Their owners, locally known as the Onthelis, brought them there for a special reason: a meet-and-greet session with Andre Koopmans, a Dutch national with a deep passion for Dutch vintage bicycles. “I did not know that people in Indonesia were this enthusiastic about old bicycles,” said Koopmans, acknowledging it was his first visit to Bali after his appearance last week at the International Classic Bicycle Festival of Bandung Lautan Onthel in West Java, where around 5,000 vintage bike lovers and collectors nationwide gathered. Bali alone is estimated to be home to some 500 old bike enthusiasts.
Deemed a specialist in Gazelle bicycles, Koopmans, 48, works day-to-day as a safety manager in a factory in a small town in the Netherlands. He fell in love with his first old Gazelle bike 15 years ago and the love has grown ever since. Today, he had collected some 40 vintage Dutch bicycles dating back as far as 1916.
“There’s an old saying in Holland that a good bicycle is the one that lasts for your whole life. That bike is what I have always wanted,” said Koopmans, whose first love was a 1937 Gazelle, which he managed to rebuild as per the original specifications. Asked for his impression on the vintage bike collections in Indonesia, Koopmans appreciated the effort by the country’s vintage bike owners to keep their collections as authentic and well-preserved as possible.
“But it’s more difficult for them to make their bikes as original as possible, because the right spare parts could be very expensive and hard to find. I think the people in Indonesia take more care of their old bikes than they do in Holland. In Holland, there are just too many bikes, people don’t care and just throw their old ones away.”
Nowadays, prices of vintage bicycles continued to rise, noting that an original, good condition 1960 Gazelle bike could fetch up to Rp 70 million when sold.
Nonetheless, the benefits of vintage bicycles do not stop with health, social and financial gains, as the two-wheel form of transport is also known for its historical value, especially for Indonesia, a country that was colonized by the Dutch for 350 years and by the English between 1811 and 1816.
These vintage bikes have numerous models, brands and countries of origins. Back in the olden days, each model and brand represented the different social and economic classes of the owners. For example, the Gazelle and Fongers brands belonged to the wealthy Meneer [the Dutch landlords] and the local Priyayi [high status Indonesians], while those who worked as clerks, nurses, doctors and policemen also had their own types of bicycles.