The photographer of today’s startling urban plant picture, titled Nature wins, is Cécile Obertop. Not surprisingly, she lives in Amsterdam, one of the most bike-centric cities in Europe. While I think it’s great that much of the population commutes by bike instead of driving, which you’d think could only mean good things for the environment and contribute to a clean, green city, talking to Cécile about this picture made me realize that the bike situation is not always a bed of roses.
Cécile says that the city is plagued with bikes like this one, left to die a slow death on the streets – or get eaten by plants.”This bike is one of many, many abandoned ‘orphan’ bikes in Amsterdam, a real problem because there are so many thousands and they clog up the official bike parking racks and the rest of the city,” says Cécile.
Why would so many people dump bikes on the street instead of fixing or selling them? “I guess when a repair starts to cost more than a ‘new’ used bike,” she explains.
Well, it sounds like these bikes are considered by many as a nuisance and an eyesore, so perhaps this voracious ivy is doing Amsterdam residents a favor by eating this particular bike for lunch. Who said most plants are strictly autotrophs?
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Thank you Cécile, for sharing your photo with us! Check out more of Cécile’s photos on Flickr and on Instagram, where she’s @cecile74.
urban plant research 
There should be a bike patrol and they can put stickers on bikes saying, “please remove this bike or Bike Patrol will remove it in 30 days on ____ date.” Is that too mean?
Hey Matt, did you Cécile’s answer below? She didn’t directly reply to you but it’s quite interesting that there is a “bike patrol” in Amsterdam…
@mattmaldre, that is exactly what they are doing (and removing them after that period expired) but it’s a constant battle and there are simply too many thousands of orphan bikes and not enough officials to work on removing them.
At train stations it is even worse. For example Central Station’s bike parking lot (a 3 storey boat) has a 14 day limit but still it’s always full… and many of the bikes there are never used, then removed, but out of nowhere new orphan bikes appear. It’s like a conspiricy. :-)
Yes, it sounds like it’s the scale of the problem that’s so challenging. Maybe bikes should have licenses, like cars? But that would be a shame, because it’s nice that bikes (when used properly) are so unbureaucratic.
I have seen that huge 3-story bike parking lot at the Central Station – it’s incredible! I can imagine that it would be hard to identify and remove abandoned bikes among so many.
Once I knew a dutch guy in Berlin and I think he gathered in his 6month stay about 5 bikes in the backyard. Non of them would work. Obviously.
It seems to me that after a critical amount of bikes per capita is reached it is easier to get a new (used) one than to fix a tire…