HOW-TO TIE & SOLDER SPOKES • A LEGACY OF BIKE ...

Matthew Manger-Lynch
By Scott Mullen - www.rushinrevolution.com
Matthew Manger-Lynch may or may not have been
participating in an underground bike race when he was
struck and killed on a bright February 2007 morning in one
of Chicago’s infamous six-way intersections. Fault could be
assigned to him or to the motorist with whom he collided.
I wasn’t there so I won’t guess. All that remains is
his Ghost Bike.
Ghost Bikes themselves exist without context…they
simply mark the spot where a life violently ended. Maybe
it was driver error, or rider error, an errant door, or just
bad timing that ended the life each Ghost Bike memorializes.
But the red thread of the Ghost Bike is not simply
death, it’s death by automobile. And the irony of the Ghost
Bike is that those who can benefit most from their stark
reminder of death—the motorists that bring so much of
60 URBANVELO.ORG
it to our roads—are blind to these shrines. Who has time
to reflect at 40mph?
And since we live in a car culture it’s this pervasive
sense of futility, the quick return to business as usual after
these tragedies, that irks me. The ceremony around Matt’s
Ghost Bike was solemn, well attended, desperate, and
brought me to the edge of tears even though I’d never met
the man. I was moved both by Matt and by the knowledge
that Matt’s was not the last Ghost Bike to be placed.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, 698 cyclists were killed by automobile in
the United States in 2007.
772 in 2006.
786 in 2005.
727 in 2004.
Above: Photo by Nicholas Westlund. Background: Photo by Scott Mullen