Bike Rack from (the Temple of) Heaven

I realize how far behind I have gotten in my bike rack posting. J. Dach reminds me every day. This will be rectified, starting today!

While Jonny will be disappointed to not three-peat, K. Edwards deserves a shout-out for the magnificent specimen of bike rack she found in Beijing, at the Temple of Heaven.

Pretty impressive, although I'm not entirely sure what purpose it serves - isn't the actual fencing enough? Or is it keeping people away from touching it? Props to China for getting matchy-matchy and painting it white, though. 

OK. More posts to come on a regular basis, I promise. Just keep sending me the photos and I will keep writing ridiculous descriptions about your favorite man-made moveable barricade. 

THREE bicycles out of four bicycles. 

Hot and sweaty bike rack in Virginia Beach

This fancy piece of bike rack on the beach was sent to me from my dear V. Sanders a few weeks ago. I don't think I've ever seen such fancy scroll work on bike rack before, and it's even in a different color! Very lovely.

Even more confusing is why there's fencing that's behind the bike rack, or if the bike rack is protecting the fencing and then the railing behind THAT, but hey, whatever it takes to keep the masses from the beach. Kind of overkill, no?

Anyway, thanks for the fancy rack, Valentine, and as always, keep the photos coming people!

For totally unnecessary gilded and scrolled bike rack - THREE bicycles out of four.

Ca c'est bon bike rack for Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was last week, and while I didn't get to go celebrate it in the Big Easy, B. Becnel (aka "Spicy") was there to usher in Lent the way it's meant to be - with a couple of hurricanes and hand grenades, beads, masks, Zulu coconuts and festive king cake-colored bike rack! 

Super impressive showing here of the colors; while I've seen some great spray-painted bike rack in my team, none are so committed as these. Now, only if there were a plastic baby painted onto one of these every 100 pieces of bike rack or so...would that mean the next Mardi Gras, you have to bring the bike rack? 

And, no Bourbon Street shot would be complete without the post-Mardi Gras damage, beads and booze and bike rack and all. You can practically feel the hangover just looking at this photo.

For bike rack that screams "laissez les bon temps rouler," I think it deserves FOUR bicycles out of four.***

*** Note: someone recently said to me that every post I put on here gets four out of four bicycles. Look, I'm generous, but not THAT generous. It just happens that the photos I've been getting lately are some stellar examples of the genre. If you want a healthy showing of less than stellar bicycle ratings, check out the tag "San Francisco." 

Sassy bike rack from (Little) Italy

K.Defilippi has sent some super sassy bike rack photos from her vacay in New York - pretty amazing, I must say. Makes me want a latte, some pasta and some fine leather goods. Little Italy has got some awesome bike rack.

Set on a busy street in New York (Broome, to be exact), blocking off pedestrians too busy to watch the traffic whilst eating some gelato.

The paint job on these babies is pretty impressive - I have yet to see any bike rack in the American flag motif - one day. One. Day.

I love that this photo includes the whole street and the stalwart of New York photos - the yellow cabs in the background. Just bringing it all together here.

And to really top off the entire thing, Karen includes a photo of her showing her Italian pride - ladies and gents, that's as good as it gets right there.

Not to be outdone, D.Ceasar has also submitted some bike rack from Italy - from L'Aquila. Of course, D, next time I expect a sassy pose out of you, too. 

For bike rack both from and about Italy - and making me hungry for some pizza - FOUR bicycles out of four. (Horrible accent here) Thats-a-spicy-meatball!

Touristy bike rack in New York City, NY

Sometimes, you find bike rack in the "must-see" categories of that Lonely Planet guide you're toting in your backpack - and here, one N.Zigler certainly found it, albeit behind Lady Liberty.

Looks like your standard gray steel bike rack, set up to keep the hoi polloi corralled neatly and not so much in huddled masses who are yearning to breathe free... (Yes, that was terrible, but you're still reading, no?)

But I find the juxtaposition quite lovely: blue skies, the green woman hoisting her flame up above and the bike rack (and trash can - keep America clean, people) below. Greatness above, the prosaic below. Then again, given the tilt of this blog, maybe it's the other way around.


Next up: D.Sams hits up another one of NYC's tourist spots with a stop at the United Nations HQ, and gets himself in the photo smoking a...let's just say he's smoking, shall we?

Anyway, while that giant ball in the center is kind of cool, check out that electric blue bike rack! While it appears to be of the same standard model of vertical steel bars, it's got the best Smurf-worthy paint job I've ever seen. Is it color-coordinated with the wall behind the hedge? Is it the U.N. approved color? Did someone go crazy with the Cheez Whiz? Don't know if we'll ever understand, but D, thanks for bringing it to us.

This gives me an idea - time for a guide book? Best bike rack spots to visit? Would Zagat pay me for that? Probably not. TWO bicycles out of four - one for each hot spot hit.

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.

Lebanese-flavored bike rack

I've seen a lot of different bike rack coverings - from bunting (my personal favorite) to black or blue Banjo fabric, to some weird tablecloth-like plastic, and even placards taped on in a futile attempt to cover the metallic gray expanses of welded piping.

But somehow, the spray-painted variety has totally escaped my notice and my clearly limited and stunted imagination.

Today's lesson in decorative bike rack comes from J.Slider and Spicy, from a jaunt abroad in Beirut. Clearly, instead of leaving bike rack to be a cold silver, they jazz it up with some spray paint in the motif of their national flag. I mean, why didn't anyone think of this before? So simple. So patriotic.

Words totally fail me.

Which is rare. (And short-lived.)

Anyway, you can see it being deployed here giving some color and cheer to an event with some heavy-duty military equipment in the background. It really makes the par-tay pop, don't you think? I think that home decorations dude with the extra H in his name from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Thom or something, would totally approve of the DIY-ness of the whole affair.

I give this bike rack THREE out of four bicycles - I'm withholding one star because the Lebanese could have gone the extra mile and put the tree on there too.**

** Although, let's face it - if and when I get ahold of my own piece of bike rack, and paint it in the manner of Old Glory, I may skip the whole fifty stars business. I mean, it's bike rack - it ain't going in the Smithsonian.