Amsterdam's Bike Graveyard
#1
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Amsterdam's Bike Graveyard
The place where bikes go in Amsterdam when their owners no longer love them. Yet in North America, these same bikes would sell at a premium price.
Go figure.
".......The Fietsdepot is the graveyard for 10,000 bikes of all shapes and sizes which have been removed by the city of Amsterdam while illegally parked. Only 25% are claimed by their owners, after 3 months all unclaimed bikes are scrapped or sold at auctions....."-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwji1CpWO9E
Go figure.
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Indeed they are some nice bikes. I wonder if they donate to people that need them instead of just scraping them. I am pretty sure there's a lot of demand in Africa.
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I wonder why their owners don't reclaim them. Could it be that they'd have to pay a fine for illegal parking which makes it not worth doing?
I'd love to go to one of their auctions.
I'd love to go to one of their auctions.
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The place where bikes go in Amsterdam when their owners no longer love them. Yet in North America, these same bikes would sell at a premium price.
Go figure.
".......The Fietsdepot is the graveyard for 10,000 bikes of all shapes and sizes which have been removed by the city of Amsterdam while illegally parked. Only 25% are claimed by their owners, after 3 months all unclaimed bikes are scrapped or sold at auctions....."-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwji1CpWO9E
Go figure.
".......The Fietsdepot is the graveyard for 10,000 bikes of all shapes and sizes which have been removed by the city of Amsterdam while illegally parked. Only 25% are claimed by their owners, after 3 months all unclaimed bikes are scrapped or sold at auctions....."-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwji1CpWO9E
Also, I believe another driver is that the Dutch receive a tax break on the purchase of a new bike....
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We have that many bikes locked up in police stations across the country! Seriously. In my small town, (pop 60K) the police station has about 100 bikes locked up. Although most were department store bikes, there were a number of older Schwinn bikes from the 70's in that pack. If you went to all the police stations in the U.S, you have 10,000 bikes easily!
The difference being the Dutch have much better bikes they discard than we do.
Good Post.
The difference being the Dutch have much better bikes they discard than we do.
Good Post.
#7
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I would say that a few US cyclists and bike co-ops would give their left nut to rummage through that graveyard.
#10
Prefers Cicero
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In Marocco, Romania and Afghanistan probably. They don't auction them to individual citizens anymore. Some of them will end up in the used bike shops for between 50 and 100 euro's, but most of them will go to countries were they appreciate them more and labour is cheap enough to repair them properly.
#13
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The Canals get drained and all sorts of things including bikes , thrown in, get removed from the mud, on the bottom.
#14
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You ain't seen noth'n yet. Japan is covered with such places, there are literally dozens of such graveyards here in Tokyo alone. Abandoned bikes are collected from the different districts of the city, some of these bikes are quite expensive, and are sold by the ton. They are loaded into shipping containers, and sent to China, where they are melted down and made into whatever. Anyone can bid on these bikes, and by the ton they are cheap, but you can't buy just one. If you see something like a order-made Panasonic, an old Litespeed, or a 3 Rensho road racer, you'll have to take the entire lot of bikes around it.
#16
Prefers Cicero
Yes, it is.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/massive-richmond-scrapyard-fire-started-in-pile-of-cars-1.3250114
https://qz.com/961991/a-week-long-to...lp-put-it-out/
(a little perspective.)
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/massive-richmond-scrapyard-fire-started-in-pile-of-cars-1.3250114
https://qz.com/961991/a-week-long-to...lp-put-it-out/
(a little perspective.)
Last edited by cooker; 08-29-17 at 08:39 AM.
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Rails work like steel tires where the wheel rolls over the 'tire'/rail instead of having it wrapped around. Vibrations on rail cars are dampened by springs/shocks instead of pneumatic tires.
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They don't get removed unless they are an immediate threat to safety or when they are particularly run down. And you always get a warning card or sticker to tell you not to park there next time.
The difference is that cars have registration plates that make it a lot easier to track.
Good luck giving a unique description of your black omafiets that every single student has.
Anyway, they are stored in the Fietsdepot.
If you are interested in any of these bikes check out Tradefrm.nl and Amsterdamsefietseveiling.nl. They auction them off.
Asva sells these bikes to students at a reasonable price and rents out bakfietsen for hauling around cargo. The rest gets sent to developing countries.
Last edited by JaccoW; 12-20-17 at 05:52 PM.
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Yup. I had a crash in Denver in the early 1990s, and then had to go pick up my bike a few days later at the police station - they had to search through hundreds!
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So the police are stealing those bikes.
I wonder how much effort is put into reuniting the bikes with their owners. Leave a note near where the bike was taken?
What percent of bike thefts are reported? If a person reports a bike was stolen, does the police automatically send them to this lot? Have records of when and where they took the bikes?
I wonder how much effort is put into reuniting the bikes with their owners. Leave a note near where the bike was taken?
What percent of bike thefts are reported? If a person reports a bike was stolen, does the police automatically send them to this lot? Have records of when and where they took the bikes?
#25
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The fact of the matter is that unless you live in a specifically bike-friendly town like PDX or SF or Ames, most people either don't write down their VIN or don't know one is on the bike! Bikes in American society are still viewed as children's toys or for the poor, so to acknowledge them as something more would, in the authorities' view, make them look ridiculous.
This post has been insightful and educational. I believe I read or was told by a Dutch that the bikes you see on the street in the Netherlands are the crappy bikes. Many own quality bikes that they keep inside and use for serious rides.
This post has been insightful and educational. I believe I read or was told by a Dutch that the bikes you see on the street in the Netherlands are the crappy bikes. Many own quality bikes that they keep inside and use for serious rides.