In Memoriam (Ghost Bike)

Some of you might have seen the ghost bike set up in memory of Phyo on the corner of Mass Ave & Vassar St about 3 years ago right after the collision on Dec 27, 2011. The ghost bike was originally set up by Andrea, Phyo's co-worker and, in preparation for the winter, was taken inside and stored by MIT Facilities with Norman's help.

Today, we set this bike back up again, in memory of our friend Phyo -- and all the other cyclists out there who have fallen victim to traffic/truck collisions. In fact, thanks to Directing Samurai's prompting, we realized that we wanted to get a bike up in time for the Ride of Silence Boston event this evening (Boston City Hall Plaza, meeting at 6:45 PM).

We hugely thank Chief DiFava for helping us to propel this effort forward and reclaim the bike. I was contacted shortly afterwards by Mr. Ron Nestor who then proceeded to show me his creative engineering genius (and generosity with time!)

Ron tells me the great news about having found the bike and we're ready to go set it up now!

So I ride in their little licensed golf-cart-like vehicle that can go up to 20 mph on the driveway or even up sidewalks (always wanted one of these).

We lock it up (Ron got a chain with a padlock and everything!) -- buuuut we notice the sign is a bit dilapidated. JUUUUUST a bit.

So we decided to make a new one from scratch. In this case, scratch = vanilla folder + laminating sheets + scissors + ruler + pen + pencil + your imagination (of course).

While I was cutting and measuring things to scale and stenciling, Ron made sure I had all the tools I needed! I had a sharpie, pen, pencil, ruler ("Do you need a ruler?" "I think I'm good" "Here's one -- just in case"), vanilla folder, laminating sheets, scissors... He even brought in zip ties later. I was honestly touched by how invested these people were in a project that was not theirs -- I mean, I knew that the MIT community is one, and that Phyo was part of all of us, but the entire experience felt like we were all one big tag team.

Voila! Beautiful. (And waterproof!) And then we realized we were missing holes (for when we attach this sign to the bike). So while sitting there, pondering how I might be able to hole punch this thing, I hear drills in the office nearby where Ron's at...

So Ron comes out with a power tool. Standard.

Using the holes from the back of a chair to drill holes through this laminated sign was probably, safe to say, the only time this has ever happened in the MIT Facilities office.

So excited to have this back out in the sun again -- with zip ties!

Voila! Work of art. And now we just need to replenish with more flowers 🙂

Thank you so much Ron!! We truly appreciate your help and that of MIT Facilities and Chief DiFava in helping us to keep this ghost bike on MIT property in tribute to our friend Phyo.

Ye (aka Chief Jedi) & PN2K team