Yesterday, my old bike got nicked right from under my nose. Granted I was wrapped up in the aftermath of the demonstrations in support of Ungdomshuset, a squatted house in the Nørrebro neighborhood facing eviction, and forgot to lock it up. The demonstration had dissipated with the Politi rounding up all the demonstrators they had managed to corner on a small side street near our flat. We were bearing witness to the arrest of over 200 people. We were milling about in the streets where everyone stood around drinking beer, watching events unfold. From the arrival of the blue Politi vans, release of the German Sheppards, arrangement of the protestors in handcuffed rows, to the arrival of the green vans that kept coming to take the demonstrators, everything took about and hour and a half. The crowd would break into chants periodically if a particularly distraught or rowdy protestor was placed into one of the vans. It was a spectacle that made everyone feel nervous, even though we were on the other side of the Politi vans, we mused as sympathizers, “What would cause them to turn around towards us?”

So, in all this I forgot to lock up the Aqua Dream. The Aqua Dream is the old road bike we pulled out of a container a week ago. All it took to get it on the road again was a new tube for the back tire and a little oil on the chain. It rides like, well, like a Dream. The Aqua Dream is light as air and moves like the wind, and I found it for free. So, when I looked around as the Politi vans started to pull away and noticed it was missing, I was devastated. “Someone’s taken my bike!” I lamely announced and went over to the spot where it had been as if it could re-appear from the solid wall. The thought that it wasn’t really “my” bike, I mean I had only pulled it out of the container a week ago, and what is ownership anyway, but the bike represented on-the-cheap speed and movement in my adopted city. It meant that I had avoided yet another commercial transaction. I felt terribly conflicted about acknowledging that all things go, maybe I could find another container bike, and loving my missing material possession.

Trying to remain calm and philosophical about the situation I turned from the blank wall to see to my great relief that the Aqua Dream was not gone forever, it had only gone a few feet away. A young lady had decided to bike-nap my bike behind my back! I thought well, once she knows that the bike is mine and I love it, she will give it back. I walked over to her and said, “Hey, that’s my bike!” “No, its not,” she said and tossed my unfortunately unused lock to the ground. Maybe it was the mood of the evening, maybe everyone was feeling a little aggressive towards the world, internalizing the Politi force used against the citizens, but she was not about to give the Aqua Dream back to me. If it hadn’t been for my buddies surrounding her and taking the bike from her, I might not have retrieved it. I can’t say that it was a positive encounter but it is kind of how the whole day had gone. A day spent being confronted with ideas of property ownership (the squatted house, my bike), public space ownership (where can we be and what can we do there), and aggressive encounters to settle debates over these subjects.

Judith, a Copenhagen friend, at the demonstrations with me, told me a story later that made me think maybe the girl really thought the bike was free for the taking. She told me about an unspoken set of rules surrounding old bikes. Old bikes that look somewhat used and abused – the Dream has quite a bit of rust on its frame – if they are left propped up in public without a lock, are assumed to be available for use. Judith often employed what I now call, The Old Bikes Network, in her youth. She would notice a bike that looked old, and finding no lock, would use it to move around the city leaving the bike later in a public location for the next person to take when they needed it. She admits that this free exchange had its flaws, because “you never really knew if you were nicking someone’s bike or not.” But it worked; fair is fair.

We walked slowly away from the scene of the mass arrests, over to Blågårdsplads, past the smoldering fires of containers and wooden flats left by the roving protestors. We sat on the bench in the park, drinking beer and watching local drunks throw things, yell at each other, and cheer when Politi vans parked there drove away. It seems everyone wanted to claim a space that day. I am here, my property is me, and I have a right to stay. I’ll probably leave the Aqua Dream out on Blågårdsplads when I leave the city so it can continue circulating in the Old Bikes Network.

These are images we took of piles of abandoned bikes around Copenhagen: