This was by far the biggest bike I saw in Holland this weekend that did not involve a keg of beer. [After seeing our fifth or sixth beerfiets, we decided they're the perfect solution for keeping drunk, foreign hooligans together--and away from any one Dutchman's particular place of business. Brilliant.]
Anyway, on to the familyfiets, which is actually called a Kindertandem: seating for five, pedals for two, saddlebags for everyone, it's just crazy. Well, no. What's crazy is that it's not even the biggest Kindertandem the Amsterdam fabricator, Onderwater Fietsenmaker, makes: there's a Kindertandem XL with three sets of pedals, too.
Those are Bobike seats and a set of Clarijscover saddlebags. This shot was early in the morning, but by the end of the day, I realized that vinyl canvas saddlebags were more common in Holland than chocolate waffles and guys six inches taller than me.
Onderwater Fietsenmaker [onderwaterfiets.nl]
See some detail shots in the daddytypes flickr stream [flckr]
Look carefully: the bike only has seating for 4. The child seat on top of the steeringbar is located directly above the middle saddle. This is probably a bike destined for a family with 3 children, the youngest two of which still are too young to sit on a saddle (less than oh, say, 3 years old).
http://www.browncycles.com/KidzTCustomerPics.htm
Or you could get one made here in the good ole U.S. of A!
(Check out the crazy tandem with 2 tag a longs and a trailer on it.)
And bring back some clarijis covers! I've been lusting after some of those for about 5 years now.
whoops, sorry. Had I only known. They're freakin' everywhere over there.