Well its been an upside down week since we launched the White Bike Plan on a sunny day last Thursday. There is a Baltic chill in the air, my family are all still stuck in Lanzarote care of Ryan Air, who make Thatcher look like the good samaritan.  Never have I abstractedly hated a company more and their ethos of treating customers as little more than ‘dirt with wallets’. If there was a god, that shower of shit and their vile little leader would have had their come-uppance long ago!

I only share this small rant as I suppose their ethos is so diametrically opposed to what the White Bike Plan stands for. Of course, we will never have major impact on the world or bring joy or misery to millions, but in a way I believe its better to be small in your impact but have a shred of idealism left…

Meanwhile I haven’t been back on a bike because my legs are not actually functioning after running Lochaber marathon at the week-end. Although I trained for up to 50 miles a week through the winter I was still physically destroyed after crossing the line in 3hours 30mins. It’s amazing how your mind must edit out the pain memories from previous races. I couldn’t believe that so many muscles can be sore for so long. Right, I need to get a grip; this is turning into a blog moan. I am walking again and went in search of a bike this morning I spotted last night, but it had gone. I even had a Dutch white bike sweatshirt on so if I had to confront someone I could just show them my logo without confrontation and ride the bike back to the hub in Miller St. But word is, the bikes are out and about and holding up well and being well used. The footage and images on Vimeo, Facebook, YouTube are stunning and a great record of the action. It really has worked as a form of democratic art representation.

I think on the final week-end of the festival we should do a massive call-out to all the good hearted people of Glasgow to track down the 50 bikes so we can get them back in one piece to re-distribute to deserving community groups and local programmes across the city.

I finally realised tweeting has a purpose as there has been ##KA##a great campaign with people tracking down and spotting bikes in unusual places. Joe at Gear who built them for us had a nice story, a wee boy from the local primary school came in to see him, his sister’s bike had been stolen, so he wondered if he could have one of the “free” bikes to give to her. On that happy note, adieu.

Angus

Photo: Alaisdair Smith