What’s happened to the bikes? What kind of person would take the bikes and leave the locks? Do people really leave their bike locks on racks, street signs and lamp posts and forget about them? If that is the case, why do they do it? Some locks look as though they’ve been there for years. Sad. Forlorn. Unwanted. Unusable. Once the weather has got into a lock, it seizes up. No more bike lock.
Or does the council come along, see a bike that they think is abandoned and cut through the frame and leave the lock? Surely not. They normally leave a sign on the bike with a date for its removal. Then they cut through the lock, take the bike and the lock and dispose of them both.
So what kind of person abandons their bike lock? A silly cyclist, probably.
April 18, 2011 at 12:52 pm
A cyclist who uses the same rack day after day and doesn’t want to carry a heavy lock around. I leave mine at work and instead of one lock I have a bunch of different bike lock keys.
April 19, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Fair enough. The locks in the picture have been there for ages. I pass that particular streat sign fairly frequently and if a bike is locked to it, those locks are always on the pavement, looking sad and forlorn.
One question, David, how do you manage to use the same rack every day? I often find that,if I’m at Senate House Library, I have to use a different rack each time I visit.
December 20, 2011 at 6:38 pm
I always assumed bike thieves leave them after they’ve nicked a bike.