Let's talk accessories. I forced myself to take an evening ride last night around the monuments and I took this photo of my bicycle in the dark as a teaser. There are several aspects that compose a Dutch-style city bike. Here's a good list from the subreddit citybike:

• Upright riding position
• Chain case or chain guard
• Skirt guard
• Mudguards (fenders)
• O-lock (rear wheel lock)
• Internally-geared hub
• Dynamo (hub or bottle/sidewall)
• Permanent lights
• Bell
• Drum brakes / coaster brake
• Rear rack (luggage carrier)
• Center kickstand

A true Dutch bike will have all these things. For US purposes, having a good number of these is as good as it's going to get. To me, the bare minimum is an upright riding position, fenders, full or partial chain guard, rear rack and a classic look. I threw in that last one because it's my list, my blog.

I also feel at the very least, have some sort of front and rear light if you plan on riding at night at all. It absolutely amazes me how many people I see on the streets of the District with NO lights after dark. WTF mate? I am not a big supporter of having to buy bicycling accessories in the way of specialized clothing. At most, I have a cuff collar that is bright yellow with a reflective strip that cost me all of $2. So if you're not going to invest in reflective clothing like me, better have some damn lights then.

Whether it's dynamo-driven or powered by batteries, get some lights on your ride. You can get some LED flashlights with mount off of eBay for all of freaking $5. There is no excuse to not have lights on when you ride in the dark. Go buy a $2 LED flash light from THE Home Depot and electrical tape that bad boy to your handlebars. I have actually done that in a pinch. For my bicycle, I have a Fenderbot PDW tail light on the rear fender. I had a Linus headlamp as a front light but the exposure to all the salt this winter weakened the mount so it fell off at some point during a ride in the snow. So it's been replaced with a China-made vintage light that looks exactly the same but was 1/3rd the price. I went cheap because eventually I would like to go with a dynamo bottle system to keep it vintage legit.

Rear rack, as a city rider, is also paramount. Why ride a bike to get around the city if you can't carry stuff to do errands? So I have a gray rear rack from Public Bikes... I didn't get black because I did want to have some color contrast. With the rack, you should get some kind of basket, pannier bag or saddle bags so you can carry cargo. Me? Because I'm a hipster dork, I actually built a wine/beer crate for my bike. I used to use an actual wine crate but since it wasn't built for constant use/shock, the nails kept coming out. So I spent one weekend reverse engineering that crate, because I did like the size and capacity of it, with my buddy Tom (who really did all the hard work) and we Soviet engineered that thing into something that can take ALL THE ABUSE. It's pretty awesome. So I still need to stain it, spray paint a logo on the side and add some vintage handles. So what you see here is the unfinished product.

I also replaced the stock single arm kickstand the Public bike comes with because it's garbage. Any kind of wind will and has blown my ride over. So I replaced it with a Civia double-leg kickstand. I decided not to get a folding double-leg stand because... I'm a hipster and thought the U-shape stand would look cooler.

I also have these vintage water bottle cages (and aluminum bottles with corks) on my front handlebar that a friend bought me as a gift, totally unsolicited. It just showed up out of the blue and my friend said "Well, it looked pretty hipster and I know you're a hipster so I bought it for you." Swoon. The bottle cages double nicely for holding thin wine bottles upright or wider wine bottles upside down. Legit!

Last, I have a brass bell... it is super loud. I feel guilty using it behind old people because it scares the crap out of them. You should see younger people barrel roll out of the way when I lay on this thing.

I'd like to get some skirt/coat guards on the rear fender as I do ride around with my long overcoat on, like I did last night. Apparently, getting aftermarket metal ones is pretty tough in the US... man, just being a cyclist in the States is tough.

What do you have on your bicycle?