Post-Thanksgiving bike rack leftovers

As a short Turkey Day recap, here is a quick shot of a post-holiday night out recovering from all that time with your families.

Brought to you from one D. Ceasar - who was surely innocently passing by and noticed the unorthodox bar containment system on the way home over the river and through the woods from Grandmother's house - from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. Considering I am still snacking on stuffing, I certainly had a good time.

For the fact that this barricade is labled "Bob's Barricades" and for the girl in the foreground clearly digging through oversized purse, probably to give dude to the right her number, and thus capturing the post-pumpkin-pie mind fog: TWO bicycles out of four.

Trending: German bike rack

Today, we get a visual treat from one H. Kuckat all the way from Germany. Yes, Germany! We're really taking this blog places, aren't we?

Anyway. Looks like variety is the norm here: we have plenty of photos that show bike rack, in action! I'm tempted to dismiss a few of them: I mean, would you park your bike at the one below? That said, let's face it - I'm not really into the bike rack that racks bikes. Otherwise, this blog would be full of these kinds of photos.

The first several photos, we have some guards standing...err, guard in front of matching green rack. Bonus points for matching outfits. Who says that fashion can't be found in Berlin? (I'm guessing this is Berlin...) Munich!  (I have been duly corrected.  Thanks Hendrik!) 

Also more bonus points for the supportive bits preventing tipping of bike rack. One of the worst things to happen with bike rack is having an oversize crowd push up against the rack, causing it to tip and lean dangerously (I mean, bully for the crowd advance, but the site guy is always having a heart attack about this). Having the support is great for those reasons...as long as someone else is setting it up.

Just saying.

Next up: police forces setting up candy-cane striped barricade at what I'm guessing is a police scene.

(All those hours of watching CSI:Miami are good for something. And not just for the nifty The Who theme song. Which is so good, I'm going to play it right now. "Won't Get Fooled Again." Turn up your speakers, get David Caruso glasses and go to town.)

I'll say this about the rack: good lord, that's unwieldy. Bike rack is ALREADY unwieldy, being metal, a weird large shape and usually heavy as hell. Adding a flat mesh panel to the bottom certainly can't help matters. Ugh. So not only do these dudes have to wear a fugly yellow reflective vest, they have to put this crap together?

And in the rain? I feel the pain. Now I see why Oktoberfest is necessary: to deal with the arduous bike rack assembly. Who needs a beer? THIS guy.

And now, for the "trending" portion of this post. Could it be that all this work is...inefficient?

I mean, I've seen those Das Auto commercials for Volkswagon. Those cars are efficient. This method of bike rack is...well, less so.

Which comes to: plastic bike rack. Yes, PLASTIC. BIKE. RACK.

OK, this may just be barricade, but I think this is a warning sign of things to come. I mean, the Germans are always on the cutting edge. Look at their cars - BMW, Mercedes...that same logic is certainly to apply to bike rack, right? Right? "Ultimate Driving Machine," (TM) meet "Ultimate Barricade System?"

Anyway, who knows what the future will hold, other than more bike rack. And so, for having bike rack that knows no shade of gray: THREE bicycles out of four. Well played, Germany. Well. Played.

New Delhi surprise

We are taking a small break from our regularly scheduled programming of "Indonesian Bike Rack" to bring you bike rack of a different flavor - same continent, same prefix (sort of), but different country and VERY different bike rack: India.

Yes, today's bike rack post comes from New Delhi, from collaborateur and man-about-town D.Ceasar (unless one Spicy decides to send me some photos of his own).*** Mr. Ceasar notes that the various types of barricade shown to the right and below are notable mostly for their wide variety and distinct lack of bike-racking-ability.

No vertical bars = not a great chance of being able to lock my bike up. Coupled with the addition of wheels on all the barricades, well...a crafty (or not so crafty) thief could just roll off with both items!

Anyway, I'll hand it to the New Delhi Police

- or is it just the hipper moniker of "Delhi Police," as it says on the barricade - they know how to brand and make it really clear just who owns the bike rack. The rest of the metal? I don't know what to think of it.

Let's break it down:

+1 for wheels! I love wheels.

-1 for inconsistency.

+1 for keeping it interesting. I guess variety is the "spice of life" and spices come from India? (Yes, that was a stretch, leave me alone.)

+1 for painted barricade, but -1 for it being predominantly yellow and red. (Shudder.)

+1 for the weirdo slanted roof things. Way to discourage anyone from climbing over by promising infertility.

-1 for inability to actually rack bikes

+1 for being so intimidating that there aren't actually crowds pressed up against the rack, and in the wide shot photo, people's backs are actually to the bike rack. They won't even LOOK at it.

So that means a whopping TWO bicycles out of FOUR bicycles.

*** Okay, Team Mumbai. I'm looking at you to help fill the Indian gap here.

Indonesian bike rack, part 2

Now we move on to the increasingly more, ah, secure versions of bike rack in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia.

You can see they've moved past the innocuous red-and-white-striped variety, and now manufacture bike rack in the colors of a bumblebee: black and yellow, which already say "danger! Stay away!"

And it's even got the signature bee sting in the form of spikes on not only the top of the barricade, but also the bottom, rendering the actual racking of bikes impossible.

Confusing, yes, but goes to show that this particular bike rack was meant for barricade, not for racking anything mobile. Its the equivalent of trying to park your car in a spot that has tire spikes pointing straight out.

Not sure what the hell this bike rack is actually protecting right now, other than standing guard at probably the nicest mall in all of Indonesia (we're bourgeois like that), but I'm not going to debate its current function.

That said, if I were in a pushy crowd and trying to escape, I'd definitely think twice about climbing over this rack for fear of puncturing myself. I mean, this is some mean bike rack (that can't actually rack bikes).

Then again, wait until you see the ultimate in Indonesian security...stay tuned!

For a gripping three-part post about...bike rack, THREE bicycles out of four. One for each post. Duh.

Indonesian bike rack, part 1

Normally, I try to keep the blog posts about bike rack to one city per, but considering this is all of blog post number 10 or something - I think my rule can be broken fairly easily!

So. Jakarta had a plethora of bike rack to choose from.I'm not even really sure you can call most of it real bike rack, but I'm going to be writing about it anyway.

Let's start with the most innocuous type of bike rack they had - the candy-striped (OK, I guess in the Indonesian flag colors, but it did make me long for peppermint candies) non-lethal sort.

Non-lethal, you ask?

You'll have to stay tuned to the blog for the various bad-ass bike rack variety. Trust me, the range of bike rack with lethal spikes blew my mind.

I will say that I neglected to take a photo of the rigged lethal version, which was made of ordinary bike rack wrapped in barbed wire. WTF kind of crowds are you dealing with, Jakarta?

Oh, right. The kind that stops traffic and parties and/or protests

on buses. Well then, carry on.

My driver was not entirely sure if these were football (soccer to us Americans) fans or protesters, but was leaning on the side of football. Judging by how packed that bus is, I'm guessing that there were already people on the roof, partying and/or protesting or not.

Anyway, more Jakarta bike rack coming up in a blog about bike rack near you.

For multiple bike rack variety:
THREE bicycles out of FOUR bicycles.

Chileans do disaster right...

...by including a healthy dose of bike rack in their miner rescue operations press shot.

Okay, in all seriousness - the nation of Chile has shown the world how to respond to disaster: quickly, resourcefully, and with perseverance. Which is why all the miners made it out not only alive, but (fairly) healthy and with their sanity intact. Or why there was minimal damage and death from the earthquake months earlier.

So. Back to the bike rack. The way this shot is composed makes me so happy - a clear hit of nationalistic pride, framed by a large pulley system of some sort, rescue workers discussing their plan of action. But its tied together by a perfect thread of bike rack, keeping those not necessary for rescue ops out of the way.

Because I was glued to CNN to watch the efforts - which is a news outlet I'm not really a fan of anymore - and because Chile is apparently the MAN when shit goes down, FOUR bicycles out of four.