The Ghost of Bicycles Past

[Andre Jute]

 

[julk]

Not sure about the colour, but it looks like your sort of saddle Andre…
Julian

[Andre Jute]

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...

[Danneaux]

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.

[Andre Jute]

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.

[geocycle]

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.

[John Saxby]

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.

[Andre Jute]

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.

[Andre Jute]

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:

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.

[John Saxby]

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 

[Andre Jute]

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

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 ), that could be a bad marketing move, the name implying that the owners of those bikes may soon require memorials. Ouch!

[Slammin Sammy]

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? 

[Mike Ayling]

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

[Danneaux]

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.

[il padrone]

http://ghostbikes.org/melbourne