In previous posts, I've written about bicycles that ended up in the canals of Amsterdam, Paris and Brooklyn as well as rivers like the Tiber and even larger bodies of water like Jamaica Bay.
Probably the most common reason why bikes meet the same fate as mob victims in the Gowanus Canal (accordig to legend, anyway) is theft: The perps don't know what else to do with the bike once they've used it for a getaway or joyride or realize that someone will recognize it, especially if it's from a municipal bike-share program. Old bikes also get dumped when their owners realize what it cost to fix them, or they don't realize those bikes can't be fixed. Or, people just want to get rid of them because they're disused and decaying.
Whatever the reasons, none can rationalize tossing a two-wheeler into the turbid or turbulent waters of a canal, creek, river, lake, bay or ocean. Particularly indefensible is an incident that seems to be part of a pattern developing in Leeds and other parts of the UK.
According to a BBC report, vandalism, tresspass and other kinds of anti-social behavior have been on the rise in and around British railway facilities. The Cross Gates station in Leeds seems to have been particularly hard-hit by such incidents, which include young people leaving or tossing bicycles in or alongside railroad tracks.
The incident shown in the surveillance video also reflects a particular ritual that seems to have developed around the practice: One young person abandons the bike on the platform edge before one of his peers drops it onto the tracks.
That sequence of events suggests, to me, that it might be some sort of gang ritual: The first young man might be leaving it for the other to toss in order to prove something or another. Or, perhaps, the first young man simply didn't want responsibility if the bike-tossing caused injury or damage.
Whatever their motivation, no bike, no matter how inexpensive or ratty, deserves such a fate.
