bringing bikes back to life

No bike?
No problem!

At Frank&Bike, circular mobility is what it's all about. We rescue unwanted bikes and bring them back to life, just like in the movie Frankenstein. We do this by recycling bike parts, avoiding wastestreams, making cleaner streets, and enabling everyone to cycle without spending a fortune. Frank&Bike is a non profit startup for students, by students.

At Frank&Bike, you can get a fully refurbished bike for just 50 euros because of our unique partnerships with the municipality of Delft, students, educational institutions, and the local bike depot. Together, we are able to rescue abandoned bikes. The provided bikes are upcycled together with a team of enthusiastic students; enabling you to buy a bike that is good for your wallet, the city and the environment. Wait no longer and get your own Frank&Bike!

Orphan Bikes

The Netherlands is the only country in the world where there are more bikes than inhabitants. There are a whopping 23 million bikes, which is 1.3 bikes per person³! Unfortunately, many bikes are left behind, which makes them so called “orphan bikes”. By 2024, it was estimated that there are 100,000 orphan bikes in depots alone¹. This is a huge problem, as many of these bikes are still perfectly usable, or refurbishable. The government's system of taking bikes off the streets works well. Bikes are tagged, and if after a certain time the bike is still in the same place, it is taken to the depot. This prevents bikes from rusting away on the streets⁷. Of all those bikes, only 28% are collected at the depots on average⁸. In Delft, this is a big problem as well. There has been a lot of complaints from the inhabitants of Delft that the cityscape is hugely affected by the amount of bikes parked all over the city². These are bikes probably nobody cares about anymore. According to the bike depot in Delft, an average of 10,000 bike arrive every year. If even only 28% of these bikes are collected, you can calculate for yourself how many bikes are left. Some of these bikes are bought in bulk by other companies, with the aim of reselling for profit. But as soon as something is missing from the bike, such as a handlebar or a wheel, the bike will go straight to the scrap yard. That means parts are lost that could still be in very good condition! This is so wastefull of all the materials, and very bad for our environment. About time something is done against it!

Our Vision

At Frank&Bike, we would like to see a city in which bikes are not viewed as trash, but as oppurtunities. Specifically in student cities like our own Delft, lots of bikes become lost or are left behind. These so called "orphan bikes" use a lot of public space, creating a new sort of urban waste stream. At Frank&Bike we think that these are missed opportunities for a more ecofriendly way of transport.

Currently students see bikes as diposable, we think mobility should be circular, just like your wheel ;). Our mission at Frank&Bike? Saving lost bikes and giving them new life. By upcycling what's already available all troughout the city, we don’t need to produce the bikes, or parts ourselves. While doing this we reduce wastestreams, make the streets cleaner and more livable. All while creating amazing new bikes.

But we can not do this by ourselves. In collaboration with the municipality of Delft and the bike depot Haaglanden, we collect bikes of the street. In collaboriation with educational institutions, like the Technical University Delft, and students, we refurbish them to become unique bikes. Every single one of them with their own characteristics and history, it's not just a bike; it's a step towards circular mobility. So help us make our vision become reality and recycle into the future with Frank&Bike.

How does it work?

Bikes that stand in the city for too long are possessed by the government and brought to a bikedepot in Den Haag. Here, the owners have between 2 and 6 weeks to get their bike back for a fee⁴. On average, 70% of the bikes that have been possessed by the government do not go back to their owner. 25% of these bike are too damaged to repair, so they go to the scrap⁶. A percentage of the bikes that are not damaged are given to social institutes, but a large amount gets thrown away as well.

We at Frank&Bike are closing this wasteful loop by collecting bikes from the depot and refurbishing them. After selecting and transporting bikes to our hub, our lovely studentsworkers fix them up. Students also get the possibility to donate their own bikes that they would have thrown away otherwise. Bikes that are not fit to be fixed get stripped for parts and will be used in other repairs. After the repair, the bikes will be sold for €50,-. This low price is possible because we are a non profit organisation. This way, students can get a unique bike for a cheap price.

Thanks to Frank&Bike, fewer bikes are left behind to rust away in the city. Our streets are cleaner, bike racks are less crowded, and students ride proud on affordable bikes that feel uniquely theirs. By giving these forgotten bikes a second life, we reduce waste and promote a more circular, conscious approach to urban mobility.

Fewer abandoned bikes cluttering the streets

Less waste and more repair, reuse, and awareness

Cleaner and safer public spaces for everyone

More circularity in urban mobility

Students with affordable bikes that feel personal and unique

A growing community of conscious, sustainable riders

Our Hub

The bikes sold at Frank&Bike are all refurbished orphan bikes. This makes each bike unique. You can check out the range of bikes we offer in our hub. We can guarantee good quality from every bike we sell. The bikes are refurbished and tested by our enthusiastic team of students. The price of the bikes can stay this low because we try to use all parts of the bikes, so even the bikes that are worth nothing are still used for parts. This way we don't need to spend money on buying new parts.

When you buy a bike from us, we make sure your bike gets a unique and eye-catching element. This could be a green rack, or some dots on the mudguard, you get to decide. We do this to make bikes as recognisable as possible, so you are less likely to lose your bike in a busy city or bike park. Also, distinctive bikes are less likely to be stolen, so we help you use your bike for as long as possible.

To give you an idea of what kind of bikes we sell, you can see 3 examples of bikes below. Our bikes are ideal for students; cheap and no nonsense!

Looking for a job?
Come work at our hub!

Are you looking for a fun and dynamic working space? Do you want to use your technical skills in real life and help us fix bikes? Do you have an interest in sustainability or you want to do something good for the community? Look no further, because we are hiring at Frank&Bike.

We at Frank&Bike offer a fun student job with which you can enhance your skills and have fun while doing so. We provide internships for MBO students who are looking for real life experience with fixing bikes in creative ways. Besides that, all students are welcome to work at our Bike Hub. Here you earn a good salary of €15,- while working with likeminded students.

Are you interested in working for us, or do you have any questions? Contact us and we get back to you very quick!

Our Partners

Frank&Bike wouldn’t be possible without the support of our partners. We work closely with the bike depot Haaglanden and the municipality of Delft to identify and collect abandoned bikes. The depot helps us recover bikes that would otherwise be scrapped. Educational institutions like TU Delft and ROC Mondriaan not only provide us with bikes left behind on campus, but also connect us with students eager to learn, contribute and grow through internships, volunteering, or class projects. Each partner plays a key role in creating a cleaner, more sustainable city.

To give back, we make every refurbished bike unique with visual elements (logo’s) that represent our partners. This way, bikes are not only easier to identify, but also become a fun and moving way to spread your brand across the city.

The Team

As students in Delft, we experience it often enough: our bike is gone again.... Has it been stolen? Has it been taken by the depot? Or has it been moved and I can't find it anymore? Either way, it's gone.... Some of us still try very hard to find it, but others find it too much of a hassle, and just buy a new one. While talking about this, we noticed what a shame that really is. There are many bikes that are just left behind, even though there is nothing wrong with them. As students, we also know how expensive bikes can be, and yet you often have to buy several during your time as a student. When we did research and learned about the huge number of bikes that are destroyed every year, we thought, there must be another way, and so Frank&Bike was born.

In our team we have Tom, Rachel, Bram and Gijs (f.l.t.r.). Tom is our graphic designer and brings the visuals to life. Rachel is the teamleader of the students working at Frank&Bike. She makes sure they have good working conditions and that everyone gets paid. Gijs is the brains behind logistics. He makes sure that all bikes end up in our depot. He also keeps track of the condition of the bicycles when they arrive, so he can estimate the number of man-hours that need to be put into the repair of the bikes. Some bikes need a lot of work, while some are ready for sale almost immediately. With an average price of €50,- per bike, enough is earned to keep Frank&Bike going. Bram is our treasurer. He has contact wil all our partners to make sure we get subsidies. Bram negotiates with the depot to get the lowest possible price for the bought-up bikes. Our hub is subsidised by the municipality. Due to advertisements for our partners, we can collect extra money to keep the prices of the bikes as low as possible. In the future, we would also like to collaborate with other companies for more advertisements on the bikes.

Ready to ride? Roll in and grab

your unique today!

The design process of the Frank&Bike concept can be fit in the Double Diamond model. With this method you alternate between diverging and converging on ideas and concepts. The first part is the problem research and definition. During de divertion and convertion we used multiple methods to apprehend information. The diamond is closed with the following problem definition: there are too many orphan bikes within the city of Delft, forming a modern waste stream and impacting the clean image of the city.

The second diamond is about the ideation and finalising of a concept that tackles the problem. After using a number of methods, we came up with the concept of Frank&Bike. We believe that Frank&Bike is a viable concept that fixes the problem. But we are a start up and nothing is perfect, so we believe that with future iterations Frank&Bike can become even better.

Click to zoom in!

Resources

Brink, S. (2024, 5 november). Nieuw leven voor weesfietsen. Fietsersbond. https://www.fietsersbond.nl/nieuws/nieuw-leven-voor-weesfietsen/
DPG Media Privacy Gate. (n.d.). https://www.ad.nl/delft/ergernis-neemt-toe-straten-van-delft-verloederen-door-al-die-wrak-en-weesfietsen~af862b96/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Fietsen voor iedereen - Agendastad. (2024, 11 november). Agendastad. https://agendastad.nl/citydeal/fietsen-voor-iedereen/
Home - Fietsdepot. (2022, 4 juli). Fietsdepot. https://fietsdepothaaglanden.nl/
Huijsmans, M. (2021). Mobiliteits programma Delft 2040. In Ons Delft, Duurzaam Bereikbaar (Vol. 2, pp. 4–56). https://www.delft.nl/sites/default/files/202-03/MobiliteitsplanDelft-2040.pdf
Stadspartij, H. (2018, 3 december). 17.000 Haagse fietsen nooit opgehaald! - Haagse Stadspartij. Haagse Stadspartij. https://haagsestadspartij.nl/17-000-haagse-fietsen-nooit-opgehaald/
Unknown, U. (2009). Handboek weesfietsen.
Veel minder fietsen opgehaald uit depot dan voorheen. (n.d.). AT5. https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/168540/veel-minder-fietsen-opgehaald-uit-depot-van-voorheen?

No bike? No problem!