Evolution of our Xtracycle

We've owned an Xtracycle Freeradical since 2003. Attached to a fairly basic mountain bike, it's done a lot of work in the past. However, for the last two years, our Xtracycle had fallen out of use. We both had become used to the comfort of Dutch town bikes, and as a result, we were more likely to pile parcels high on our town bikes, sometimes pulling a trailer as well, than to ride the Xtracycle. When I rode it in December, I noticed that the chain was worn and several things felt a little unpleasant, so work needed to be done.

Recently the sales in our online shop have built up and the option of moving all our parcels on the normal town bike had become quite unworkable. We needed a cargo bike again. Over the last few weeks I've done quite a few small jobs on the Xtracycle to get it in usable order once more.

Fundamentally, much of what was "wrong" with our Xtracycle came down to it being a mountain bike with a thing bolted onto the back.

Now I know that many people love their mountain bikes. There is no reason why they should not do so. Mountain biking is a fine sport. The problem isn't mountain bikes, or their riders, but the use of the wrong tool for the job. Mountain bikes are not particularly practical bicycles. MTB gearing is rather on the low side, which is fine for travelling through mud or up steep slopes, but not ideal around town. The sitting position is uncomfortably stretched out due to the long stem and straight handlebars. The high bottom bracket, useful when riding off-road, is a nuisance in town as it requires that one hops down off the saddle at stops. MTBs don't come with mudguards, chainguards or racks, which can be tricky to fit. A kickstand isn't fitted, and permanent fitting of lights is not straightforward. A practical bike needs to have nothing on it which must remove when you park.

Many of the problems with using a mountain bike for everyday transport can be solved with suitable add-ons, and by doing this one can approach the concept of a practical Dutch everyday bike, which comes fitted with everything you need for practical use without requiring work to be done.

Some of the issues are tackled by the Xtracycle Freeradical add-on itself. It provides an oversized rack. If you also fit the Xtracycle specific kickstand then that solves another problem as the bike can now stand upright without assistance. These two things we'd already done. However, the problems that remained with our Xtracycle were typical "MTB as town bike" problems, which have now been put to rest as well as possible.

For a start, the tyres. Knobbly tyres are designed for mud. They're also OK in snow. However (with just a few exceptions) they are inefficient and slow on smooth surfaces. Also, cheaper tyres are puncture prone. There are various add-on products available to try to reduce this problem, but far and away the most effective way of reducing the problem of punctures is to fit better quality tyres with a good anti-puncture layer. I chose the Schwalbe Marathon tyre. It's not fast like a racing tyre, but it's faster than typical knobbly tyres, and puncture resistance is very good. This also makes the bike blissfully quieter to ride as you don't get the characteristic hum of a knobbly tyre on tarmac. While on the subject of wheels, another essential for everyday riding is to fit mudguards (fenders). Because I don't like spray on my feet and shoes, I also fitted the larger and truly effective type of mudflap.

Only half a mudguard is fitted at the back. Sadly, my original model Freeradical had no really good way of mounting a rear mudguard. I understand that eyes for mounting a mudguard are provided on newer versions of the product.

To achieve more comfort when riding the bike required changing the handlebar and stem and also the saddle. My handlebar and stem are a set which we already owned which is equivalent to the combined handlebar and stem in the webshop. This change brings the handlebars a lot closer so that we don't have to lean over so much when riding and the cargo is closer to the turning axis, so the bike is easier to control when heavy. Also, the ends of the bars turn backwards, which is much more comfortable for the wrists than a straight handlebar. The saddle is the same wide sprung and comfortable model as we'd already got on other bikes of ours, and as used by so many people who want comfort and practicality.

Our Xtracycle is fitted with a Steco front rack for extra capacity. This works very well, but it also makes the steering more likely to flop around when the bike is on its stand. For that reason I have fitted a steering damper to the bike. I'd not used one before, but I find that it works very well with the rack. The handlebars no longer turn so much when the bike is parked, and so weight in the front is less likely to flip the whole thing over. It also has a benefit when riding as it tames the front end a little, which is helpful when there is a lot of weight on the rack.

I've also fitted dynamo lights to our Xtracycle. They've a huge advantage over battery lights in that they are permanent, bolted on, part of the bike so don't have to be removed when you park and there are no batteries to be flat. This is essential for practicality.

I'm using a Nordlicht dynamo attached with a special bracket for the V-brake boss, coupled with a Basta headlight mounted on the light bracket built into the Steco rack. There are brighter headlights for use on long rides in the countryside, but that's not what we use our Xtracycle for. For use in town, this provides more than enough light for a very reasonable price. The rear light is difficult with the Xtracycle. Again, there is no good place to attach a light to the Freeradical frame. I've opted for a DIY solution using an old battery-powered rear LED light adapted for dynamo use and attached to the bottom of my saddle.

I would have liked to fit a Dutch style lock to the bike. These are by far the most convenient and quick to use style of bike lock, but they don't fit with the Freeradical in place. Instead, I found a way of mounting an old D lock permanently on the bike. A hole drilled in the advertising board allows the D lock to be swung into the wheel. It also stays in place above the top tube while riding. It's not the highest security arrangement, but it's enough around here.

The triple crankset (22/32/42 teeth) which was originally fitted to the mountain bike which we used as a donor has been replaced with a single speed crankset with 46 teeth. This gives higher gears for a bit more speed in town.

Finally, a bell. Of course, for a large bike there is just one choice - the 80 mm Ding Dong bell.

And how has it turned out ? Well, now the bike is once again enjoyable to ride, and over the last few weeks since the work was done, it's been used many times more.

But we have driveways

One of the many excuses used by people who oppose protected cycling infrastructure is the 'but we have driveways' excuse. There are people who believe that cycling infrastructure, especially a separate protected cycle path, does not go together well with driveways.

But of course the two can be combined: as long as the design of both the cycle path and the driveways are well done and follow strict rules.

1. Driveways may not interrupt the sidewalk or cycle path.

2. Driveways may not influence the level of the sidewalk or cycle path.

3. Driveways may not have priority over pedestrians or cyclists.

When a drive way does not interrupt the sidewalk or the cycle path, when it does not change the level of either of those and when it is clear it has no priority over pedestrians or cyclists then such a driveway is no problem at all to separated cycling infrastructure.

Driveways that do not interrupt cycle path nor sidewalk, have no influence on the level of either of those and clearly have no priority.

In the following video you can see that well designed driveways and cycling infrastructure can coexist without any problem.

The video was shot in Vught, a small town just south of 's-Hertogenbosch in North-Brabant province. According to Wikipedia it was apparently named 'Best place to live in the Netherlands' by a Dutch magazine. 

The best cycle path in Britain ?

One of my friends in Cambridge commented that this "almost looks like the Netherlands." That's true only until you notice that this path runs right next to high speed buses and that the junctions are all compromised.

It's taken a lot longer than it should have (construction started well before we left Cambridge four years ago), but the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway has finally opened. With the busway came the best part of the plan, the maintenance track. This is open for cyclists to use, and provides the first long distance cycle path in the area.

It's quite a track. At four metres (maximum) wide, it's the same width as a standard bidirectional cycle path here in Assen. Unfortunately, the good quality section doesn't yet go the whole 26 km length of the bus route (hopefully, top-up money from a charity will complete it). The longest stretch being about 10 km in length between the North of Cambridge and the village of Swavesey, but this does appear to be surfaced nicely, providing a reasonably direct and high quality traffic-free route.

When it's complete and goes all the way to St. Ives, this will be almost certainly the best quality cyclepath in the UK, offering a combination of a direct route to somewhere that you might actually want to go with a good degree of safety away from cars, with a width such that it's possible to pass other cyclists, and with a surface quality that allows cyclists to ride at any speed they find comfortable.

The yellow line shows the route taken by cyclists celebrating the opening of the maintenance track.

This is undoubtedly a major improvement for Cambridge, and will enable a lot of people to make journeys that they'd not otherwise have made by bike. The previous route to St. Ives by bike was not bad at all by British standards, being mainly on minor roads, but there were a couple of less than pleasant parts.

Wider issues
This path also is indicative of a problem. The best cycle facility in the area came into existence not as a cycling project but on the coat-tails of a bus project with an enormous budget. The costs for the guided bus are wildly higher than the budget for cycling could ever afford. Even though Cambridge is the leading cycling city of the UK, and as many people cycle there are take buses, funding in the area remains skewed towards motorized transport. That a charity is expected to fund finishing the path on behalf of cyclists shows the priority which cycling actually has in planning of this route.

It also remains to be seen how popular the guided bus actually is. Originally, the bus was supposed to serve an "eco town" on the route, but this seems to be in planning limbo. If the bus fails, then the future of its "maintenance track" may also be in doubt.

As there is no plan for a guided bus route from Cambridge to the West to reach St. Neots, East to Newmarket or South to Bishop's Stortford, there's no chance of an equivalent standard of cycle facility being built in those directions. While obviously welcome, recent provision from the cycling budget in the Cambridge area is not in the same scale nor the same standard as that which came piggy-backed on the bus project.

I also have reservations about how crossings of roads are handled. If this was a Dutch style intercity cycling superhighway you'd expect to get priority at most, if not all, crossings so that a non-stop journey was possible. If a stop was required, you'd expect the delay to be short and that crossings of multiple lanes would be made in one step. But that's not the norm in Britain. These are things which could and should be improved over time.

Perhaps most importantly, because this is a "one off" it's not part of a plan to build the one thing that made cycling really take off in the Netherlands. i.e. A tight grid of very high quality cycle paths. Because of this, the positive effect of this path will be limited only to people whose journeys are sufficiently lined up with its route.


Let's end on a positive note. This still looks like it is the best cycle path in Britain. When finished it will provide for relatively uninterrupted riding over a good distance. I think it will be interesting to see what happens. As it's such a good facility, I expect it will be popular and well used. However, the difference in standard between this and other provision in the area will be obvious, and this could help to give impetus to a call for a general upgrade in standards. Cycling needs to have a proper budget in the UK's top cycling city.

Update Winter 2013
Clearly I spoke too soon regarding the quality of this path. It seems that in addition to the problems I suspected it would have, sections of this path flood for weeks at a time in winter. Really Cambridge, you need to do a lot better than this.

Update Winter 2014
This path was closed due to flooding this year for more than 50 days continuously. The same article also reveals that the closure last year was for 48 days continuously while the council actually intended for the path to flood for an average of 29 days each year. Perhaps it still is the best example of cycling infrastructure in Britain, but only for some of the year. For the rest of the year it's a pond.

I've written elsewhere about the reason why Britain flood so readily. It's the same story as with cycling. Lack of investment. Britain's water management infrastructure isn't good enough to keep the country dry.

Update 2016
Unfortunately, there have now been crashes on the guided bus track:

In July 2016, a bus crashed off the guiding path and went up a bank.

In March 2016, the bus left the guiding path, crossed the cycle-path and crashed into a bank.

Now that crashes have occurred, we have to recognize that the maintenance path which doubles as a cycle-path clearly is not completely safe. Cyclists need their own infrastructure, specifically designed for cycling, not infrastructure which passes for cycling but which is really designed for motorised vehicles.

Update 2018

Where the cyclist died

There has now, sadly, been a fatal collision with a cyclist and an injury to a pedestrian on the guided bus tracks. These both happened on a stretch of the guided bus route to the South of the city rather than the stretch which I highlighted above, but the layout is the same and the same problems exist.

Mixing high speed buses with pedestrians and cyclists in such close proximity is simply not ever a good idea. A spokesman for the bus company talking about the injured pedestrian said "We understand that a 39-year-old tourist was standing close to the busway track when he was caught by a bus wing mirror." This would not have been possible had there been a gap between where buses run and pedestrians walk. People should not be encouraged to stand so close to motor vehicles.

These problems only arose because Cambridge finds it reasonable to under-fund cycling and walking infrastructure. Instead of building real high quality infrastructure for cycling and walking, those modes were placed on the maintenance track of an expensive project to promote use of motor vehicles.

Thanks to Klaas Brumann for the photo at the top of the blog of the maintenance track. He has several more. When this blog post was originally written, the main media sources were more interested in the bus than the maintenance track and no-one was writing about the danger created by this layout. Those same news sources now have crashes and injuries to report upon.

I still don't understand why they built this primitive but expensive concrete walled bus track using mechanical guidance with wheels poking out either side of the bus when it would have been rather less costly and quicker to have put a wire under a flat surface and guided the bus as in this example, itself part of a system more ambitious in its aims which was in full service many years before the work in Cambridge started.

Tacx Jockey Wheels Long Term Review

Back in 1998, the jockey wheels in the derailleur of my recumbent bike of the time were worn. The derailleur still functioned, but there was noise from these very small parts on the bike. A friend suggested that I try Tacx replacement jockey wheels which he'd found made a significant difference to reliability of his mountain bike. I bought a pair, installed them in the derailleur I was using and rode on. Problem solved. A few years later, the first derailleur was damaged and I moved the to another derailleur on a different bike. Time passed. I rode a lot of km, made many tours, including Land's End to John o'Groats with these jockey wheels spinning behind me the entire time. Everything worked and I forgot about them. Last year, the derailleur on that bike also became damaged and I replaced it. When I took the old derailleur off, I found my tacx jockey wheels again. They didn't fit in the more modern replacement derailleur (new ones do), but as they still seemed OK I kept them in case they were useful later. This week I decided to take a closer look at them: One has a little play in the bearing, which makes a bit of a gritty noise. The other still seems to be perfect. They still spin better than standard wheels in almost any new derailleur. The worn look on the outside is largely due to the teeth having worn away. However, teeth on jockey wheels aren't really that important. Some old derailleurs had round jockey wheels without teeth, but they still worked as derailleurs. Needless to say, I'm impressed by the longevity. Mine were the lower cost type with the normal bearings. Now there are variations with stainless steel and ceramic bearings. Good quality products like this are exactly the sort of thing we set our shop up to sell. We don't like gimmicks. We like products which are reliable and long lasting. If you've got worn jockey wheels in a derailleur, it's a lot cheaper to replace just the wheels than the entire derailleur. We now sell a selection of different types to fit most derailleurs. I'm now testing ceramic Tacx jockey wheel in the Mango. While my old ones look odd with the teeth missing, I don't think it's that important. I've got one very old derailleur with round jockey wheels which never had any teeth at all.

Roundabout with safe cycling facilities

The report above from SWOV in 2004 compares cyclist
safety of roundabout designs. This blog post recommends an
unsafe design.
Please read a later blog post which shows the safe design.

The design proposed in this guest blog post is not the safest possible. In fact, the design promoted in this post is known to be responsible for dozens of injuries each year in the Netherlands. This design causes seven times so many injuries as the best Dutch roundabout designs. Please see a later blog post which shows the safest roundabout design for cyclists.

A view at one of the more recently built roundabouts in the city of 's-Hertogenbosch in the South of the Netherlands. This roundabout came in the place of an ordinary four arm junction with traffic lights. When the city announced that the junction would be changed into a roundabout people had a hard time believing this would be possible at all. They thought there would not be enough space. But it proved to be very possible indeed. Traffic now flows very smoothly.

Interestingly enough Google Maps shows the before situation, but once you start StreetView it shows the current situation.

Before: a junction with traffic lights and separate cycle paths.

After: roundabout with separate cycle paths, the lights were removed. Note that this roundabout design is responsible for dozens of injuries per year in the Netherlands.

The waiting times for all traffic decreased at this particular junction. So it proved to be a good decision to change the junction into a roundabout. I have showed you another roundabout in 's-Hertogenbosch in an earlier post. There the priority for cyclists on Dutch roundabouts is also explained.

Update: It seems people are taking this design presented by a guest blogger as something to aim for. Please note that this is not the safest design of roundabout which is possible and we do not suggest copying the design shown in this blog post. The particular example shown here closely resembles a roundabout in Groningen to which we take people on study tours in order to see how NOT to design a roundabout. This relies too much on drivers being perfectly behaved. and on cyclists having eyes on the back of their heads.

Other posts on this blog show safer roundabout designs where cyclists either don't interact at all with cars on the roundabout or where they give way on those arms where there are interactions. These other roundabouts provide a better example for other nations to follow.

Dutch cyclists talk about helmets and bicycles

Paul van Bellen, who organised the Australian study tour earlier in the year, made this video on his last day in Amsterdam.

These reactions are similar to that of the waitress who we interviewed in an Assen restaurant during their tour:


Dutch people typically can't see a need to wear a helmet for everyday cycling. Cycling is seen as an inherently safe activity and the whole population takes part every day. Cycling is not associated with danger. It shouldn't be, because even here where people cycle so much, cycling is not nearly the most risky activity that most people are involved with on a daily basis.

The fact is that in this country, where there are more cyclists than any other and where cycling is common amongst a wider demographic than any other country (which means it includes more of those who are more vulnerable. i.e. the very old and the very young), the average person can expect to live several thousand lifetimes between fatal head injuries while cycling. i.e. other causes of death are thousands of times more significant than are head injuries while cycling.

If you're thinking of campaigning for helmets, keep these facts in mind. It's not cycling which is dangerous, it is the motor car. If you live in a country where cycling is more dangerous than it is here (and that's every country outside of the Netherlands) and you wish to make cycling safer, then you should address the danger at source, following best practice from the Netherlands. That will achieve far greater health benefits for your population than will imposing rules which will make cycling less popular and thereby undoing many of the great health benefits which come due to cycling.

Rather than looking at this in a one-dimensional way and missing the big picture altogether, doctors in the Netherlands take a rational approach. They prescribe cycling to keep people healthy because the huge benefits outweigh the small risks.

To discover more, book a study tour. Paul is the Gazelle importer in Australia

Space under and over bridges

This is one of the very first photos of infrastructure which I took in the Netherlands, back in 2001. Coming from the UK, I was amazed at the allocation of space under the bridge. Two arches are for bikes and pedestrians, only the arch in the middle is for cars.

I used that photo in a recent article for the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, and it made me think of other examples. It's not rare that cyclists are treated well under and over bridges in the Netherlands. Sometimes there isn't a lot of space, but the need to keep cyclists safe isn't ignored.

Here are some other examples:

A few km north of here on a road connecting a village to a small town. Drivers have to negotiate a gap big enough for just one car at a time, while cyclists have a bidirectional cyclepath.

A main route into Groningen passes under a motorway. Here the cycle paths on both sides of the road are well apart from the motor vehicles.

This example appeared in a recent post about noise, but it is also an example of where a cycle path is well separated from a road under a bridge.

Another recent photo from a holiday a couple of weeks ago. On this bridge in a small fishing village near the coast motorists have to negotiate for the one car width space on the road while cyclists have a degree of separation.

I found the existing way over this bridge, a narrow service road to the left of the main lanes, safe enough when I rode across there a few years ago. However it wasn't considered to be good enough and therefore a new separate cycle bridge was built alongside the main bridge.

Is this common ?
Such consideration for cyclists at bridges is the norm in the Netherlands. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of examples of this type of thing. I doubt anyone has ever counted them. Here are six more examples just from my commuting route on or under bridges with widely varying traffic levels:

Grotere kaart weergeven


Grotere kaart weergeven


Grotere kaart weergeven

There's nothing unusual or difficult about this. Bridges don't have to cause problems for cyclists whether they're going over or under a bridge.

Why is this important ?
Any bridge, or any other point, which causes a problem and makes people feel unsafe forms another small barrier to cycling. This reduction in subjective safety causes a slight reduction in the number of people who are willing to cycle. Lots of bad examples add up so that the majority would eventually not feel safe cycling anywhere, because the chance of coming across such a thing is great.

And then there's Blackfriars...
So what's going on in London ? Why is one bridge, Blackfriars, causing such an enormous amount of trouble. Why are Transport for London planning to make conditions worse for cyclists on this bridge when the city is in theory trying to encourage people to cycle ? Why are so many people having to protest about it in order to try to prevent this degradation of standards ?

For most people considering cycling, a bridge which doesn't feel safe to cross by bike may as well not exist at all. This should be in the minds of planners at all times. It's not impossible to do. It's not difficult to do. The Netherlands provides examples across the whole country, at junctions large and small, with high and low volumes of traffic.

Many London bloggers have written about this issue. They're quite rightly outraged. You can find in-depth Blackfriars coverage, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Also in my later post about the problems at Blackfriars, including a Dutch example.