Cycling history personified! My bike builder is honoured by Volkswagen.

[Andre Jute]

Cycling history personified!

Henk Kluver, the master craftsman who built my everyday bike, a Utopia Kranich, and made the coachlines on it, is 90, and in recognition of his lifelong dedication to quality transport, has been given a brand-new VW Transporter for being a "real craftsman" -- that's the "egte vakman" they're searching for near the beginning of the video. The touching video is at http://www.utopia-velo.de/fileadmin/system/statisch/WebVideos/65-klusser-Winnaar-en-prijsuitreiking-Volkswagen-Bedrijfswagens.mp4, and among other things shows Meester Kluver assembling a near relative of my Kranich crossframe by hand, and, most interesting of all, coachlining it with a special tool. 90 and still working! (My Kranich, if you haven't seen the coachlining, is on my bicycle page at http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLING.html -- the PDF includes more photos of Meester Kluver at work, and also of the 1930s version of my bike.)

[Etienne]

   thanks for sharing ... 'the pleasure to meet/see real experienced people' ...

[jags]

thanks andre  great to see a genius at work.

[John Saxby]

Andre, I seem to have a tech problem -- unable to persuade your link to yield its treasures. Maybe my Mac laptop is being sniffy about Things That Are Different and/or From The Dark Side, as it is sometimes ... Any other format than mp4?

[Andre Jute]

Andre, I seem to have a tech problem -- unable to persuade your link to yield its treasures. Maybe my Mac laptop is being sniffy about Things That Are Different and/or From The Dark Side, as it is sometimes ... Any other format than mp4?

Sorry to hear that, John. My Mac has no problem. I can't find another version. But you could try going to my source http://www.utopia-velo.de and clicking on the bottommost link in the lefthand column, which is how I generated the link I gave. Perhaps your Mac will like the two-step better than the combo-link.

[David Simpson]

John --

Instead of directly opening the link, try downloading the MP4 file (ctrl-click? or right-click to pop-up the context menu, then save the link).  If QuickTime doesn't like the encoding used in the MP4 file, try the VLC video player.  Google for it.  It runs on almost every platform, and can decode almost any video format.  I use it on Linux and my Mac.  (I have no hidden interest in VLC.  I'm just a satisfied user.)

- Dave

[John Saxby]

Thanks, Andre and David -- will try the steps you suggest.  - J.