Joensuu is a small but growing city up by the Russian border in North East Finland. In the late 80’s somebody from the local council had the forward-thinking idea to buy 200 yellow bicycles and put them on the streets of Joensuu as a form of free transport. It was possible to use a bike and then leave it for the next person to use any where within the city.

In the late 90’s a tour of Joensuu will reveal that although there are many bicycles on the streets, none of them are yellow. Some local people think that the yellow bicycles can be found at the bottom of the river which runs through the middle of the city. Others believe that they have been stolen and maybe sent across the nearby Russian border.

So, where are the 200 yellow bicycles of Joensuu ??

Some of the bicycles have been turning up in some very strange places . There are now photographic records of yellow bikes from Joensuu appearing in Tokyo Japan, in California, USA, in London, England and Barga in Italy . ( There has been some doubts raised about the veracity of these images . Some newspapers have suggested that they are merely locally found bicycles painted yellow to profit from all the publicity surrounding the 200 yellow bicycles of Joensuu phenomenon but a close look at the images will show straight away the remarkable similarity between all the bicycles found around the globe and the original 200 Joensuu bikes.) As word and rumours about this incredible story started to leak out of Finland, people around the world started responding and this site is fast becoming the official site for the 200 yellow bicycles of Joensuu . Any initative or newspaper article will appear here . This is more or less the office where people can call in, leave messages and see what other people have been doing in other places around the world and finally maybe we can found out the real truth behind the whereabouts of the now famous 200 yellow bicycles of Joensuu.

Stop press June 2000

The bikes are back in Joensuu !!!

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