In Which I Find Where Cheap Beast Bikes Go To Die

Bike lock at apartment complex locking nothing to the rack.

I've noticed before that bike racks near dorms at Iowa State University are a bit, well, chaotic, with many abandoned bikes accumulating.

They seem to run to inexpensive mountain bikes, like The Beast. I suppose if you had a nice road bike, you’d be unlikely to be taking it to ISU or parking it outside, for that matter.

Friday, we moved Ben back to college. He’s in graduate school now at ISU and lives in an apartment complex near the campus. And it seems the such complexes have racks much like a dorm building.

So this is where beast bikes go to die.

A cluster of dying bikes at a rack near ISU in Ames. Crazy wheels.

Ben is near a shopping complex with both a HyVee and a Goodwill. One end of the complex featured a totally empty bike rack, but then again it is summer in Ames, maybe it will see more use later. And it was near a health clinic—perhaps the sick don’t pedal to their appointments. To be fair, there were some in-use bikes chained up at HyVee.

Empty shopping mall bike rack. Near an SUV. Sigh.

Goodwill featured many pink girls’ bicycles—seems to be a glut on the market for those.

Bikes for sale at Goodwill. All the small girl pink bikes you can possibly want.

The empty bike rack was a bit discouraging, sort of like an empty park on a beautiful day. Oh, wait. Ben’s apartment is next to a nice city park. With an empty playground on a nice summer day. Parents, turn off the electricity in your house and chase the kids outdoors. Even if the kids are in their 20s. Bike racks and playgrounds are only good if they are used.

Empty city park on a nice summer day. And only person we saw recreating outside was a comply lass in a tiny bikini working on her skin cancer. It's a crazy world.