LOOK: Scenes from a sprawling share bike cemetery

2017 witnessed the rise to prominence and fall from grace of share bikes, which swept seemingly every city sidewalk in China and just as abruptly began to be swept away, ferried in neon truckloads to vacant lots, where they died en masse alongside the dreams of fledgling companies hoping to distinguish themselves in the new sharing economy.

Pour one out for those that didn’t live to see 2018. Some were reborn into new purpose, stripped into their component parts and reconstituted as accessories to playground structures. Others became pixels of visually arresting aerial images that took on the quality of abstract impressionist paintings. The vast majority were merely dormant symbols of the industry’s unchecked waste and disarray.

But on New Year’s Day, from the northwestern city of Xiangyang, came another story of reclamation. Enjoy the most recent series of images to emerge from a share bike cemetery, scenes of intrepid explorers, a man accompanied by his equine companion, and a kid riding an Ofo that refuses to go gentle into that good night:

[Images via Getty / CGTN / NetEase]