(Photo: Humboldt Gardens)
The saga of Johnnie Olivan’s “bike-car” has come to an unfortunate end.
(Photo © J. Maus)
Johnnie is the guy who makes bike trailers, sculptures, and multi-rider “bike-cars” out of reused bike parts under his Rejuiced Bikes banner. Back in October 2009, I shared his excellent custom trailer designs with you and then followed up in March with big news that he’d won a $15,000 grant to build several “bike-cars.”
Then, at the end of June, Johnnie’s nearly completed bike-car prototype was stolen after being left unlocked outside his house on N. Williams Avenue in the Piedmont Neighborhood.
Today I heard from Johnnie that his bike was found last week in front of a dumpster at the Humboldt Gardens housing development on N. Vancouver and Alberta. As you can see by the taco’d rear wheel in the photo above, it must have been joy-ridden and left there.
Unfortunately, according to Johnnie, Humboldt Gardens staff thought it was left by the dumpster as trash and didn’t check with the police to see if it was stolen so they disposed of it. The bike was hauled away to a Metro metal recycling facility.
Johnnie says he called the Metro location and one worker said he remembered seeing it, but it was too late. The bike was put in a bin and was cut up “into little pieces.”
Sad but not defeated, Johnnie says, “The bike is gone….going to build some more.”