There is nothing more Dutch than walking past this graveyard of bicycles that have giving up all of their hopes and dreams and that are all left here to eternally fall to the king of rust, bended or missing parts or to be stolen entirely.
The life cycle of the bicycle in the Netherlands is something else on that behalf. Sure most of us to our daily biking just on the way to work and for a lot of people a bike is like their only form of transportation. Especially when you live in the city, this is sounds more than reasonable..Except for when it rains and you don't have the option to choose another time of departure and there is nothing else to do than actually bike through that rain.
You know biking...When you go out, you go by bike. Got a bit too tipsy? Well, year sure it is forbidden to bike intoxicated 'but how else are you getting home'. That is the general mindset towards biking.
I remember after going out it was always a hussle and bussle around the church at the end of the night. Next to the church were the big bike racks. In general, always someones bike would get stolen and you would be able to buy a new one for $10 bucks at the church. There would always be a good chance that it actually was your own bike that you were buying back there. Not a reason to get in a fight for.
This was like a miniature economy going on. Every week the same thing. Luckily..I had only 2 bikes stolen from me in my life...Not a bad statistic in the Netherlands when you look at where and how I used to park it.
It could have been a lot worse.
Now in general a lot of these stolen bikes would end up at the train station. People needed transport to get to the train station and would leave it there. And then those bikes together with the ones of the students that are studying in a different city and leaving their bikes there all week.
Well yeah, that makes sort of a graveyard for it. I can tell you right now that from all of these bikes in the picture, not nearly half of them is either capable of still riding, and/or doesn't even have an owner looking for it anymore.
And the next certainty of life? When walking by here, there will always still be a hussler walking in between the bikes asking if you 'need a new bike for a special price' which then will be ripped out of the rack and presented to you like the next best thing as if it is their shop.
Maybe this gigantic graveyard of bikes has an afterlife after all?