We're all familiar with this sort of thing: a bike left with only the frame locked. Once the wheels are liberated, the owner can't be bothered to move an unwheeled piece of modern sculpture, and leaves it there to rot. This was on the rails at Vauxhall.
Such bike-skeleton public art seems to be getting more popular. This one's been round the corner from us for ages. 
But this rack - somewhere in that little bit of Turkey between Kingsland Road and Stoke Newington - is just ridiculous: four frames and not a single wheel left, as if someone had started trying to model Paris's Pompidou Building. Hmm. The fact that it's outside a bike shop might have something to do with it...What happens to all those wheels? Is someone assembling a vast artwork or rotating, copiously-spoked installation somewhere? Modern art is all about asking questions, I suppose.
I suspect wheels get matched up with bikes that were locked up only by their wheel.
ReplyDeletePoor bikes. :(
ReplyDeleteThough I must say that I'm an awful example of locking my bike up well. But am planning on improving that very soon...a nice thick extension cable to string up all parts of my bike securely...including seat!
What a mess those wheel-less bikes are. What's the etiquette of abandoned bike removal? Do you contact the council or station manager to have the bikes removed, whereupon they throw the bikes in a skip or is it OK to leave the bikes there for people to pick the useful bits off? How long do you have to leave a wheel-less bike before you decide it has been abandoned? Surely if it's only missing the wheels it's best that it should go to a bike recycling organisation (or person) who can match up some wheels to it - therefore the earlier the better for removal.
ReplyDeleteJ, Kingston