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Bicycle Taxidermy - a permanent reminder of your pride and joy

Service gives cyclists a way to remember bike should it shuffle off to the afterlife's version of the Champs-Elysées...

A graduate of London’s Royal College of Art has launched a service enabling cyclists to permanently remember their pride and joy once its cranks have turned for the last time.

Bicycle Taxidermy mounts handlebars on wooden shields, together with an inscribed plaque, taking its cue from hunting trophies.

That latter aspect also gives rise to the unsettling notion that celebrity chef James Martin might take a bit of an interest should the BBC Saturday Kitchen set be due for an overhaul any time soon.

Should your own bike not quite be ready for the final ride to the afterlife's version of the Champs-Elysées just yet, you can buy purpose made models of different types of handlebars for £100 plus postage and packing.

Regan Appleton, Bicycle Taxidermy’s founder, describes it as “The loving and lasting solution for your mechanical bereavement.”

On the Bicycle Taxidermy website, she adds:

An eccentric side project born out of too many sleepless nights at the Royal College of Art and a homesickness for the rugged Highlands. Bicycle Taxidermy first began on a couple of memento mori for my father’s once prized but long discarded mountain and road bikes.

One could argue that this process was born out of a post-modern disdain for the conspicuous consumption of disposable objects but in reality it was a bit of laugh taken too far and turned into a bit of an obsession.

I can provide a couple of services. The first is a taxidermy service for client’s retired steeds. An epitaph, saying what you wish, is engraved in stainless steel of the horned beast’s legacy. It can be backed on either a scorched or bleached European oak plaque sealed with natural beeswax, a couple of 22 or 28mm chromed fixing brackets and a wall mount.

We can send this piece out to you; you can send us the handlebars or if you visit a couple of affiliated bike reclaimant shops they’ll buy the rest of the bike off you and we’ll collect and mount the handlebars from them before sending them, mounted back to you.

The second is for purpose made mounts; the same mounting strategy can be applied to newly sourced handlebars. I focus on chromed Chopper, Cruiser, Pursuit, Butterfly and Dropped bars. Others can be used but I’ve found these to be the best.

Further information on Bicycle Taxidermy can be obtained by emailing Info [at] BicycleTaxidermy.com

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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7 comments

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edf242 | 11 years ago
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The remnants of my friends cannondale six13 after he went over the bonnet of a car that pulled out on him, preserved for posterity (I should note that this is mounted on the wall of his dining room).

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new-to-cycling | 11 years ago
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better than the "ornaments" one commonly sees hanging on the walls in houses of the American South.

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mattsccm | 11 years ago
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Reminds me of my m/c clubs idiot of the year trophy. Whopping big shield with bars mounted like that with gloves and a m/c helmet

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ls3bvet | 11 years ago
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A good idea but these plaques are usually used to display the heads of deer that have been shot.

I can see a bigger market selling them to some our fellow road users to display the results of their driving "skill".

 1

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BigDummy | 11 years ago
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It is possible that I shall simply nick this idea.

But it is a good one.  16

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wild man replied to BigDummy | 11 years ago
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Don't worry about plagiarism, she's nicked the idea from Picasso, who made a bull's head from a saddle and bars.

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Simon_MacMichael replied to wild man | 11 years ago
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wild man wrote:

Don't worry about plagiarism, she's nicked the idea from Picasso, who made a bull's head from a saddle and bars.

Must admit there was a nagging familiarity when I was writing article, that explains it.

Interesting article here (if you're into the art side of things).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870355130457626104293120232...

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