Why Let It Rot ?

[sidevalve]

Searching for a starting point for my new project at a local car boot yesterday and I fond a nice peaugeot that looked a fair bet untill I looked closer. Ok it needed tyres and tubes, maybe cables,a saddle and a good "fettle" but sadly the frame was seriously rusted around the BB [and I do mean seriously]. I just wondered why let it get to such a state ? Did he live in a canal, did he have so much cash he could afford to let what had been several hundred quid's worth of bike just rust away ?
Just seems such a waste to me, a fair quality [ not the best I admit but still ok] bike just left to die. At one time it was worth a good price as a winter bike or as a project, now with all the work needed plus the iffy frame it was really only scrap. Sad.

 

[thegravestoneman]

A lot of old bikes rot unseen from the inside, I would steer clear of frames that have any questionable rust issues, snapped frames hurt when they fail! lighter better quality frames were always a bit more prone to this. Having said this My Butchers bike is from 58 and had been stored badly and I ride it anywhere (it is built like a brick s##t house though). My good bike is 30 years old but I know its storage history (I had it from new) and I have a 50s Higgins trike that I have had to have fillets brazed in and a patch on the top tube now very ugly but it is mine, my Bob Jackson trike snapped in the same place a year after it was built for me they rebuilt it but I then crashed the thing and had it retubed again. Big frames are the worst for it.

But your point, bikes move down the pecking order and get left forgotten in damp sheds or leant against the wall out the back sold on and used as paper round bikes. In a few years there will some good bikes bought by 'Cycle to work' buyers and ridden twice then forgotten I look forward to spotting a few of these at car boot sales for a nice price. That's if the scrappy doesn't get them first. It is always a shame to see a neglected bike but the fun is finding the good ones.