Buying a Bolognese Bici

             I have officially been living here for a month now! I had been toying with the idea of buying a bike since I got here 4 weeks ago, and I realized how incredibly convenient/fun/awesome it would be to bike around Italy. In Bologna one has a few options for bike purchase. One is to buy a used bike from a bike dealer, of which there are many in Bologna. These tend to run around 50-60 euro.

            The cheapest and most immediate fix is to buy a stolen bike. Bicycle theft is a serious problem in Bologna, and the city is actually sort of infamous for it. Stolen bikes run dirt-cheap, but since bicycle theft is a business here, buying a stolen bike increases greatly the chance that your bike will be stolen back from you. Also, when you go to buy a stolen bike, you can’t really tell ahead of time who you’re mixing it up with.

            Since I’m not here in Bologna permanently, and since theft is such a huge likelihood, I didn’t want to spend too much money on my bike. Despite the fact that it’s very common here, I was also a little uneasy about going with the stolen-bike option. My friend Noelle (who was also intent on owning a bike) found out from her roommate about a bike auction that occurs every year in Piazza Maggiore. The bikes are auctioned by an organization that fixes up abandoned bicycles (just like Blackstone Bikes) and sells them legally in order to combat the serious bike theft problem in Bologna.

            In this auction, though, the bike doesn’t go to the highest bidder. The bikes are sold to whoever manages to get the attention of the auctioneer. Thus, I donned my purple bath-towel as a cape and bought a pair of blue antenna-things from the one-euro store. I brought along pots and pans to make noise with, and Noelle carried a sign that said “Cerco una bici: Aiutami!” (I’m looking for a bike: help me!) Both Noelle and I were fortunate enough to be seen by the auctioneer, so we both walked away with 30-euro, legally-purchased bikes. Tomorrow after class we’re going to take the money we saved and buy some high-quality locks in the hopes that our bikes don’t become part of the theft-ring.

You can see us being crazy in this video:

Just look for the girl with the sunflowers who is jumping up and down like a mad woman. That would be Noelle.