Liegende Hollander, July 2025 and Cycling Cardgame

 Hi

This post relates to events from about a year ago. I didn't put it on my blog then, instead using it as an article for the OzHPV Huff Magazine, and posting a few pictures to Instagram. But today I have been asked about the Dutch "Ligfietskaartspel" (recumbent bike card game ) mentioned here and published by the Netherlands Human Powered Vehicle Club in 2006. This was after I sent a spare set of the cards to Anki at https://www.cyclingboardgames.net/  . Originally I bought 6 packs of cards soon after they came out (and possibly learnt about them back then through Velovision magazine) so knew about them when visiting Holland for a Maths and Arts Conference / Junket. So here is my article from last year.

Strijp S with small bike shop at right.

 

Huff Article: "In July I visited Eindhoven in the Netherlands for a conference. I had arrived a few days early so got a chance to ride around a bit and see some of the town and its bike culture. I had packed a Cruzbike Quest in my suitcase, so that was my transport around the town, which has great bike paths. The city was very enjoyable to visit with some “Strijp” suburbs based around old multi-storey Phillips factories. I had an agreeable, edgy post-industrial feel. The were lots of bikes in Eindhoven but I wondered if I would see any other recumbents. 

Some of the many dumped bikes

Cruzbike Quest in Suitcase

 

Then I looked up recumbent bikes in Eindhoven on my smartphone and found there was a recumbent bike shop called Liggende Hollander in Tourslan Court,  a few kilometres from where I was staying. The tourist office at the station had sold me a bike map of the area which I found hopeless and confusing, but I was able to navigate to Liggende Hollander by phone – clutched in my left hand while steering and gearing with my right. The entire way through Eindhoven was either on bikepaths or roads with 30kph or similar speed limits. I always felt safe on a bike despite my lack of navigational knowledge.

Frank was just opening up Liggende Hollander when I arrived, and he needed to bring 8 or 9 bikes out before he could start operating the bike shop. While I helped him with that, we started an eager discussion about HPV’s in the Netherlands and Australia. He is an industrial designer by trade, and has been working with recumbents for 30 years. In the early days along with making windsurfers and riding pedal-foiling boats, he considered manufacturing his own brand of recumbent bikes (an early recumbent he’d made was stashed in the loft). However at the time, there were several Dutch and German manufacturers, and he thought he could do better by servicing recumbents.

 

In the early days, that meant lots of recumbent bikes, however in the Netherlands, recumbent bikes have gradually become less popular and recumbent trikes, electric bikes, and folding bikes more popular. So Frank’s business these days is mostly selling and servicing trikes, electric bikes, and folding bikes (Bromptons). The bikes we had hauled outside were older recumbents – they didn’t seem to be selling that well!

 

Frank loved building prototypes and loved the feeling of riding a bike he’d made for the first time. He is still keen about all types of bikes and hadn’t seen many Cruzbikes and wanted to try mine out. The quiet court was the perfect place, and he did a few quiet loops while mingling with the neighbours and coming back to me for a quiet chat. 

 

 

Almost accidentally Frank mentioned a bike he did manufacture. This is the Kidt (Kid / Kit bike) designed as an add on to small bikes that children had recently outgrown. It is a wooden beam that extends the bike and supports a pedal set at the front. Frank sold about 50 of these kits, and it came up because it features in the Netherland HPV card set that was for sale in the shop. The kit came in sizes to convert 16 and 20” bikes, and at one time Frank also sold the bikes that could be converted. Details of the Kit are available at https://ligfiets.net/bicycles/114 and Frank’s website is at https://www.deliggendehollander.nl/

On my way home I bought a rubber phone holder for the bike. With that in place navigation was much easier! Thanks Frank for your time and showing me your shop."

Update August 2026: Coincidentally, I have another Ligfietskaartspel bike with me now in my house in Melbourne Australia. My friend George Durbridge died, and I offered his widow Christine to repair and then pass on his bikes. One of these is a Roulandt from 1980's Holland. It is classed as a Long wheel base in the card game but to me it is equally an Oldtimer! The youngest Oldtimer in the card game is the Rinkowski from 1962. I haven't ridden the Roulandt yet as I am finishing off repairs on George's Cruzbike Sigma. But I will get to it soon and report.