Dutch bicycle brands

Many of the old Dutch brands are not remembered any more, which doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't play an important role in their time. However, in choosing which brands to describe in more detail on the following pages, the most important criterion was that they still had to be well-known and still could be seen in relevant numbers on the streets today. Even though they may be a B-brand of some manufacturer now.

It is remarkable that these 15 selected brands are not equally spread over the whole country. Most of these companies were originally based in one of the relatively lightly populated Northern and Eastern provinces. This is shown on the map at the bottom of this page. From there you can forward to a description of the brand of your choice.

In the table shown below you find an overview of the beginning and the end of several relevant Dutch bicycle companies.

year of establishment (e) or the beginning of the bicycle production (p)	company, place	year of discontinuation of the (independant) bicycle production	reason of discontinuation
1868 (e) 1870 (p)	Burgers, Deventer	1961	take-over by Pon
1871 (e) 1885 (p)	Fongers, Groningen	1961	take-over by Phoenix
1884 (e)	Cyrus, Venlo	1971	bankruptcy
1886 (e) c. 1893 (p)	Eysink, Amersfoort	1953	almost bankrupt, continuation as a sole builder and seller of motorized vehicles
1887 (e) 1890 (p)	Simplex, Amsterdam	1965	production moved to Juncker, Apeldoorn
1897 (e)	Gruno, Winschoten	1968	closed, after being moved and mergered
1898 (e) 1924 (p)	Juncker, Apeldoorn	1968	take-over of Juncker, Locomotief and Simplex by Gazelle
1898 (e) 191x (p)	Durabo, Woudenberg	1983	liquidation
1898 (e) 1930 (p)	Pon, Amersfoort	1985	bankruptcy, take-over by Union
1892 (e) 1899 (p)	Gazelle, Dieren	-	-
1894 (e) 1904 (p)	Germaan, Meppel	1963	take-over by Phoenix
pre-1900 a workshop, turned into a factory in 1913	Bato, Tiel	1958	take-over by Batavus
1902 (e) 1929 (p)	Locomotief, Amsterdam	1952	merger with Simplex
1904 (e) 1911 (p)	Union, Dedemsvaart	2005	brand name is sold, production is separated from brand
1904 (e) c. 1907 (p)	Batavus, Heerenveen	-	-
1904 (e) 1917 (p)	Phoenix, Leeuwarden	1970	take-over of Phoenix, Fongers and Germaan (PFG) by Batavus
1908 (e)	Veeno, Bedum	1967	bankruptcy
1895 (e) 1923 (p)	Magneet, Weesp	1969	brand name and production sold to Batavus
1910 (e) 192x (p)	Mustang, Assen	1985	liquidation
1913 (e) 1919 (p)	Empo, Vorden	1979	bankruptcy, take-over by Pon
1914 (e)	Maxwell, Amsterdam	1962	liquidation
1917 (e) c. 1920 (p)	Sparta, Apeldoorn	-	(1999 take-over by Accell)
1917 (e)	Primarius, Meppel	1964	liquidation
c. 1920 (e)	Eroba, Echt	2005	company no longer exists after a series of insolvencies
1921 (e)	RIH, Amsterdam	-	-
1844 (e) c. 1930 (p)	RS Stokvis, Rotterdam	1968	cycle works were closed down
1922 (e) 1954 (p)	Kaptein, Amsterdam/Arnhem	about 1963	contracted out to PFG and in 1966 to Union (Unikap)
1939 (e)	Burco, Amsterdam	2004	sold to Accell (Batavus)
1945 (e)	Cové, Blerick	-	-
1948 (e)	Rivel, Surhuisterveen	1993	take-over by Union

As a special you can find the history of the Thunderjet Cycleworks here.

Click in the map
on the brand you
are interested in.
Please note that
not all of the links
are working yet!

Last update: 08/23/2020