Thank You, Switzerland, for the Whimsical Bike Racks

Switzerland: large mountains. The entertaining musings of Martina Hingis. Increasingly offbeat tourism campaigns. And now (or, more accurately, almost a week ago), free bike racks!

Thank you, Switzerland, for the bike racks. Thank you for painting them with delightful Swiss motifs: dancing edelweiss, a kicky cow pelt, tasteful white crosses.

Thank you, especially, for restraining your artists to a relatively narrow piece of galvanized tubing–painted cows, airplanes, etc., would not have been as welcome. That's because bike racks are useful. Sure, they cost only about $68 apiece, and it shouldn't take a gift from mountainous European near-paradises to get them outside of every building, but thank you all the same.

Photo by Flickr user randomduck