Ghost Bike

Original online San Diego Union-Tribune article

copy of text below:
Ghost bikes memorialize life and death

By Matthew T. Hall
Friday, July 20, 2012

Ghost bikes are the roadside crosses of the cycling community, stark reminders that the road does not go on forever.

Graduate student Sara Kazemi never fails to notice one in the College Area on her commute to and from San Diego State University - whether she's stopped at a red light or pedaling past.

It's a memorial to a man killed on busy Montezuma Road three months ago. But in a deadly summer for San Diego bicyclists, it speaks for other victims, too.

The bike, wheels and all, is painted a ghostly white - hence the term - and covered with dried flowers, beads and other tokens: an American flag, a medal from the 2012 Alpine Challenge, a reflective leg band.

Mourners left it there a day after bicyclist Charles Gilbreth, 63, was struck from behind by an SUV and killed in April. The leg band on the bike is Gilbreth's, recovered from the scene. The bike itself is a gift from someone in the cycling community, someone who had never met him.

This is how connected that chain of riders is: When the city planned to remove the memorial this month, Kazemi and others rode to its defense. And theirs was an entirely different group of riders than the members of a campus cycling collective who installed the bike in the first place.

Forrest Brodsky, a soon-to-be senior at SDSU and president of the collective known as the Bike Stand, bought the paint for the ghost bike, which was donated by a friend. Twelve students took turns painting it.

Brodsky calls it "a powerful statement." Is it ever.

From a distance you might assume the bike, chained to a Montezuma Road street sign across from Collwood Boulevard, had been abandoned. Up close, by brush so overgrown Brodsky had to pull out handfuls of weeds to make room for the ghost bike, you might get goose bumps.

About two weeks ago, a city crew posted a notice of violation on the bike, which was in the public right-of-way without a permit. A complaint had been lodged by someone assuming that the bike had been cast aside. The notice said the bike would be hauled away in 72 hours.

Kazemi was the first person to arrive the morning of July 12 for a rally to protect the bicycle. Why did she care so much? Two reasons, she said.

One, it would be disrespectful to disrupt someone's memorial. Two, everyone needs to remember to share the road.

"You don't take flowers off the side of the street or candles that are lit for someone that was hit by a car, so why touch that?" she said. "It's a real good reminder to people who are both driving and biking to be aware of their surroundings."

The bike's days are no longer numbered. The rally literally ended before it began. Calls to Councilwoman Marti Emerald's office found a sympathetic ear, and the city scrapped its plans to remove the bike.

If only all of life's issues could be solved so easily. Like the issue of bikes and cars co-existing safely on San Diego streets.

This month alone, five bicyclists have died in San Diego County, three because of vehicle collisions. In memory of some of these riders, cyclists will gather at the Balboa Park water fountain at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon. Their ride will take them to City Hall, where participants will use chalk to trace the outlines of their bodies on the ground to send a message that San Diego streets should be safer. Kazemi and Brodsky plan to be there.

The day I talked to them, I stopped by Park Boulevard and University Avenue, where another ghost bike once stood.

Exactly four years earlier to the day, cyclist Atip Ouypron died near there when he ran a red light and was struck by a pickup. In 2008, in a nod to protesters and Ouypron's family, which planned to leave the region, city officials waited about a month to remove the ghost bike.

Unless you knew Ouypron or his story, you'd never realize a bike had been there. You could easily pass by and notice nothing unusual.

But park your car or your bike and walk over to a certain stop sign, and you'll see three tall votive candles, green leaves covered with wax and a trio of rusted bike locks clasped around a metal pole.

You'll see that the cycle of life and death continues.

Print page
© Copyright 2012 The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC. An MLIM LLC Company. All rights reserved.