A Vandalism Story: The Gold Bike

It was a completely normal Tuesday in the London office. There were whispered rumours that the following week it could even hit 42 degrees. As we finished up a meeting talking through our marketing acquisition targets, we heard a commotion outside in the warehouse courtyard. One of our electric vans had reversed in, swung open the back doors to reveal a vandalised bike.

Unfortunately it is a fact of a public good in the UK, that if left unattended there will be levels of vandalism. It’s rare at HumanForest, but not unheard of.

As we saw the vandalised bike sitting in the back of the dark van, it certainly filled us all with a level of sadness. We knew the potential rides that bike had ahead of it. We knew that thousands of people could have used that bike instead of a car in a lifetime. To see it there in a mangled state sent a hushed silence around the warehouse.

Then the bike came out of the shadows accompanied by a dull golden glow.

The bike appeared to have been spray painted gold. Not particularly well, but it was gold non-the-less.

This one detail shifted the mood. Now we saw potential. The answer was obvious. Let’s finish the job, spray paint the bike properly with a glorious coat of gold paint, and put it on the street for HumanForest users to enjoy. So that’s what we did.

We spent a few days stripping it down and painting it properly. But it’s now rentable on the street just as if it was a normal bike.

So far 30 people have had the pleasure of riding our golden beauty through London, all of them i'm sure having the time of their lives.  

We also used it for our recent Gold Bay activation, where we surprised our users dropping bikes of at what they thought was a normal Green bay.

To see all the content from the Gold Bike and the Gold Bay, head over to our Instagram page. It really is worth it.