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

Atip
By Reverend Phil - www.bikesmut.com
I was in San Diego on the Westward Ho! Bikexploitation
tour when the city was removing Atip’s Ghost Bike a
day before they had agreed to do so. Our host frantically
ran out of his home, incredulous that the city was resorting
to deception. If cities continue to remove the bikes as a
nuisance (or whatever lame reason they choose) then bikers
wanting to remember their fallen friends will need to be
more clever.
I remember helping memorialize bikers who were
maimed or killed in Portland. We used large stencils and laid
some thick white paint down on the road. We were so worried
about being seen we had a team of lookouts with twoway
radios. It is insane to think that we US citizens, “the freest
people in the world” needed too use such subterfuge in
64 URBANVELO.ORG
order to say, “A friend was killed here, so please be careful.”
This was before I knew about Ghost Bikes, which allow
for more creativity, but also require ongoing maintenance.
If they are not kept fresh and pretty they become an “eyesore”
to some. Looking at a faded white bike with a rusted
chain and some dead flowers isn’t that hard on the eyes,
not as compared to the accident that brought the bike in
the first place.
One behavior I have tried to curb is my referring to
these incidents as “accidents.” While I generally hope
that most drivers are not trying to actively harm cyclists I
feel that the automatic assumption of “best intentions” is
wrong. Spilled milk is an accident, 43,000 deaths involving
auto collisions is an epidemic.
Photo by Susan Williams - flickr.com/photos/susan_w