Thorn Cycles Forum

Community => Non-Thorn Related => Topic started by: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 11:36:52 AM

Title: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 11:36:52 AM: (http://www.coolmainpress.com/miscimage/andre_jute_the_ghost_of_yesteryear_s_bicycle_800pxh.jpg)
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: julk on September 16, 2015, 12:47:14 PM: Not sure about the colour, but it looks like your sort of saddle Andre…
Julian
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 01:33:28 PM: Quote from: julk on September 16, 2015, 12:47:14 PM
Not sure about the colour, but it looks like your sort of saddle Andre…
Julian

You're a card, Julian. I was just waiting for that shoe to drop. That saddle has so much "nose" beyond the nose, an emergency stop that slides the cyclist forward could be rather painful.

I didn't know looking at it whether to cheer for an old bicycle given a new lease on life, and some rust protection too, or whether to sneak around in the night to liberate that saddle and try to restore it to use...
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Danneaux on September 16, 2015, 02:19:29 PM: Here in the US and in many other countries, bikes spray-painted all-white -- known as "Ghost Bikes" -- parked permanently in a location are memorials to fallen riders -- usually those killed in traffic accidents with cars and trucks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_bike
Is there a similar story behind this one, Andre?

Best,

Dan.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 04:16:44 PM: Quote from: Danneaux on September 16, 2015, 02:19:29 PM
Here in the US and in many other countries, bikes spray-painted all-white -- known as "Ghost Bikes" -- parked permanently in a location are memorials to fallen riders -- usually those killed in traffic accidents with cars and trucks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_bike
Is there a similar story behind this one, Andre?

Not that I know of, Dan. We don't have that sort of memorial, or if we have, I've never seen it. What we have is the old butcher's or grocer's delivery bike parked outside a shop as an advertisement, a way of saying, "We've been here since my grandfather's time. You're dealing with a family business." Or, "You're dealing with artisans who handmake goodies." Or, sometimes, merely, "Hey, we're trendies trading on your nostalgia." In this case it is a bicycle advertising either a café or some other establishment in a pedestrian mall, where as cyclist was unlikely to be run over as there are no cars there; it was parked between them. Mind you, it is the first time I've seen one painted white, so I suspect it belongs to the cafe, which is run by a lady who does everything just so.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: geocycle on September 16, 2015, 04:21:47 PM: Bikes of a certain vintage have become street art or advertising as Andre descibes outside cafes etc.

Round here we still have a few yellow bikes left marking the route of the 2014 Grand Depart and pale blue ones from the 2015 Tour de Yorkshire. I have seen white ghost bikes in London marking fallen riders and making a very visible statement.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: John Saxby on September 16, 2015, 10:39:20 PM: Last January, in the Gold Coast of Oz, I passed an antique shop. In the window was a saddle just like that (but in unpainted 'weathered' brown) which was the seat portion of a bar stool.

As Dan has said, in these parts, white-painted old bikes are memorials for riders killed in collisions with motor vehicles.

Bikes outside cafés, etc., are usually painted a lively colour -- lurid orange and the like. Guess we need to learn some understatement, eh? - chic pastel blue & whatnot. Reckon our excuse for not having reached that particular plateau yet would be our standard one: "Doubt it would survive the weather." (That works for most things.) Sadly, there's a ghost bike in the undergrowth against the foot of a small cliff on my regular ride up into the Gatineau. After a couple of years, it's looking the worse for wear.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 10:56:56 PM: If I'd known of the memorial custom, and its name ("ghost bicycles"), I would have chosen a different title for the thread. But perhaps this particular white bicycle can memorialize all those of similar vintage rusting away on scrapheaps or crushed for a handful of steel.

About ten or twelve years ago I was in the small components storeroom of my LBS and came across a leather saddle which I at first mistook for an oversized Brooks B190. It was huge and the leather was at least a quarter-inch thick, which was why I didn't buy for an experiment — at my annual mileage, you need several lifetimes just to wear in leather that thick, never mind wear it out. Here comes the punchline: it was new stock, arrived that year via a Dublin wholesaler from India.

You can still buy a nuts and bolts copy of the iconic pre-war Raleigh tourer from India, and in the States Andrew Muzi of Madison, Wisconsin, (his LBS is called Yellow Jersey) for a while imported them; they had saddles like that one. Perhaps his customers found the bikes too prone to rust... but in any event he stopped importing them.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 17, 2015, 11:11:19 AM: Quote from: Andre Jute on September 16, 2015, 10:56:56 PM
You can still buy a nuts and bolts copy of the iconic pre-war Raleigh tourer from India, and in the States Andrew Muzi of Madison, Wisconsin, (his LBS is called Yellow Jersey) for a while imported them; they had saddles like that one. Perhaps his customers found the bikes too prone to rust... but in any event he stopped importing them.

Andrew, on seeing my photo, says of his adventure importing those rustprone Indian copies of the iconic Raleigh:

Quote
That was a not so entertaining dance for a few years.

We sold magnitudes more Raleighs for many years before that,
until the Nottingham factory was razed.

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Actuellement, if I were a crook and had a Central London bike store, I'd import those cheaply (while trumpeting "fair trade"), have them given a cheaper paint job ("only one colour is trendy, my old son, black"), sell a gazillion before the first one rusts visible holes, and retire to the Costa del Crims.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: John Saxby on September 17, 2015, 05:36:34 PM: Quote
If I'd known of the memorial custom, and its name ("ghost bicycles"), I would have chosen a different title for the thread.

That's appreciated, Andre, but there's no way you'd have known the custom here.

Not sure if the German manufacturer of "Ghost" bikes checked the cultural context, but it appears that MEC has not, to my surprise: http://www.mec.ca/shop/cycling-bikes-ghost/50002+50013+4294955051/?h=10+50002+50013 (http://www.mec.ca/shop/cycling-bikes-ghost/50002+50013+4294955051/?h=10+50002+50013)
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Andre Jute on September 17, 2015, 10:14:41 PM: Quote from: John Saxby on September 17, 2015, 05:36:34 PM
Not sure if the German manufacturer of "Ghost" bikes checked the cultural context, but it appears that MEC has not, to my surprise: http://www.mec.ca/shop/cycling-bikes-ghost/50002+50013+4294955051/?h=10+50002+50013 (http://www.mec.ca/shop/cycling-bikes-ghost/50002+50013+4294955051/?h=10+50002+50013)

If the custom is at all widespread or widely known (as seems likely -- someone in the States published in the comments on my Facebook page a photo of a ghost bike he rode past recently; see https://www.facebook.com/andre.jute.5/posts/878682852208099?comment_id=878683298874721&notif_t=feed_comment (https://www.facebook.com/andre.jute.5/posts/878682852208099?comment_id=878683298874721&notif_t=feed_comment) ), that could be a bad marketing move, the name implying that the owners of those bikes may soon require memorials. Ouch!
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Slammin Sammy on September 18, 2015, 11:38:01 PM: Ghost bikes are very unfortunately all too prevalent around Oz. Many are just frames mounted on posts set in cement, painted white with flowers and memorabilia tied on.

Many councils remove them after several years. To make way for new ones? :'(
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Mike Ayling on September 19, 2015, 06:45:21 AM: Quote from: Danneaux on September 16, 2015, 02:19:29 PM
Here in the US and in many other countries, bikes spray-painted all-white -- known as "Ghost Bikes" -- parked permanently in a location are memorials to fallen riders -- usually those killed in traffic accidents with cars and trucks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_bike
Is there a similar story behind this one, Andre?

Best,

Dan.

Dan

Please remove that word äccident" from your vocabulary - vehicle collisions or crashes are caused because someone was at fault, accident implies "not my fault mate"

Mike
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Danneaux on September 19, 2015, 06:58:01 AM: Excellent point, Mike. A friend works in the insurance industry and has often reminded me the same -- there are no accidents; someone is always at fault or there is a systems failure caused by someone who is at fault.

Speaking of which, several years ago, I got in the habit of glancing over my right shoulder before making right turns at street corners here in the US, saying audibly, "No bike" to check and confirm there is indeed no bike present I might cut off. It works, and has caught more than one I might have hit had I not been alert and looking.

It has happened to me while cycling. Last winter, a car moved onto the bike path to prepare for a right turn. I was wedged into the curb and knocked my rear wheel out of true slightly. Close, but fortunately no more than that. No accident, agreed; they never saw me, mostly because they never looked right before turning right and also never noticed me as they closed from behind. Kinda hard to when juggling a cellphone and yelling at an infant in the backseat.

Best,

Dan.
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: il padrone on September 20, 2015, 10:30:44 AM: http://ghostbikes.org/melbourne
Title: Re: The Ghost of Bicycles Past
Post by: Slammin Sammy on September 22, 2015, 04:24:23 PM: WRT the placing of "ghost bikes" and other memorials at the roadside, I have mixed feelings about them. While I understand the heartfelt desire of family and friends to pay tribute to the fallen loved one, the location needs to be chosen carefully so as not to endanger others, including future visitors to the site. One such example recently occurred here, where the family of a victim asked for help from our local bicycle user group to overcome council objections to erecting a ghost bike right where he died, which was at the entrance of a narrow bridge on a busy regional highway. We couldn't comply in good conscience, as the council was quite rightly concerned about visitors stopping at such an exposed and dangerous location.

My main concern however, is that the proliferation of these memorials creates the very real impression that cycling is a highly risky business and fraught with danger. We have far too much of this already in Australia, and I think if faced with the choice, I would avoid this form of monument and find a different way to pay my respects.