The Flower Bike Man (selling smiles for free)

November 11th, 2022

You know, she took her hair down and did this [wiggles and shows the movement]... And I was in love.

Instantly recognizable to Amsterdam are an array of beautifully decorated bikes. They’re dotted around the city, propped up outside cafés, shops, and bars — and  a huge tourist attraction. While the bikes themselves are known to many, few are aware of the depth of the story behind them. 

If you’re lucky, you can occasionally spot a man wearing pink shoes and singing happy tunes walking around the city: this man is Warren Gregory. 

Warren is the artist and creator behind the famous flower bikes and I had the pleasure to meet him at Haarlemmersluis, where some of his artworks are located.

So to my understanding, you’re originally from Florida? How did you end up here in Amsterdam?

“My ancestry is from Holland, I wanted to come here and see where I came from. After eight days here, Michelle said she loved it and she wished she could live here, [...]. She found a job, and five months later we were getting tickets to move here and selling all our stuff. [...]

 It was the day before she signed the contract, that epilepsy took her aback. 

She had a few seizures back in the US, we didn’t know what they were. And then that day, she had three major ones that [almost] killed her in the hospital — they brought her back. After that happened, that’s when she lost her memories, she couldn’t remember a whole lot.” 

Michelle would start getting lost on her way home from work, Warren recalls. Instead of going to the left, she’d take a right turn. Only years later they found out that Michelle’s decision to turn right was triggered by a childhood memory, wherein she re-traced the way to the beach she’d take with her grandparents each weekend when she visited as a teenager. Warren laughs at the thought: “That’s why she had so many problems with that corner, she put that together here 15 years later.”

Warren and Michelle met years ago. Both of them worked at a grocery store. When asked about their first encounter, Warren recalls: “then there was this one night, she came up by the door and did this hair thing. You know, she took her hair down and did this [wiggles and shows the movement]...And I was in love.”

So the bikes started around 20 years ago?

“Yes, eighteen years ago,” says Warren. They had just relocated to Amsterdam after some time in the States. “Michelle was recovering and got a house cleaning job. But she was losing her bike, she’d lose it at Central Station. I’d bike to the station to find it, I knew no one had stolen it and she was insistent she left it on the rack but couldn’t find it.

 So I’d go get it and bring it home. The third time, I put sunflowers on it! She had her sunflower bike, and I would ride with her and see people smiling at her. Then I would ride it sometimes, and people would smile at me! So then I put sunflowers on my bike too. 

When the housing market crashed and Michelle got worse, both went back to their home in Florida. And the bikes migrated with them. Again, they would help Michelle find her way back from work. Warren would place them strategically around the neighbourhood, to guide her home safely.

“[...] it caught on in the neighbourhood, it was quite touristy. So the neighbour said ‘hey I love the bikes, you can put one in front of my house!’ So I ended up with ten bikes on the street on her way to work!” He laughs. “It really made it look like she needed so much help. But it just kept catching on, just like here it kept catching on. In this little town of 20,000 people, there were forty-three bikes in it at one point.”

I asked Warren how many bikes he thinks are scattered around Amsterdam, and he estimates it’s about sixty to seventy. These began as abandoned bikes that Warren sought out himself, but over time people began donating them to him. This was primarily through his Instagram account, which consisted of over 15,000 followers at the time. 

However, just days before I met Warren, his Instagram was hacked. This was a catastrophe because the account was key to justify the flower bikes as a business and help Warren gain legal residency in the Netherlands. Now, his new account @flowerbikemanamsterdam is just 100 follower strong.

Besides his continuous efforts to gain legal residency and Michelle’s progressive illness, Warren is facing hardships of a whole other kind — the spite and hatred of other people.

Do you have a favourite or most memorable bike from over the years?

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna talk about them, they’re the ones that are gone. I don’t know where they are. They’re like my missing children. Michelle’s bike got burnt down about a month ago. [...] It’s a hard thing, when you spread positivity and love all the time you have to expect negative recourses coming, you have to be ready for it. 

I don’t always know how to handle it. I make mistakes when it happens, I get pissed off. But I know how to come out of it. When I get hurt badly by someone there is a lot of love coming after that. So I get a lot of love in. You just have to survive.”

These assaults are not only hard on Warren but also on Michelle. Warren says, “My wife wants to leave because she’s so sick of me just being beaten up. So much shit has happened to me. She’s tired of it. She’s the only one that has to see it all the time.”

I’m so sorry to hear that you’re a target. That’s terrible.

“But I’m also a target for love all day. I don’t forget that part.”

You’ve been hit by so many hurdles yet you’re still beaming this positivity. What is it all for?

“It was always for myself, to keep myself happy. Because Michelle slept all the time so I didn’t want to watch her sleep and suffer. So I went out and rode my bike, and moved them around. Whilst I’m doing that, people are happy. I get to come home happy and satisfied that I did something for the community, that’s what it turned into.” 

What can we do to help?

“I really don’t know. All I’m trying to do is become legal. I just need this magic button that will make it happen so I don’t have to keep working so hard, I’ve already worked hard, it’s been four years of me doing this. Shouldn’t that qualify me for something? It’s not just my life, I’ve built so many bikes for companies that are using them to bring people into Amsterdam — yet I’m illegal. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing but proving it on paper, it’s so frustrating.”

During the hour I spent with Warren early on a Saturday morning, I wouldn’t have been able to count the number of people observing and taking photographs with his artwork. It is so clear how much of a positive impact Warren’s flowerbikes have on the city and the people coming across them. 

It is so important for us to contribute to the love he should be receiving. Unfortunately, the Instagram hack has really set his goals of becoming legal back — so spread the love on @flowerbikemanamsterdam! There is an ongoing GoFundMe page set up to raise money for Michelle’s medical bills too. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-warren-keep-selling-smiles-for-free