard to see why, really. It really is a very civilised place, with the inevitably high cost of living that accompanies such civilisation. VAT runs at 25% here, for example.

On the face of it, the place isn't that much different to The Netherlands, although we score a disappointing 15th in the world happiness stakes. Still, that's ahead of Norway in 19th place, which also enjoys a very high standard of living. What's the explanation?

I don't know the answer and it's impossible to find out after just five days in the capital. In fact, one of my gripes about visiting Copenhagen is that it's a hard place to get the most out of when you don't have Danish friends to show you around, point things out and enlighten you about Danish customs and values. Nevertheless, we've been here long enough to see the hygge that is so important to the Danes.

One thing I've noticed is that you don't see many Bugaboo prams here. Almost everyone opts for the traditional, yet gigantic Swedish Emmaljunga prams, which we first saw en masse in Iceland.

And, as in Iceland, parents are wont to leave their babies outside the cafés and shops, safely tucked up in their sturdy Swedish prams, secure in the knowledge that none of the happy people of Denmark would dream of hurting or making off with someone else's baby. One has to wonder how long it will be before freedom of movement within the EU results in some foreign-bred person of lesser happiness coming here and doing some Danish child a mischief. Let's hope it never happens.

Anyway, I love these Emmaljunga prams and I want one. Sarah, ever the bucket of icy water to my boyish excitement, says, however, that they're too bulky for the streets of Amsterdam and the tiny shops there. Well, I want one regardless, because I think they're so cosy. Although there are no Dutch retailers of the brand, we could always order one on-line.

I'm dreaming, of course. There's still plenty of life in our Bugaboo Cameleon.

We have bought a couple of nice items of baby clothing at Hugin & Mugin, though. We developed a soft spot for this Danish brand during a past trip to Iceland.

Tomorrow, we're off across the very expensive Øresundsbron (Oresund Bridge) to Malmö and then up through southern Sweden on the long drive to the capital, Stockholm. This will be the first time any of us has been to Sweden, so we're very excited.

Another long day: 649 km in the car from Copenhagen to Stockholm. Amsterdam to Copenhagen was only slightly longer, at 676 km.

The Øresund Bridge took us from the outer suburbs of Copenhagen across into Sweden. After a customs woman quizzed us as we came off the bridge, we were on our way across a surprisingly rustic landscape. I had expected the suburbs of Malmö to greet us, but it obviously doesn't sprawl as far as the bridge.

After filling up with petrol (twice: the petrol pump shut itself off after tanking SEK 400, so I had to insert my credit card a second time), we started heading north. With the Swedish motorway maximum stuck at 110 kmh, I was hoping for interesting scenery, since the drive itself, across scarcely populated, scarcely winding motorway, was not going to be a riveting experience.

To be honest, the drive was fairly dull until we reached Jönköping. Then, the motorway led us around the east side of the humongous lake Vättern and the drive became pleasanter.

The thing that really struck me was exactly how sparsely populated Sweden is. It's a massive country, but the motorways have very little traffic and the distances between towns of any significant size are considerable. The Swedes really do have an enviable amount of space at their disposal.

The road remained quiet until about 30 km from Stockholm, when the scenery started to take on the shape of an imminent urban conurbation. Not until about 8 km from the centre did things really start to build up.

We pulled into Stockholm from the south, through the borough of Södermalm. It's an up and coming area and had obvious instant appeal. The bridge that brought us into town was apparently one that levies an automatic toll as part of the city's congestion charge system, although I'll be impressed if they actually manage to levy the toll on us.

A few minutes later, we had located our hotel across the water in Gamla Stan, which means 'Old Town'. We checked in and then I left to find somewhere to park the car for the next few days.

Stockholm is absolutely hopping on a Friday night. As we walked along Götgatan looking for a restaurant in which to eat, we were surprised to find virtually every place full to the brim and pouring out onto the street.

Eventually, we found a place with a free table and hastily commandeered it. It was a great place to people-watch. The people of Stockholm are a beautiful crowd, almost overwhelmingly so, and they're perhaps at their preening best on a Friday evening.

I think we're going to enjoy our stay here. After just one evening, I already vastly prefer Stockholm to Copenhagen. It's much more beautiful and charming; the girls are better-looking, too, which doesn't hurt.