Cycling as Craft — Building, Riding and Repairing Bikes
From restoring a 1978 Batavus to building a cargo bike from scratch — thirty-three posts about bicycles as machines, tools and philosophy.
Willem doesn't just ride bikes — he builds them, tears them down, replaces every cable, and writes about what he learns. These thirty-three posts trace a journey from a rusted 1978 frame to a hand-built cargo bike, from commuting philosophy to power meter data.
It starts, as many good stories do, with something old and broken. A 1978 Batavus Champion found in a shed, stripped to the frame, rebuilt with modern parts. That first post set the pattern for everything that followed: Willem doesn't buy solutions, he builds them.
The Commuter Builds
The heart of the collection is the multi-year commuter bike project. First came the concept: creating the ultimate commuter bike — a machine designed not for speed but for the daily act of getting to work in Amsterdam, in rain and wind, year after year. Then the one-year follow-up, reporting on what held up and what didn't after thousands of kilometres.
Cargo and Freedom
The ambition grew. A cargo bike built from scratch — assembled by hand, piece by piece, documented in photographs and text. And later, the Freedom Bike: a stripped-down machine built around the idea that a bicycle should be as repairable and understandable as possible.
The Hands-On Posts
Willem's most practically useful posts are the repair guides. Replacing a Shimano shift cable, removing paint from a frame, fixing a Giro helmet, escaping flat tires with tubeless — these are the posts people find through search engines and bookmark for later.
Data and Performance
Cycling led to measurement. Riding with a power meter, reviewing Cyclemeter as a bike computer app, comparing dynamo-powered headlights — the engineer's eye applied to the cyclist's experience.
Also explore
repair culture · life without a car · designing and making · Amsterdam stories
All Cycling Posts
Every post Willem has written about bicycles, components, and riding — from the oldest to the newest.
