Paris -- where old bikes go to die?
 

My wife and I just spent a week in France -- my daughter is doing the
study abroad thing in Strasbourg, and so we figured we _had_ to go see how
she was doing.

I was amazed by the large percentage of extremely old bikes there,
especially in Paris. I'd say that a good third of them were at a minimum
30 years old. These are mostly stolid transportation vehicles, not the
beat-up junkers turned into fixies like you see in New York all the time,
nor do they just look old. It says a lot for the basic engineering of
bicycles that they have stayed in one piece so long. It isn't the case
that the maintenance is all that good, either. Many folks are riding
around on nearly flat tires, with chains nearly rusted solid.

It's also common to see bikes that are clearly unridable, with tacoed
wheels, looking like a Dali sculpture. I guess when a Parisian gets hit
by a car, someone locks their bike to a handy pole and it just stays there.

One was particularly amusing. Clearly a vintage machine, lugged steel
3-speed, lots of rust, flat tires. The lock used to secure it to the post
was certainly more valuable than the bike itself. The brand, convincingly
real-appearing, was "Junque". Too bad I didn't have my camera with me.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | You will say Christ saith this and the apostles say this; but
_`\(,_ | what canst thou say? -- George Fox.
(_)/ (_) |

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:52:37 -0500, David L. Johnson wrote:

I was amazed by the large percentage of extremely old bikes there,
especially in Paris. I'd say that a good third of them were at a minimum
30 years old.

You'll find the same in much of Europe. Gothenburg Sweden, in particular,
has a large percentage of folks on old bikes.

Even old folks on new bikes for that matter. I saw a woman who had to be
over seventy climbing a snowy hill this winter on her fender equipped MTB
with snow studs. Now that's cool!