Re-Cycling

The idea for the NEON BIKE PROJECT came to me while windexing the windows of the OCAD U Student gallery. I was lost in thought and staring at an old rusted Raleigh bicycle locked up to the bike post outside the gallery. It occurred to me that the Raleigh had never been moved from that spot for as long as I could remember. It was a permanent fixture on the street, a gorgeous skeleton of an antique bicycle long forgotten. While I continued to clean the windows, I thought more about the bike. Why had someone left such a beautiful bike behind? Who was its owner? How long had it been there? I began to feel sorry for it, and that’s when I decided that Vanessa and I should reclaim it. The student gallery is on a rather gray, dismal strip of Dundas St; it’s all cement and no trees. We would plant some flowers in bike’s basket, even better, we would also paint the frame of the bike, all of it and in NEON.

On the only day that it wasn’t raining last week, I set myself to work on the Raleigh. I sanded it (a laborious task since the entire frame of the bike was covered in rust) and then I primed it. As the bike went from rusted brown to white people began to ask me about it. What was I doing? Was it a memorial? The long forgotten bike was creating some buzz. Once the primer was dry, I spray painted the bike neon orange. A colour Vanessa and I picked out together at Montana Colours, aka The Bomb Shelter.

The bike was glowing and so was I. It looked better than I had imagined. It looked fucking incredible (excuse me, but the F- word is absolutely necessary here). When Vanessa came to see the finished result, the two of us danced around the gallery squealing for joy. We agreed that this would be the first of an ongoing project called the “really-fucking-cool-urban-street-project” or just “the neon bike project.”

Two days after the bike was completed it had been tagged once and talked about more times than I can count. If I’m outside working on it, I am deluged with questions. People stop to take photos. One father took a photo of it last week and brought his son back to see it in person. Another little boy told me I had a beautiful bike and that he wished he had an orange bike like mine. A woman shook my hand and thanked me for brightening the street. Two police officers came by on numerous occasions to see the transformation of the bike unfold. By the end of the day they were suggesting what types of flowers to plant in the basket and honking and waving as they rode by in their cruiser! The bike has propelled a wave of positivity and interest on the street and in the gallery.

Yesterday, I arrived to the gallery with flowers, ready to plant them in the basket, only to find a notice from the city stapled to our neon bike. It turns out it is illegal to store bicycles on public property, and that we have seven days to remove it before we are fined and it is taken away to be destroyed. The funny thing is that this bike has been sitting in the same place for years, unnoticed by the city. However, once it is brightened and made beautiful, it’s got to go. I am determined to save the neon bike that makes so many people happy. Please help my by emailing blogthegood@gmail.com with your reason(s) why the neon bike is A GOOD THING, and why it should remain! We’ve got 6 days!!!!

Caroline