Recently, an opportunity arose where we we able to connect with Azor, the company in the Netherlands that produces the Bakfiet line of bikes as well as many others.

The first initial challenge is arranging for acceptable shipping and custom rates. Unless you are ordering a shipping container's worth, this formula can be a tough one. Working with some great partners, I think we'll be able to get our shipping and customs rates into the "reasonable" range.

Working with Azor directly, we were able to commission the building of a Short ("Kort") and Long ("Lang") versions of their Cargo Bikes.

Bakfiet Lang

Basically how it works is this. The bikes get completed and paid for, and you get an email telling you that you have a number of boxes siting on a floor in a warehouse in the Netherlands that need to get picked up

"I'm ready"

Now the fun begins. Being new (at the time) to international importing and customs, we selected (Big International Freight Carrier), who charges us an arm and a leg, and the bikes got here in 4 days. We didn't need them here in 4 days (my quote to them basically asked them to put them on a slow boat). Apparently (Big International Freight Carrier) doesn't have slow boats and only operates at international hyper-speed, because we certainly paid for it.

Once landed, the bikes went together surprisingly easy. They have some great features.