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Bicycle-Eating Tree
Status: Real
The bicycle-eating tree is probably familiar to most residents of Washington, since it's located on Vashon Island, Washington (and won a 1994 contest to select the most unusual places or events in the Washington-Oregon area), but it's new to me. Apparently someone, decades ago, left their bicycle leaning against the tree, and as the tree kept growing it enveloped the bike and now lifts it seven feet off the ground. I think it's amazing that a) the tree actually grew around the bike instead of pushing it over, and that b) in all that time no one ever moved the bike. The bicycle-eating tree has been featured in Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and also inspired a children's book by Berkeley Breathed, Red Ranger Came Calling. Breathed used to live on Vashon Island. (via CaliforniaTeacherGuy)
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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I'll go out on a limb here:
I don't believe it. The spokes are still shiney. I'd suspect someone hammered a couple of bike parts into a tree. Sort of like the witch/tree collision you see around Halloween.
What kind of tree is it? I thought primary growth (the height) only happens at the ends of tree branches--so why would the bike be lifted up by the bark/trunk?
Posted by JoeDaJuggler in St. Louis, MO on Sat Jul 01, 2006 at 11:26 AM
I don't believe it. The spokes are still shiney. I'd suspect someone hammered a couple of bike parts into a tree. Sort of like the witch/tree collision you see around Halloween.
What kind of tree is it? I thought primary growth (the height) only happens at the ends of tree branches--so why would the bike be lifted up by the bark/trunk?
I'd suspect the bike wasn't leaning against the tree. Rather, the tree was probably threaded through the center of the bike frame.
Posted by dcl in boston on Sat Jul 01, 2006 at 11:44 AM
Here's another shot of it--apparently older (the bike is more complete).
http://www.arborsmith.com/treeatsbike.html
I guess the apparent "shininess" in the photo above is an optical illusion.
Posted by JoeDaJuggler in St. Louis, MO on Sat Jul 01, 2006 at 11:47 AM
http://www.arborsmith.com/treeatsbike.html
I guess the apparent "shininess" in the photo above is an optical illusion.
JoeDaJuggler, I have a tendency to question the reality of the situation regarding how high off the ground the bicycle is, based on the same point you make about the primary growth of a tree. Let's also keep in mind the age of the tree to be that large, versus the age of the bicylce, leaves one to ponder whether both could have existed at the same time to create such an oddity, or is this just a hoax that has stood the test of time for awhile. Anybody out there know which species of tree that is, and the YR, MAKE, MODEL of the bike??? With those four pieces of info this one could be proven for certain...
Posted by Christopher in Joplin, Missouri on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 04:52 AM
If I remember this tree correctly from when I was younger, the way that the tree grew around the bike was this: the bike was placed in the fork of a young tree. Thus, it couldn't fall over, the only way for the tree to keep growing would be to grow around it. And before you say anything, yes, tree branches or trunks can split or fork and then grow back together again. It seems weird to me, too, but I've seen enough individual tree branches that have grown together in my botany classes that I'm pretty sure.
Posted by Vryce on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 03:55 PM
I can attest that is is real, I've been to Vashon and have actually seen it. It still had the front wheel when I saw it 10 years ago...
Posted by Wally on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 09:40 PM
I embedded a pulley wheel into a willow tree just for fun and to see how long it took to be encased. I got the idea from a magazine photo where religious icons nailed to trees were being enveloped by the trees and looked really eerie.
Posted by Louise in London on Sun Jul 02, 2006 at 09:59 PM
I remembering my botany professor deriding similar stories, noting that trees just don't grow this way. If they did, there would be lots of fence wires, blaze marks and carved initials higher than any person would put them. Tree growth might have embedded the bike but it probably not have lifted it so high off the ground.
Posted by Fred Dawson in Beltsville, MD on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 05:28 PM
The tree in our backyard grew around the stake that it was originally tied to. You can now see only about the top foot of it (of a 6-odd foot piece of rebar). I have seen other trees grow around poles and wires that were being used to train them into shapes. I think this is a moderately common occurence (neglectful gardeners, persistent trees).
But if I recall correctly from Botany classes the tree wouldn't raise the object into the air unless the object was inserted very close to the top of the tree (the apical meristem) as that is where growth continues from. If it is stuck in the side it may be grown around but I don't believe that it could be lifted vertically to that degree. But that's just what I think. No guarantees, I'm not digging out reference books, it's summer.
Posted by Anne in Reno, NV on Mon Jul 03, 2006 at 07:55 PM
But if I recall correctly from Botany classes the tree wouldn't raise the object into the air unless the object was inserted very close to the top of the tree (the apical meristem) as that is where growth continues from. If it is stuck in the side it may be grown around but I don't believe that it could be lifted vertically to that degree. But that's just what I think. No guarantees, I'm not digging out reference books, it's summer.
As some others have suggested, a tree can grow around and engulf a solid object, but it would not raise it high off the ground. Trees add height from the top, not from the bottom or middle.
Or, as a childhood riddle I remember goes:
"You carve your initials and your sweetheart's into a tree trunk four feet above the ground. Ten years go by, and the tree grows fifteen feet taller. How high are your initials now?" (Answer = four feet.)
If you've ever seen a tree where someone carved something in the bark years ago (especially if they carved the date, which I've seen occasionally), you will recognize that this is true.
Posted by Big Gary in Big Thicket, Texas on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 07:21 AM
Or, as a childhood riddle I remember goes:
"You carve your initials and your sweetheart's into a tree trunk four feet above the ground. Ten years go by, and the tree grows fifteen feet taller. How high are your initials now?" (Answer = four feet.)
If you've ever seen a tree where someone carved something in the bark years ago (especially if they carved the date, which I've seen occasionally), you will recognize that this is true.
So, in other words, somebody must have put that bike about seven feet up in the tree before the tree grew around it.
Posted by Big Gary in Big Thicket, Texas on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 07:23 AM
In my home town there was a tree that started growing in the branches of another tree and the larger tree grew around it
Posted by tim on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 11:34 AM
"Real" in a sense that there's a bicycle embedded in a tree trunk--OK, I'll buy that. But the tree did NOT grow around a bicycle leaning against it and raise it up off the ground. That part is NOT real.
Posted by JoeDaJuggler in St. Louis, MO on Tue Jul 04, 2006 at 07:32 PM
Tim there is a rain forest tree known as the "strangler fig" that normally uses this modus operandi. It starts out growing as a vine supported by an older tree, then eventually engulfs the host tree and replaces it.
Posted by Big Gary in Big Thicket, Texas on Wed Jul 05, 2006 at 08:17 AM
The bike was placed in the fork of the fir tree a long time ago. Jody Boyman took this picture http://www.arborsmith.com/treeatsbike.html
Someone stole the handlebars and fount tire a few years ago.
Posted by Richard Reames in Oregon USA on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 05:48 PM
Someone stole the handlebars and fount tire a few years ago.
In Rotorua, New Zealand, there is a buried village which was distroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. Somebody shortly afterwards retrieved a sewing machine from the ashes and hung it on a tree, I guess to pick up later. That sewing machine is still there, and well above people's heads. You certainly can't reach it.
Posted by Lianne in Dunedin NZ on Sat Jul 08, 2006 at 10:56 PM
Trees grow from the top not the base. the bike could grow into a tree but it would stay on the ground, the way tree's grow into fences. the fences don't lift off the ground
Posted by Amanda in Campbell River B.C on Mon Sep 18, 2006 at 09:47 PM
Yup, so basically this is fake unless the bike was placed seven feet up the tree. Because of basic biology, there is no possible way the bike was lifted...unless this is some kind of strange tree that grows from the bottom up.
Posted by Alicia in Massachusetts on Sun Apr 29, 2007 at 02:51 PM
I think it is totally real... check out this photos of trees eating other various metal objects:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moocat/sets/72157594245781878/
Posted by Matt in St. Louis on Thu May 24, 2007 at 10:37 AM
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moocat/sets/72157594245781878/
Or MAYBE it was a sapling when it was placed in the fork, thus the top of the tree was quite near the ground.
Posted by Guy on Sat May 26, 2007 at 08:56 AM
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