Here’s how the VanMoof story started some 16 years ago: Two Dutch brothers, Taco and Ties Carlier, visit New York on a business trip. Being Dutch, they rent some bikes and happily toodle around. Somehow they don’t notice the madcap taxis, the potholes,the barreling crosstown buses or the prayer that needs to be said before changing over to the right lane on Sixth Avenue. “We just felt that New York was one of the best places in the world to ride a bike,” Taco Carlier says. But they don’t see many other cyclists.

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