Thursday, November 8, 2007

Ghost Bike

[Left] Ghost Bike
Memorial to David Ryan
Riverview Road,
Clifton Park, New York

There was a time in my early 20's when the only two satellites that orbited my planet were cycling and punk rock. I was young, lived alone, was unattached, and was singularly focused on all aspects of riding. Over the past 18 years, I have had more scrapes, altercations, and near misses than I care to recount. I have only been hit once and for that I consider myself extremely lucky. There were times I was logging between 250 and 300 miles a week. Broken down in hours, that is a lot of time on the bike. It is also a lot of time on the shoulder of road fighting it out with SUV's and pick-ups for a few inches of real estate. I remember the day David Ryan was killed. I think we shared a few group rides but I not sure. What I do know is that we had the same interests, traveled in the same circles, and were roughly the same age. Any number of times, it could have been my name on a ghost bike on the side of the road. Too many times, actually.

I saw a photo of this memorial in the local paper. Like a lot of local photojournalism, the image was weak and boring. Out of respect for a fellow cyclist, I wanted to shoot a fitting image of the ghost bike before it disappeared.

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