Image from http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-droit/actualites/ville-de-gatineau/201202/06/01-4493216-le-velobus-completement-detruit.php

The collapse of a warehouse at 81 rue Hanson in Gatineau Friday destroyed more than the decrepit structure.

The condemned building was also home to one of the last links to the former City of Hull’s enthusiastic embrace of the bicycle.

The city used the warehouse to store the Velobus, a 33-person pedal-powered vehicle that has been trotted out for festivals and other public events about 10 times a year for the last two decades.

Sadly, that will no longer happen after the snow-laden warehouse roof crushed the custom-built machine, damaging it beyond repair.

According to City of Gatineau communications officer Marie-Eve Sylvain, the Velobus was hand-built by Hull city workers in 1989. That was in the heyday of the city-backed Hull Bicycle Festival, an annual event that drew international competitors and big crowds to the city through the 1980s and into the early ’90s.

“Everyone’s sad about the loss” of the one-tonne, 10-metre-long Velobus, Sylvain said.

The city hasn’t decided if it will replace the complex machine, which in full flight had a top speed of 10 km/h and was quite complex, according to Sylvain. Because it was custom made, it’s impossible to say how much it was worth, and it probably wasn’t specially insured.

The machine was quite popular and was available for rental when not cruising around city festivals. I seem to recall the World-Series-winning Blue Jays team riding around on the thing at one point.