A customized Batavus Old Dutch, in red, just before it was picked up by its owner.
This 2009 Batavus Old Dutch came as a 1-speed from the factory in Heerenveen, Holland. Black is the most common color for a Dutch bike, but this is Southern California! We made sure to get bikes in as wide a variety of colors possible.
At a customer’s request, we disassembled the rear wheel and installed a 5-speed coaster brake hub on it. We also mounted a basket (using a locally made basket mount by our friend Stephen Campos of Steel Fabricated Arts), moving an alternative headlamp down to the front fork using a dynamo light clamp to hold it in place.
A rear view of a customized Batavus Old Dutch. You can see the SRAM Spectro P5 coaster brake hub and gear box in this image.
The rear hub and the extra labor added almost $200 to the cost of the bike, which normally retails for $749 plus tax.
This type of custom work always seems to add a good chunk of time (at least an extra week) until the bike is ready. There are always fiddly little details to be worked out, small pieces to be fabricated or found and ordered out of catalogues.
This bike went together rather nicely, we think.
If you’re interested in having a bike customized, we’ve established a nice relationship with a local paint shop, a welder, and a crew that anodizes and polishes metal parts. The Flying Pigeon LA shop also has a supply of Shimano, Sturmey Archer, or SRAM internally geared hubs. Our supply of these is changing all the time, as it seems that whatever we buy ends up on another custom made bike in short order!
Want us to work on a bike for you? Email info @ flyingpigeon-la.com and send us your ideas, we’ll try and make them happen.