AMSTERDAM LETTER/Isabel Conway:They are as familiar a sight as the gabled 17th-century canal houses and the neon-lit windows, from where Amsterdam's infamous ladies of ill repute ply their trade in skimpy underwear.
Mayors, mothers, great-grannies, yuppies, the police and some Dutch royals use them. Tethered to railings, chained to bridges, hidden in bushes in leafy parks or piled high outside city stations and other public spaces, there are more than 18 million of them in the Netherlands, outnumbering a population of 16.3 million people.
Cycling has been a way of life for generations of the capital's citizens and a mountainous jumble of bicycles in various stages of disrepair and dilapidation is part of Amsterdam's landscape.
More than a million are stolen annually, most of them in Amsterdam, while tens of thousands more are lost, forgotten or just abandoned until needed again. There has always been a hot black market in stolen bicycles, often driven by drug addicts' need for quick money. The fact that only one in five victims in the capital bothers to report bicycle theft to the police speaks for itself.
No fewer than three government ministries and various cycling organisations spent years debating a concerted effort to fight bike theft, apparently to no avail.
Either by accident or design, a lot of Amsterdam's unfortunate bicycles end up at the bottom of canals, which are regularly dredged for rusted, mangled wrecks. Ridding the city of the unsightly tangle of abandoned and broken-down two-wheelers is a costly ongoing headache for Amsterdam City Hall.
Squads of police wielding bolt-cutters periodically remove mounds of unclaimed bicycles to municipal depots, after warning stickers posted on them have been ignored by their owners. This activity noticeably increases just before State visits, EU summits and other big public occasions.
But now a new path beckons for the Dutch capital's abandoned and forgotten bikes. They are to have a new lease of life in faraway Afghanistan where a bicycle, no matter how humble, opens many doors - from the chance of an education to those living far from schools, to work. Afghan-born Ghiasy Nizamudin is clearing Amsterdam of 6,000 unclaimed bicycles, which have been donated by the muncipality.
Two hundred are already being ridden around Kabul and thousands more are being dismantled to be shipped out shortly.
On arrival they will be re-assembled, repaired, repainted and sold for between $30 and $50. The cost covers transport from the Netherlands, new parts, repairs and, more importantly, the wages of staff, whom "the Bike Seller of Kabul" has hired locally.
"When I opened my bike depot they were queuing up to come and work for me," Mr Nizamudin (67) explained. "An average official's salary is $50 a month but I am paying my 10 bike repairers $120 each so they are very happy. I hope to get a lot more people working for me as time goes on."
A retired geologist, he came to the Netherlands to study 30 years ago and ended up staying, working as a "stones" specialist for the municipality of Delft.
A cycling fanatic and aficionado of Dutch bike power, Mr Nizamudin says, "Dutch bicycles are strong and built to last, whereas most bikes in Afghanistan today come from China and are light and of poor quality. They fall to pieces in no time on our untarred and rutted roads."
So Mr Nizamudin decided to write to every Dutch municipality, asking if he could have their abandoned and unclaimed stolen bicycles so that he could dispatch them to Afghanistan. Amsterdam was more than pleased to oblige, freeing up space in its huge bicycle depot in the West Port, and ridding itself of piles of rusty, dusty bikes.
Mr Nizamudin now has plans to open a bicycle factory and manufacture a unique Dutch three-wheeler mode of pedal power in Kabul. Called a "bakfiets", it is modified to incorporate a large wooden box or platform at the front, usually supported by two wheels, but sometimes by only one, with a tricky and eccentric braking system. As Amsterdammers know, it is possible to transport everything on a "bakfiets", whether you are shifting a piano or moving home.
In Kabul, the "bakfiets" would replace the hand-held carts and wheelbarrows that are used to transport goods. "In Afghanistan people struggle so much," says Mr Nizamudin, "barely able to push or carry their loads. A transport bicycle would improve lives immeasurably."
Cordaid, a Dutch development agency, is considering giving his factory financial support. In the meantime "the Bike Seller of Kabul" is arranging for Afghan refugees to study bicycle assembly in Dutch technical colleges. Then they can return home and work in the planned "bakfiets" factory in Kabul and breathe new life into many more abandoned Dutch bicycles.