By SUE SAGE | Truckee
Perhaps you’ve seen them: white bicycles chained to signposts, fences, or trees. They’re known as “ghost bikes” and serve as somber memorials of a tragedy. Each bike symbolizes a life lost while on a bicycle.
“The first ghost bikes were created in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003,” according to ghostbikes.org. “Currently, there are over 630 ghost bikes that have since appeared in over 210 locations throughout the world. For those who create and install the memorials, the death of a fellow bicyclist hits home. We all travel the same unsafe streets and face the same risks; it could just as easily be any one of us.”
On July 13 of this year, four years from the day my husband died following a cycling accident, some good friends installed a ghost bike at the site of Larry’s accident. Needless to say, I was moved to tears.
The other day, I returned to the site to place fresh flowers and show a friend the ghost bike. The bike was gone; it had been removed. Again, I was moved to tears.
As my friend said, “These bikes are like ghosts… They appear, then disappear, then reappear.” Of the latter, I have no doubt.
