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Amsterdam's Bike Graveyard

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Amsterdam's Bike Graveyard

Old 05-11-12, 11:25 PM
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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
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Old 05-12-12, 01:39 AM
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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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Old 05-12-12, 04:06 AM
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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.
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Old 05-12-12, 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted by folder fanatic
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
This happens lots in the US. Bikes are seized. The owners are too preoccupied or have no indoor space to reclaim. The bikes are sold at auction.

Also, I believe another driver is that the Dutch receive a tax break on the purchase of a new bike....
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Old 05-12-12, 02:29 PM
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The bakfiets at 1:25 and 1:50 caught my eye. Wish we had those at auction here.
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Old 05-12-12, 05:15 PM
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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.
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Old 05-12-12, 08:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Ekdog
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 know that the Netherlands has a good bicycle insurance program, many owners probably claim that the bike was stolen, get an insurance settlement, and buy a new bike.


I would say that a few US cyclists and bike co-ops would give their left nut to rummage through that graveyard.
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Old 05-12-12, 10:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Cyclepup
The bakfiets at 1:25 and 1:50 caught my eye. Wish we had those at auction here.
Originally Posted by dynodonn
I would say that a few US cyclists and bike co-ops would give their left nut to rummage through that graveyard.
I think Cyclepup has already found his bike in that pile.
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Old 08-23-17, 02:38 PM
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hello

who can hemp me PLEASE

maybe who know how i can buy some bikes from Amsterdam bike Graveyard ???
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Old 08-23-17, 06:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Ramas
hello

who can hemp me PLEASE

maybe who know how i can buy some bikes from Amsterdam bike Graveyard ???
I'm sure someone can hemp you in Amsterdam.
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Old 08-23-17, 06:23 PM
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Originally Posted by cooker
I'm sure someone can hemp you in Amsterdam.
Ba-Doom-Tah!
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Old 08-24-17, 02:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Ramas
hello

who can hemp me PLEASE

maybe who know how i can buy some bikes from Amsterdam bike Graveyard ???
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.
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Old 08-25-17, 09:48 AM
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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.
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Old 08-27-17, 06:55 AM
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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.
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Old 08-29-17, 05:24 AM
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Still it is nice the Dutch ride bikes so much.
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Old 08-29-17, 05:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Andreas Faggin
Still it is nice the Dutch ride bikes so much.
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.)

Last edited by cooker; 08-29-17 at 08:39 AM.
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Old 11-16-17, 12:42 PM
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This is just amazing
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Old 11-16-17, 03:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
If you went to all the police stations in the U.S, you have 10,000 bikes easily!
My dad took me to the bike pound back in the late 1960s in New Orleans (not a huge city) to recover my stolen bike. I found it. But WOW!!! There were SO many bikes in there.
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Old 11-18-17, 09:21 AM
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Originally Posted by cooker
It's amazing how there is no use for a used automobile tire? Billions are wasting away in landfills all over the US. From what I understood, they are toxic and cannot be melted down for other uses. I heard they were converting them as turf for children's playgrounds across the country. However, I then heard a report that some of the children were catching cancer. After all these years, no one has come up with a solution to make a more biological friendly car tire or even one that can be recycled.
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Old 11-18-17, 09:44 AM
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Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
After all these years, no one has come up with a solution to make a more biological friendly car tire or even one that can be recycled.
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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Old 11-28-17, 06:25 AM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
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.
That has to do with rolling resistance and road(rail) quality and grade, too. It isn't nearly that simple.
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Old 12-20-17, 05:48 PM
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Originally Posted by mtb_addict
I bet alot of innocent bike were confiscated without the owner's concent.
It's called illegal parking. People are lazy or in a rush. Either way, your car gets towed too when you just throw it on the curb in front of the supermarket.

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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Old 12-21-17, 02:08 PM
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Originally Posted by JoeyBike
My dad took me to the bike pound back in the late 1960s in New Orleans (not a huge city) to recover my stolen bike. I found it. But WOW!!! There were SO many bikes in there.
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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Old 12-22-17, 09:12 AM
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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?
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Old 12-22-17, 02:11 PM
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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.
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