Ghost Bike

I stop my car on a two-way street and put on the flashers alerting the cars behind me to pull around. Rolling down the driver’s side window I focus my I-phone camera on the white bike across the street. In between the cars and bikers who pass me, I take a picture of the bike.

I had taken snapshots of this bike in the past because I planned to blog about it, only to change my mind, and delete the photos. I wish I had saved those pictures because each one showed the bike well dressed. By that, I mean flowers, vines, sometimes ribbons were woven around the seat and handlebars. I have never seen the ghost bike as bare as it is today.

Ghost bikes, which originated in Amsterdam in the 1960s, serve as a memorial to a cyclist who was killed by a driver of a motor vehicle. The bikes are spray-painted white, anchored to something immovable, and rendered unrideable to reduce the incentive to steal them. Ghost bikes are an international phenomenon. (Wikipedia)

Over the past fifteen or so years this bike continues to intrigue me. I’m in awe of the attention it has received. Many stories dance in my head about the circumstances surrounding this bike. Other ghost bikes I have seen, mostly on the side of highways, have some sort of sign indicating the name of the rider who was killed along with the date. Sometimes there is a bouquet of fresh flowers resting alongside of the bike. While my bike has no signage, it’s always jazzed up.

Why is the bike naked now? Whomever had tended to this ghost bike had a deep commitment to keeping the rider’s memory alive. Maybe the caretakers are part of a larger group of family and friends in which everyone takes a turn decorating the bike. Has the group disbanded? Or maybe the parents of their only son who died riding this bike have grown too old to come and dress up the bike. Or a grieving fiancée, who kept the love letters written to her from the biker all these years, finally married. Yes, I always think the rider was male.

I drive by the bike on my way to my daughter’s home, the farmers market, and a coffee shop where I meet friends. What will I find the next time I pass the ghost bike? The bike again adorned with emblems of love and attention or left forsaken and naked? Will it be gone? And then what story will I tell myself?