Bikes like this can be bought new in Japan. They still mass-produce one of the now very old designs that most people buy as their first bicycle. Maybe not 1930s old, but still pretty old.
Those bikes are also often abandoned in droves and it’s common to see a flatbed Kei truck with a tall pile of unclaimed bikes being taken to the scrap yard.
Bikes like this one can still be bought new in the Netherlands, they’re called “opafiets” meaning grandfather bike.
Bikes like this can be bought new in Japan. They still mass-produce one of the now very old designs that most people buy as their first bicycle. Maybe not 1930s old, but still pretty old.
Those bikes are also often abandoned in droves and it’s common to see a flatbed Kei truck with a tall pile of unclaimed bikes being taken to the scrap yard.
The Dutch tradition is to throw them into the canals, where they’ll get dredged up periodically.