Crazy Ha!!! How did it get there? It’s been a mystery for years. Some locals said that it was just some strategic plan of someone’s cleverness. Someone had to have known that the tree would lock the bike into its trunk and hold on to it forever. Others say it was just some chance the bike ended up where it did.
You have to admit, seeing a bike that’s been lodged in a tree for over 50 years, stimulates the imagination. It inspired the local writer Berkeley Breathed to write a children’s story, Red Ranger Came Calling.
The lure of the bike has even sparked up a tale on Facebook. Just recently, I came across a photo that someone had shared. It had a photo like the one in the top right corner with a caption below it saying,
“A boy went to war in 1914 and let his bike chained to a small tree. He never made it home, and his family left the bike by the tree in his memory. This is that tree today. SHARE this if it’s one the best monuments to our fallen soldiers that you have ever seen.”
It’s a great tale, but it’s an even greater ploy to get lots of shares, but unfortunately the tale isn’t true.
On December 30th, 2009 the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomer, a local news paper wrote an article revealing who the bike really belonged to. The bike dates back to the 1950s, and the boy who owned it left it in the woods one day while playing with his friends. He was the only one who brought a bike that day, and when they were done playing, he walked home with his friends forgetting his bike.
One mystery still left, is how did the bike make it up in the tree? Many people argue that the bike had to be placed high up in the tree. It couldn’t have simply been leaned against the tree many of years ago and left for good. People argue, trees only grow up from their branches and grow out from their trunks. If the boy just leaned the bike against the tree, then the bike would be stuck somewhere close to the same height that the bike was left so many years ago.
Whatever the answer is, and who really knows! Maybe someone does! But, one thing’s for sure, the bike has gained lost of popularity, to say the least. So much so, that the bike was once vandalized. The front wheel and the handle bars where taken one day, but the bike has since been restored.
You can see the bike still today on Vashon Island, Washington. It sits in the woods between Connection Community School and a local restaurant (where you can buy Breathed’s book, Red Ranger Came Calling), on the corner of Vashon Highway and S.W. 204 th street. If you’re in the area, it’s worth the time stopping by and checking it out.
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