25 October 2010
Cool Dutch Bicycle Accessories
Marleen from Pays-Bas Cycle Chic and I did some shopping. I was looking for some gifts for my kids and we ended up in the Dutch department store HEMA. What a splendid array of bicycle accessories they have on display. Loads of funky bling for your bicycle, including fun stuff for your spokes, as above.
Handlebar tassles and a flower for your handlebars.
Or even better, a long string of flowers for your bicycle frame and/or handlebars, as well as a wealth of other stuff.
To my delight I discovered that HEMA has an online shop where all these accessories are available for purchase. The site is in Dutch, but Google Translate is your friend in this exciting global/digital age.
Here are some items we thought to be quite cool:
In this row you have a chain of flowers for your handlebars/frame for €3.95, a lovely front rack in pink for €28 and handlebar tassles for €3.95.
In this row we have a cool little bicycle horn for €5.95, a bike seat cover featuring the famous (in the Netherlands) characters Jip & Janneke for €3.95 and a single, elegant flower for your handlebars for €1.95.
Here are a number of classic Dutch pannier bags. From left to right, classic Dutch double pannier bags for €33, funky pannier bags for €35 and Jip and Janneke pannier bags for €19.95.
In this row, HEMA has pannier bags onto which you can add your own photo for £55, blingy beads for your spokes for €2.50 and some funky, retro spoke fun for €2.75.
On their website, HEMA also sells bicycles that you can customise yourself, although it would probably be best if you lived in the Netherlands if you buy them. We can't attest for their quality, either.
But here's their main page for bicycles and bicycle gear.
And no, we don't make any money off of blogging about these HEMA things. We just chuck them up out of the goodness of our hearts so that you can make your bicycle pretty/funky/cool/whatever.
We have them in Belgium ias well, so if you don't mind, I'll just stick your post up on our Facebook -wall. :)
ReplyDeleteawesome! SPOKE-A-DOKES!
ReplyDeleteHema! A little takes you a long way there, and they would kick some serious retail butt in Copenhagen too, if they were to branch out. Oh, Hema, I miss you!
ReplyDeleteActually they're in Belgium, Germany (tiny still), France (only some stores in Paris as fas as I know) and Luxemburg too. Their current owner, a lovely Hedge Fund has HEMA up FOR SALE right now! So if you're interested;) Rumour has is that our leading chain of supermarkets Albert Heijn (AH with the blue logo) who is also keen on expanding to Belgium - shall be their new owner. Exciting!
ReplyDeleteHEMA really represents Hardcore Traditional Dutch Values. Such as Cycling Chic;) There's not a single Dutch person who can claim not secretly loving Hema. If only for their All Time Best Seller: the Rookworst or THE Dutch smoked sausage.
It plays a main role in several truly Dutch winterdishes, well and in our snack & streetstyle;)
Unfortunatelly, the online store, only sells to the Netherlands...
ReplyDeletewe call them spokey-dokeys in Australia. Everyone had them as kids in the 80s
ReplyDeleteoh i love these! i bought so many goofy accessories when i was visiting from NYC. Then my bike got stolen and i think i was most upset that all my cool copenhagen bike bling got stolen with it!
ReplyDeleteThey were spokey-dokeys in the UK too. Free with Corn Flakes if I remember correctly...!
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm drooling over that beautiful blue horn!
ReplyDelete