Flower Power And Memory

One of the great things about seeing more and more cyclists in New York is that good old bikes are being restored and repurposed. What that means is that, very often, people will do creative things to make a bike their own.

Such creativity sometimes extends to paint jobs, as with the one I saw on an old Cannondale hybrid:

I encountered this bike and its rider yesterday on First Avenue, near the United Nations.  A friend painted the frame for her, she said.  I touched it, so I know the flowers are indeed part of the paint job, not decals or other appliques.

She told me her name, which I've forgotten. Perhaps she'll see this.  

What does that say about me when I can remember a bike but not a name?

Christo, Bike Burritos and a Peugeot P8

By now, you've seen the Bike Burritos I attach to Arielle and Tosca when I don't need a larger bag.

Now I'm going to ask a question you'd probably never ask: What might a bike look like if it were finished to match my Burritos?

Well, it's not an exact match, but you get the idea.  I saw the bike parked in Tribeca, near the home of the Film Festival named for the neighborhood.

If you look closely, you realize the bike wasn't painted in that pattern:

The "finish" seems to be some kind of contact- or wall-paper wrapped around the frame tubes.

From the unwrapped parts of the bike, I guessed that it's a Peugeot P8 from around 1983.  I feel confident in saying that because I assembled dozens of them while working at Highland Park Cyclery.

Now I know what one of those bikes might have looked like if the creator of the Bike Burrito and Christo had collaborated!