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Ghost Bikes
Roadside memorials commemorating the deaths of bicyclists.
When I saw the white bicycle at the side of the road, I had to turn around and stop to check it out.
It was a ghost bike!
I’d heard about them from a previous conversation with my son, who works in a bike shop and cycles many miles himself on the weekends, often with my 14-year-old grandson alongside of him.
I’ve long been fascinated by the crosses on the side of the roads. About 15–20 years ago I was snapping pictures of every roadside cross I came across. Eventually, I stopped. What was I going to do with well over a hundred photos of crosses that highlighted someone’s death? People that I didn’t even know.
Most likely these unexpected highway deaths touched my heart because that’s how my brother died at the age of 35-years-old. An auto accident in Iowa. He died at the scene.
When I ran across my first Ghost Bike a few days ago, I had to stop and take a picture of it, and come home and research the fallen cyclist, to honor his life, his memory, and his death.
Terry Lee Brown
