Two-wheeler snafus are tough. One moment you and your bike are happily ducking and diving the rush-hour traffic, and the next? Kaput. No more. Gone.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could have a memento to remember the good times instead of relegating your rusty ride to the scrap heap?
Say no more, friends. Let us acquaint you with the world of Bicycle Taxidermy. It's a slightly surreal business that allows grieving cyclists to preserve their "dead" bicycles, by fixing their stem and handlebars to a wooden plaque above an engraved epitaph.
The project was started by artist Regan Appleton who was looking to create “a couple of memento mori” of his father’s once-prized but long-discarded mountain and road bikes. He now provides a taxidermy service to preserve other people’s handlebars, allowing grief-stricken Londoners to leave their much-loved bikes to rest.
Depending on your point of view, mounting old bits of bike metal above the mantelpiece is either incredibly awesome or a little bit weird, but one thing's certain: Antlers and ironic animal taxidermy are O.V.E.R.
Photos: Via Bicycle Taxidermy