Bikes rescued from dumps and skips

[Ludwig]

Have any of you rescued a bike from a dump or skip? It is quite amazing what people throw away. With bikes which are mature products in the design and technology sense, a bike 30 years old can be as good or better than anything sold today especially for general road and commuting use. Check out the brilliant US site bikeforums and there is an amazing thread with some fantastic bikes that have been rescued. There are some real skip rats over there. I got my racer from a bike shop for £40 which was amongst a pile of old sad looking machines and it has turned out to be a gem. An Italian machine with Columbus lightweight tubing and goes like a rocket I am having a lazy day, watching the final time trial on Le Tour. I think cycling is slowly winning the war on doping. Watching it inspires many people to take up bike riding which is what it is all about at the end of the day. Can Evans pull it off or will it be Shleck or Castre.

 

[bigguy]

yep! once! the only opportunity I ever had was once when I went with some rubbish to my local skip yard and spotted what looked like a Raleigh Road bike parked in the bottom of a scrap metal skip.... I asked the 'obligatory smart ass' skip yard warden if I could have it, to whish he replied," Anything which f***ing goes in them skips deserves to be in them skips! If you want to f***in give yourself the hassle of hauling it out go ahead, but in my opinion its a f***in piece of shoot!! Anyway...I had a hankering for a raleigh (I used to have one when I was a teenager), Sentimental reasons I guess.... So I jumped into the skip risking life and limb, watched by my smart ass friend!
when I finally managed to dig the bike out I realised it was a cheap bike, only five gears, chrome rims, one slightly buckled, crappy siezed up brakes, steel frame..... not really what I thought it was at all!! But to save face in front of Mr Smart ass I had to take it with me..... I'll probably canaballise it for parts.... If there's any worth taking off it.

NB. the skip yard man was right... it was a piece of shoot.

 

[Speicher]

Worcestershire County Council and many other councils, have a scheme to rescue Bikes from Landfill.

We have Motov8 which refurbishes them and sells them at a low price.
Teenage lads have the opportunity to learn how to service bikes under supervision. The spare parts that are unusable are re-cycled into garden ornaments. eg a Penny Farthing plant holder.

 

[longers]

Well done WCC.

There's a council worker in Manchester who earlier this year had rescued his 3000th skip/tip rescue bike.

Good work fella .

I worked with someone who spent his lunch times down the tip waiting for bikes to be dropped off. He had several bikes himself to choose from to ride, his kids all had bikes and he sold a few for beer money. I got a project off him for this coming winter for a fiver. Cheers Joe.

 

[shimano]

huh! almost bought a Carrondale that had been rescued from a skip today. Went to try it and was promptly dumped on the road - the quick release on the rear wheel was faulty and the chain jumped and jammed throwing me off. No damage other than my left palm and pride but do remember these bikes end up in the skip for a reason. I might go back and buy it for the quality bits on it tho'

 

[Amanda P]

Not quite, but Mrs Uncle Phil has a bike which we bought for £12.37. The seller was asking for £15, but we only had £12.37 on us at the time.

We upgraded it with various parts from a cheapie mountain bike we bought from the skip minders at the local tip for £5. It's done several thousand miles as a heavy tourer, but has now gone into retirement due to the lack of 650 tyres and rims (anyone got any 36-hole alloy 650 rims, by the way?)

Nowadays, the skip minders aren't allowed to let you take anything away. For bikes, that's OK, because York Bike Rescue have a deal with York council to recycle bikes. Everybody wins.

 

[HJ]

There are a number of bike recycling schemes around the country (my local one is the bike station), I am always amassed by the numbers of abandoned bikes on the streets at this time of year (after the students have gone home).

 

[Speicher]

I have tried to find out if there is one site on the web for finding local Bicycle Recycling centres. It appears not. After "searching for" bicycle recycling, you would need to look through the lists of organisations and see which one is nearest to your town.

Anyone who would like to see what they do in Worcestershire, could look at Motov8 at www.motov8.org.uk.

 

[Nerazzurri]

I have tried to find out if there is one site on the web for finding local Bicycle Recycling centres. It appears not.

Had a quick look and found these -

http://www.bikerecycling.net/

http://www.intelligentgiving.com/how_to_give/shift_your_junk/bikes

don't know how good they are though, but might be worth a gander.

 

[Speicher]

Had a quick look and found these -

http://www.bikerecycling.net/

http://www.intelligentgiving.com/how_to_give/shift_your_junk/bikes

don't know how good they are though, but might be worth a gander.

The bikerecycling one is a bit low on content. Only three places listed for the whole of central England.

The intelligentgiving one seems better, but still some centres missed off.
It also includes details for stamps and coins etc.

 

[peanut]

what I don't understand is why Councils make all that bloomin fuss about recycling and then won't let people take stuff away to recycle ????

whats the point to that ?!

re the recycling muppets that work in the these places they are especially selected for being stupid and ignorant .
Recently one watched me struggle with 4 x plastic rubbish bags to the `can't be recycled' skip then when I had finished he swaggered over hawked and spat and then spoke in a charming and cultured voice the immortal words

` wotta you got in dere den ' ?

to which I replied that it was non recyclable household rubbish which had missed the last collection due to me being laid up with a bad back at the time of the last collection.

I got into my car and started to drive off just as his pea sized brain came back with some smart-ass reply which was lost in the sound of my exhaust.!

 

[andygates]

Tips are a great source of canvases for projects. In the last few years, we've had RB build a great hack fixie out of an old Sun Solo, I've made a fixie folder (which was awful, but that was my fault - wrong size wheels!) and used the bits of junk MTBs and kiddie bikes to make my first tallbike!

Salvage is fun

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I built my other half's first touring bike out of a Claud Butler MTB frame I found in a bin and some stuff from my bits box. It became a nice bike.

 

[Arch]

huh! almost bought a Carrondale that had been rescued from a skip today. Went to try it and was promptly dumped on the road - the quick release on the rear wheel was faulty and the chain jumped and jammed throwing me off. No damage other than my left palm and pride but do remember these bikes end up in the skip for a reason. I might go back and buy it for the quality bits on it tho'

Sounds like that one ended up in a skip for want of an easily replaceable part that the owner simply didn't understand! Not a very good reason...

I had a 1969 gents roadster for a while that came out of the tip, rod brakes, very elegant. My late partner rescued many bikes and did them up for friends, and his best haul, which he sadly never got around to rebuilding, was a Moulton Speed Six.

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

I once took a rear light off a frame that had been dumped at the Recycling Centre in Leeds. The jobsworth there asked me what I thought I was doing and accused me of stealing!

I think what Iwas supposed to have done is asked him for permission and then he could decide if he could screw me for a few bob.

There was a decent steel Marin frame there as well but decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Just needed the headset rebuilding, brakes overhauling, new wheels and jobs a good un.