the 2017 season of Burning Man ended 3 weeks ago, and about 5000 bikes were left behind. But they are getting sent to Houston and the Caribbean

thousands of perfectly useable bicycles were abandoned by Burning Man attendees, they are the most common form of transportation around Black Rock City, and they are tossed aside at the end of the festival.

Burning Man partners with local charities to take, refurbish and sometimes donate the bikes to needy families, but this year, the sheer number of bikes overwhelmed even these partners. An estimated 5,000 bicycles were left behind.

Matthew Rockwell, a Burning Man contractor and founder of the charity start-up Disaster Hack, immediately made the connection between the abandoned bikes and the hundreds of thousands of dead cars in Houston.

The photo of the bikes also caught the attention of Meg Kiihne, who lives about four hours from the site. Kiihne once lived and ran a bike shop on Turks and Caicos, and saw pictures all over Facebook of her friends' and family's collapsed homes. She says she knew bicycles could be useful in the recovery effort after Hurricane Irma.

"There are parts of the island which will not have power for months," she says. "Bikes can enable somebody who may have lost their home and staying with a friend, they can get to their job at a resort so they can continue to make money to help rebuild their home... they can get around on a bike and get to food."

After a hastily arranged Go Fund Me, Kiihne and some friends rented a truck and a storage unit in nearby Reno, Nevada, and headed for the playa. They managed to harvest 110 bicycles.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41312810
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