Artist, designer, bicycle builder and athlete
Bram Moens 35 years in the business by Wilfred Brahm, photos M5, Bram Moens, www.brammoens.nl, from the Dutch magazine Ligfiets& 2019-2
In fact, after high school, everyone should attend an obligatory year at the art academy, and preferably a year at the academy of music as well, according to Bram Moens. He spent six years at the art academy, where he learned how to look and analyse. That has brought him a lot and you can see that in his designs. And not only with his recumbents. In 1983 Bram Moens started his working life in Middelburg (The Netherlands) as a teacher of drawing and handicrafts. That was nothing for him, he concluded after 3 months. For me it is incomprehensible, because I am talking to an enthusiastic teacher. At that time he saw a Roulandt-seat bike and he bought and rode it.
Bram Moens loves to take pictures and paint.
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Especially in the United States they were busy at that time with tricycles and streamlining, often self-assembly projects. Just one example: Freddy Markham and his Goldrush – a long wheelbike with a small wheel for under a fairing – cycled at Olympic level. Bram shows it on a poster of the 18th International Human Power Speed Championship in Montague, California, 1992. He visited such races as a spectator and racer. It inspired Bram at the time to build himself a tricycle with a streamline on it, something like a Windcheetah. Bram also had contact with other self-builders and was one of the co-founders of NVHPV thirty-five years ago (with amongst others Cary Peterson, Wim van de Assum, the Valk brothers, Rob van de Zalm, Ian Borwell and Bert Koenderink). Bram made the first club magazines with stencils himself. Guus van der Beek, later chairman of the NVHPV, wrote about recumbents in the magazine Fiets, of which he was editor in chief.
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From a commercial point of view, Bram Moens first started with a tricycle with a cockpit, for the streamlining with the tough brand name Vitiligo. Although this originally medical word means loss of pigment... He has made 60 stainless steel copies. Together with father and son Kalisvaart he produced the polyester fairings. In 1985 Derk Thijs and Bram had already invented and made a combined streamline/igloo tent. So with little effort to your holiday destination thanks to the streamline and then you could use it there as an igloo tent that didn’t even need pegs... But he didn’t like it, because only a two-wheeler gives the real cycling experience. So after a year and a half he came up with a two-wheeler with a 28” rear wheel and a 20" front wheel with both rear and front suspension. You could order it with under- or oversteer. Later in 1996 came the Street Legal and Blue Glide. They were made under licence by Speedliner, originally a producer of triathlon steering. In 1997, the Blue Glide 26/20 with oversteer became ‘bike of the year’, the
Bram Moens (left) in 1984. first time that a recumbent in the midst of ‘standard’ bikes was rated this way. In those early days, marketing for a small target group was not as easy as it is today with the Internet. The only thing he could do was to distribute photos with text to cycling magazines in Europe and the United States. And of course he could win competitions on his own products. This is how M5 (Meer Meters Met Minder Moeite, which means: more meters with less effort) got off the ground. The M5's of steel or Cr-Mo that Bram drew and produced, are characterized by an elegant line, slender tubes and by the characteristic angle between nose pipe and main pipe. These are bikes that position themselves in the sports segment, although you can also commute or travel with them. There are many combinations possible in wheel size and although most bicycles have an oversteer, there are also bicycles with an understeer available. In 1993 Bram Moens participated in the competition for the best ‘365-day bike’, albeit with a wink. The requirement was that the bike had to be practical and manoeuvrable, you had to be able to carry 15 kg or 80 litres, have enough gears and braking capacity
