Dutch father and son make customized bikes

Sander Kole, 21, astonishes people with his perfect Mandarin though his Caucasian appearance shows that he is a foreigner in Shenzhen.

He came to Shenzhen at age 7 and lives here with his father, Jan Kole, who makes customized bikes in Bao’an District.

Kole went to the Shenzhen (Nanshan) Concord College of Sino-Canada until he graduated from high school. Every year, he goes back to the Netherlands to visit his mother who divorced his father when he was a child. Kole said he prefers life in China, especially in Shenzhen.

The senior Kole, 62, trained in two Dutch bicycle companies and three Italian bike corporations to produce bikes. He has been producing and trading hand-made bikes since 1994. He now owns a factory named COLOSSI in Bao’an District.

The senior Kole said the factory can produce around 3,500 bicycle frames each year and the frames are sold all around the world with most orders from the Internet.

More and more people have been approaching COLOSSI for customized bike frames online, the senior Kole said. The frames are made based on their customer’s body. They consider height and arm length when producing a frame. It takes about eight weeks to produce a customized bike frame, he said.

There are also bike frames that are ordered for mass production, but the frames need to be specially designed, painted and engraved, according to the senior Kole.

He said frames produced on a large scale can be finished within four weeks, adding that bikes made by hand are more detailed and the welding is usually better.

The senior Kole is also a fan of riding bicycles. He said it would be hard for him to race at this age, but he rides everyday.

Everyday Kole leaves his home in Xili, Nanshan District, at around 4:30 a.m. and heads to Nantou where he goes to a German-run bakery to buy breakfast for his family. The round trip is about 37.5 kilometers.

Kole said he needs to be patient with bad drivers in Shenzhen. He also said Shenzhen needs better riding paths.

Source: Shenzhen Daily