Just like heaven

You - soft and only
You - lost and lonely
You - just like heaven

 (The Cure)

Remember the Bakfiets Classic we wrote about here? Well, it's still standing on the exact same spot. Now for more than four months.

This is how it went:

First I asked the police if I could take care of it, and if so, how. They explained to me that since the bike is locked, moving it is considered arbitrary conduct and, consequently, criminal. Even if you take it to the Police's lost property office, where they keep it for three months. (And then, if the owner hasn't showed up, the finder can get it, with official papers that it's hers or his.) They suggested that I talk to the owner of the building. "OK," I thought, but first I thought that I could ask the City of Gothenburg if they had any advice, since it's probably they who put up the bike stand. I got to talk with a really nice lady that explained that they don't act on these kinds of bikes. As she put it, they "clean out" their bike stands intermittently but they don't remove a bike until it has been standing outside a couple of winters, if it is locked. "When they are wrecks," as she put it. Well, then I went to the owner of the building - Poseidon (yup, that's their name) - and explained to a really nice guy what I was thinking. (What I am thinking, to be precise, is that it's a shame that fully functional bicycles are just going to waste, becoming wrecks, when they could go to someone who needs it. Cykelköket - The Bicycle Kitchen - would be happy to give it away to anyone who needs a bicycle.) The nice guy listened to me and then said that I should talk to the company that manage public buildings owned by Poseidon - Göteborgslokaler - since the bike isn't standing outside a residential block. Then I mailed Göteborgslokaler, explained what I was thinking and a couple of days later got the answer that moving the bike is arbitrary conduct...

Are we going to have to see this bike... this €1890 bike simply disrepair and become unusable for the next year, every time we ride past it? That sucks! We are not exhorting anyone to do anything illegal, because that is criminal too, but if anyone should take a bolt cutter, cut the chain and take the bike to the Police we will have seen nothing. We will be useless witnesses, we promise.

This bike deserves a better destiny