Bike seller on Calle Feria… ‘We sell bikes, but don’t tell the police.’
There is a market every Thursday morning on a street called Calle Feria in Alameda, where I live. There you can find a whole range of things – nice antiques, dodgy antiques, books, 1euro DVDs, old pornography, shit from bins, bikes, and more. I bought my bike (it’s the green and pink one in this picture) from this guy, and his shorter, fatter friend, a couple of months ago. I passed them with my bike a few weeks afterwards and the guy in the painting stopped me. Litron of Cruzcampo in hand, he offered to buy my bike off me for 10 euros. I told him I’d bought it off him for 35 a couple of months before, so I’d be keeping it. His fatter friend laughed and said, ‘No pasa nada, podemos robarla otra vez!’ – don’t worry, we’ll just rob it again. This fatter one had asked me out for a drink the day I bought the bike, so obviously his comment cut me to the quick after the bond we’d clearly made the first day. I left swiftly…
My friend also bought a bike from these guys. A couple of weeks later a girl came up to her and said that it was her bike, and it had been stolen a couple of weeks before. Awkward.
There I was thinking I’d bought a bike from a couple of guys who were just trying to make an honest living in this crazy, dog eat dog world. Ha. Maybe I was wrong. Oh well, I’ve had bikes stolen, had them donated, and also once found a lovely abandoned one in Edinburgh. My attitude to bike karma…easy come, easy go.
As usual this is acrylic. I took my dad’s advice and painted the canvas a nice creamy colour before I started with the actual image. I like the effect! Thanks Pa.
Wasn’t the Edinburgh one stolen as well? Did you think of stealing the bike of the guy selling it? That would be karma…
haha yeah my lovely BMX…stolen right from the stairwell…