Classic & Vintage - I need info about a early 70's holland bike called Batavus

Well i tell you today I went again to the thrift store and i found this bike; a IC Batavus monte carlos with 10 speeds and i bough it even cheaper than the peugeot i got about a day ago!this one cost me $2.00 and is in great chape it just need a good cleanup.the bike got the serial num under the bike like the peugeot of early 70's, is like a plate with the #54752244.came with shimano 600? is this the original or just been updated?

well later in the afternoon i will post the pictures so you guoys can see it!!

here are the pictures

just a few more

the number is : 5475244

this is the last one

as you can see this bike needs a major cleanup and i will keep both this one and the peugeot.

This is an entry level bike from the bike boom era(70's) built in Holland.

I agree with Don. Probably a hi-tensile steel frame and an overall weight of 28-30#. In the earlier Boom period Euro bikes like this were common. By the later 1970s and early 1980s Japanese made bikes had taken that market over.

2.99 for a ridable bike is on the one hand a great deal. On the other side though if you're looking to resale you might get $10.

Batavus made a least some "high end" bikes. I recently saw a Batavus from around 1980 that had an all Dura-Ace drivetrain, Dura-Ace hubs, and a very light frame. It weighs about 21 pounds, similar to what the team bikes weighed in the Tour de France in that era.

For some reason, Batavus bikes seem very rare in the USA. Has anyone owned or seen a high end Batavus in the USA?

I can't see your pictures, but I had one that sounds just like it pass through my hands recently. It was a pretty emerald green, and a solidly built bike. Mine rode well, but was (as far as I could tell) Hi-ten steel. The wheels, cranks, stem, and bars were alloy, the derailluers were low end steel Suntour - Hero or similar.

I've since sold it, and saw it listed yet again on CL (which is where I found it originally).

Here's a pic of mine:

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/8425/batavus19zu.jpg

can't see the pictures due to the fact the thread was started
3 years ago. . .
that said Batavus seems to have primarily imported entry
level boom era bikes into the US.
Being particularly fond of Dutch bikes I haven't seen one here
that I would actually want to own.
But, they do produce (still in business) some very nice mid to high
end bikes just not all that available here.
wait, I just remembered McLean Cycles (where I got intro'd to Dutch bikes)
did have a few higher end Batavus, I just wasn't interested in them.
The shop owners (the Meerman family) were importers for Batavus, RIH
and Zieleman bikes back in the 70's and 80's.
Here's a pic of a higher end Batavus, probably from a
dutch auction site (don't remember where I got the pic).

can't see the pictures due to the fact the thread was started
3 years ago. . .


D'oh!! :eek:

alanbikehouston - you got me!!

Batavus made a least some "high end" bikes. I recently saw a Batavus from around 1980 that had an all Dura-Ace drivetrain, Dura-Ace hubs, and a very light frame. It weighs about 21 pounds, similar to what the team bikes weighed in the Tour de France in that era.

For some reason, Batavus bikes seem very rare in the USA. Has anyone owned or seen a high end Batavus in the USA?

Batavus has been the #1 competitor for Gazelle, the most famous Dutch bike name. Somehow Batavus was more into using Columbus tubing for their high end frames ('Professional'), and equipped those with Dura Ace too, rom around 1980. Maybe just to be different from Gazelle. Batavus supplied bikes for the the Dutch national amateur selection for a long time in the 80s, so at least some world championships were won on Batavus frames. They also supplied bikes to the BankGiroLoterij pro team not that long ago.
The grandson of the founder of Batavus, Andries Gaastra, started the Koga Miyata company.
I believe there were more Batavus bikes exported to the US than Gazelle's.

Billy Rounds won the prize for best Benelux bike at this years Cirque with a Batavus Professional track bike.

s70rguy, thanks for the information. The 1980ish Batavus I saw had a very light frame and fork, so I would have guessed that it was made with Reynolds 531. It had been repainted, and there were no visible decals. So, it is interesting to learn that the "Professional" model in that era used Columbus tubing.

Has anyone actually seen a pro level Batavus, or ridden one?

s70rguy, thanks for the information. The 1980ish Batavus I saw had a very light frame and fork, so I would have guessed that it was made with Reynolds 531. It had been repainted, and there were no visible decals. So, it is interesting to learn that the "Professional" model in that era used Columbus tubing.

Has anyone actually seen a pro level Batavus, or ridden one?

alanbikehouston (that's a long name to type!), I checked the three Batavus brochures that I have (from 1980-1985 probably), and I can be more precise now. Batavus offered both Reynolds 531 DB and Columbus SL for the Professional frames, later on 531 P and Columbus SL. It's just that all the Professionals I've seen in real life, had Columbus tubing.
I've always thought that this had to do with the TI connection that Gazelle, their main competitor, had. Just to be different. I've asked the PR people at Batavus about it, but as is common in these cases, historic knowledge is almost absent.

s70rguy, thanks for the information. It is surprising how little information is available in the USA on bikes made in Holland, given that Holland may have the highest percentage of adults who ride bicycles on a daily basis of any nation in the world.

Its seems as it the bike makers in Holland highly focused on their domestic market (commuter bikes) and stayed out of the US market to a large extent. Perhaps that was a wise decision, as the Dutch bike makers are still going strong today, while most of those European companies that put large investments into the American market are now out of business and their brand names have become just a decals on generic bikes made in China.