one man's trash, another's treasure

[stevem50]

i mentioned before i work in a bike shop- would you believe how many people just throw bikes away? not walmart junk, but decent stuff..

i have gotten 3 free bikes this summer from people who don't maintain their stuff and then when they find out the bike wont shift cause of a stuck cable they just get a new one.

i got my son a raleigh m-20 MTB (all lx) because it had a rusty chain, seriously, thats it, stuck chain. gave it a bath, and a fresh chain, and he has ridden it every day for 2 months. deraillers were even in adjustment, never misses a shift!

now i'm on a free giant road bike that had a frayed rear der. cable, and have a never used late 90's rockhopper that i'm commuting on (dryrotted tires)

this brings me to my questions-

am i just a cheapskate that will take trash? i don't think so...

or are the people today so skewed that it makes more sense to throw out whatever they have if it takes ANY effort on their part?

somebody tell me what i'm missing

you don't want me to tell how many carbon cranks and rockshox and fox forks i have gotten cause something newer and shinier just hit the shelf

[ParTaxer]

I'm kinda the seven year rule guy. If its under seven years old and not too expensive , I will get it fixed. Older than that I'm looking at replacement. I'm speaking mostly about household items and appliances. Cars are little different.

[ARKPAT]

stevem50; you sound like me
If I find a bike heading to the metal scrapper's cuber and I rescue it for metal weight
Then I fix it and restore it to give away to someone that needs or wants a bike .... just return it if they do not want it any more so I can find it a new home




Pat

[stevem50]

right?!!?

although the 7 year rule can't apply to bicycles- you know what a good chro-moly lugged frame is worth these days...

nobody but small handcrafters are working with steel nowadays, carbon fiber-schmarbon fiber.

i've got modern stuff (that i spent too much on), but there is no replacing the quality and workmanship of an old bike

i just tripped over a free spirit (sears brand) from the late 70's today... lugged steel frame, internal cable routing, cool crossover road brake calipers, and working suntour components.
all that on a 30 year old dept. store bike.

for a laugh, check out what it would cost to get something like that today..
fuji makes a cheap one called the "touring"... close to a grand $$, with crap components

keep the new stuff, give me old junk

[arthuruscg]

let me know when someone is throwing out an old Pugsley to upgrade to a Moonlander

[stevem50]

actually just had a guy come in and order a new fatty about a week ago- one of the other guys i work with got his pugs for $200

my brother after hearing me gripe about our throw-it-away society has been watching what pokes out of the top of scrapheaps, he called me this morning bragging about a trek hybrid he found today. have not seen it yet, but, if found by a trashpile chances are good it is still worth something.....

if anybody needs bike stuff just p.m. me

[mary and bob]

I need a womans Ross 5 speed. Want the Eurotour model, with chrome fenders. Also a St Christopher bike bell for one of my BSA bikes, have a bell for one, need to make a matching pair. And is there any assembly instructions for a 3 speed hub on a 70's Ross, I've got something in wrong and it won't shift. Could use some original Raleigh pedals too, the old ones without reflectors, the end caps are missing on mine. Bob

[Alfred]

Regarding the trash to treasure - I knew a fellow in Gainesville, FL (Go Gators) who bought his house from the money he made following the garbage pick-up routes and getting the good stuff before the trucks came.

He would pick up lamps and fix a socket, use silver or gold spray paint to shiny something up, fix a broken cord, repair a broken toy, etc. then sell the finds at the flea market every weekend.

He said the student neighborhoods were the best because when the college kids left for the year, they just threw all their furniture out, much of it in good useable condition. He would do the garbage runs in the morning, then tinker with the things in the afternoon, then sell them at flea market on weekends, made lots of money, more than you would think, anway.

[Alfred]

My favorite story of this sort, is the time a coworker gave me an old fiddle for free, that she had found at a garage sale. The owner was packing up and tossing the things that had not sold into the garbage. My friend told him, "dont throw that away, I know a musician who would like it. So he gave it to her and she gave it to me.

The fiddle looked kind of beat up, needed strings, needed a good cleaning and shining. When I took it to music store for new strings, they told me it was a French violin about 100 years old, probably worth about $700.00. So, I already had a nice violin, so I sold this one quickly for $500, so the fellow who bought it got a $700 fiddle for $500. I kicked back $50 to the person who found it, so she was happy to get the $50. I walked away from it with $450 left. Everyone was happy.

AL

[squatch]

I worked in a bike shop back in the '80s. It's always been like that but especially with the younger people it's getting worse. Advertizing works! People are pounded to have the latest and greatest whether they need it or not. There have always been 2 types of serious cyclists. Practical cyclists that are into anything bikes. New, old, racing, crazy and weird ect. The other is what we used to call "spokeheads". It has to be titanium or it's junk. Replace brand new top of the line stuff every week because the magizines said this was the new cool whatever.

I grew up poor. I've always been a scavenger. I have a house full of antiques and other nice stuff that was free or close to it and I refurbished it. My truck is a cheap resto, same for my bass boat and garden tractor. All are like new for a fraction of new prices. More importantly they were made well in the 1st place. The other nice thing about fixing up old stuff is that is a great time to customize stuff for what YOU want.

A couple of years back after having yet another new truck bought back under lemon law because of out of the box defects that the dealers couldn't fix I kicked it up a notch. I too get frustrated by our throw away society and the over priced crap we are forced to buy that doesn't even work when you take it out of the box. When that truck left I made a promise to myself to live the rest of my life as much as practical on throw away junk. Well not really junk but cheap under priced stuff and nearly new discards. I'm driving a Honda Civic I bought for $1,500 6 years ago! It's very nice and gets 40mpg+. Some things are a little harder to find in the days of CL and epay with the bad economy. Folks are surviving by selling stuff. Still plenty of people throwing away stuff. You just have to work a little bit more to find the nice stuff for cheap.

I read something awhile back that said within 3 months 60-65% of everything sold at a mall was in the landfill!!!!!!!

Long live the scavengers.

[stevem50]

hell yes, squatch...let those that max out their credit cards buying the newest shiny thing keep throwing out the last great thing... i'll take it!

and, alfred, my sister has a similar story with, if you can believe... a violin she got from goodwill a few years back. paid 20 bucks for what she thought was something cool to practice detail oriented wood re-finishing. when she took it to music land here in town to find out how they are supposed to look, she was told not to screw with it and sell it on ebay. she made out like a bandit!

one tip for bike scavengers- most every college with dorm rooms has a department for collecting and selling off the stuff left behind by the students.
i have since made friends with the bike nerds at towson university, a great way to get all kind of 2 wheeled conveyences...

[JuneBug]

Great thread! Before Christmas of 2009, I found an old bike wheel in our backyard leaning against the shed - bad hub I think, or twanged rim. Can't remember why this occurred to me, but I took it, spray painted it silver, and then took this red and silver Christmas festoon stuff from Target, wrapped it around the rim and the spokes and had a great Christmas wreath.
I took another abandoned wheel, spray painted it, and wrapped the rim with XMas lights and had another, completely different kind of wreath.

The city here has something called Bulk Item Pick-up Day twice a year. My neighborhood is scheduled for Aug. 8. Whatever large items you need to discard, you haul out to the curb. Could be a couch, a refrigerator, broken chairs, what have you. I noticed that there are people who get the schedule and cruise neighborhoods checking things out -- for them it is like a free neighborhood-wide garage sale.

[stevem50]

i gotta say i'm glad i'm not the only one out there scoping out the junkpiles....

[ParTaxer]

My wife and I used to vacation in Florida for the month of November. At first we would buy used bikes at a non-profit thrift store. We would ride them for a month and then donate them back to the thrift store and get a donation for it. Usually, we would have to replace the tubes. Now, we have our own bikes.

[mkitchen]

I owned a bike shop for quite some time and got a lot of very nice bikes just given to me. I always tried to turn those bikes over to collectors or someone who would appreciate them. One fellow gave me two Peugeot PX 10's with Nervex lugs and simplex derailleurs and one chrome Paramount with Campi NR components.

I have also recieved many sets of old wheels with campi hubs and sew-up rims. I changed out the rims and had a good set of wheels for some nice old bike. I enjoy the older bikes and built a lot of nice commuters for folks from old road/touring frames before they go popular (flat bars, brooks seats, racks, fenders, etc) and a lot of them are still on the road.

I like seeing a nice older bike that has been fixed up a lot more than an off the floor carbon bike that is no different than every other bike. So keep up the recycling and check out Bicycle Times magazine. They are dedicated to what we like to follow. Till then, keep the rubber side down and happy cycling.
Mikey