I can't believe the stuff people throw away

In my town, and the surrounding towns, once a month, you can throw away anything. It's bulk pick-up. Since this is the shore area, lots of people clean out there garages around now and clear out the stuff that the beach house renters leave behind.

Over the past few months, I have found 4 of these ( only took pictures of 2):





I tried selling them as road bikes and got no takers so I just went down to the used bike and parts LBS and picked up some handlebars and brake levers for $10 per bike. Also some $3.00 foam grips and wallah - a hybrid is born.

I put the green bike (a 1983 motobecane jubilee sport) on Craigslist and had a bidding war going on in a couple of hours (hours, not days). The bike sold for $125.00. The other buyer wound up buying the red bike for $125 because it had the original rack and bottle holder. A scwinn Grand Jubilee from the 70s sold for $250 to someone else who responded to the one ad and a another motobecane sold for $75.

The only other things I had to buy were a tube for one of the bikes and 2 rim strips. Not bad for a $50 investment.

It has gotten to the point, that when I go out for a ride anywhere, I carry an extra chain and lock. When I see them, I just chain them to a stop sign and come back and get them. One of these days, I will find one in my size so I can keep it. I set the $525 profit aside for when this happens and I intend to use it to build a free ebike picker style! :lol:

This year, they had a organized marathon and the mini variants (5k, 10k, etc.) and I happened to be riding through the area when it happened . I saw on the sidewalks mounds and mounds of clothing layers that the runners would shed as they ran and their core body temp went up. They throw their layers away! I asked the garbage collectors what they do with the piles and they said they throw it in the dump a few hours after the event if they don't pick them up (which they don't). I managed to get 100's of $$$ worth of clothes, many name brand stuff. I'd go through the heaps and sift through the cotton and keep any polypropylene layers that were my size. Score! One person's trash is another persons's treasure !

Most of the things I use (including most of the stuff my bikes are built from) were someone else's discards. A few were direct donations to me, but most were things I've found on bulk trash days, etc. Some are from Freecycle mailing lists, which is essentially a place o give away stuff you would have otherwise tossed out, but most was stuff actually being tossed out.


I try to make it a principle of mine to use recycled and repurposed discards like that for any project I make.

I apply this even to my dogs--whenver I have a choice I pick the ones that no one wants or will take (though often enough it's one like that that picks me anyway). The two I have now are like that, though like most of the things I have, I don't udnersand why they were unwanted, because they are amazingly adorable dogs once you work with them a little while.

Free is good and you got some 3-piece cranks too!

I found an old cheap Ross road bike over Memorial weekend this year. Somebody had just set it out in Queens, NY, tenant moving I suppose? Only problem was getting it the 5 miles back to my Apt riding my eBIke. Held it off to my side and carefully motored along, all on flat tires, LOL....

One of my favorite ebikes...

Ykick said:

Free is good and you got some 3-piece cranks too!

I found an old cheap Ross road bike over Memorial weekend this year. Somebody had just set it out in Queens, NY, tenant moving I suppose? Only problem was getting it the 5 miles back to my Apt riding my eBIke. Held it off to my side and carefully motored along, all on flat tires, LOL....

One of my favorite ebikes...

Click to expand...

That is a great find. I am just hoping to find one that fits me some day. being over 6 feet though tends to narrow the pickings. When I found the red bike, I was on my ebike and it had 2 flats and I didn't have my pump or a chain to lock it up. I wound up walking 2 miles homes pushing one on each side. That is the one that convinced me to carry an extra chain around.

Well, I just finished putting together an ebike for my brother last night, I need to test it out now. 32 degrees outside

I'm getting too old to climb in and out of dumpsters any more, but it's still impossible to pass up a fresh discard pile. By the time you see other pickers there it's usually too late. :x
I got a Fuji 29er minus the rear wheel at the dump at work, and a Mars fork; also a great chrome-plated chrome moly steel frame that the police were cutting it off of the bike rack outside of my office. I asked them if I could have it and they said yes. Both could be future canidates for ebike conversion with a rear kit if I had more time.
I've found trash day fishing poles, guitars, guns, and I found a lot of road kill tools and other stuff over the years. People give me old guitars they don't want and I fix them up and give them to kids.
When I was a kid, an old guy up the street would hang out with his garage door open and all the local kids would show up so "Mr. Fix It" could repair their bicycles for free, We also used to ride to the Seal Beach dump in the trash truck with the beach cleanup guy to find money to spend at the bakery or liquor store, sure beat panhandling for "spare change". Back then you got a silver dime for every glass bottle you found and you could get a hot loaf of fresh bread for 10 cents at the bakery on Main Street. They cut it lengthwise buttered the halves for you for free.
I'm a vatted (dyed in the wool) frugalist I guess, since my parents grew up during the Great Depression. Everybody even gets bags of great bakery stuff left over from the food ministry at church each Sunday. No wonder I'm such a porker I can't jump in and out of a dumpster anymore. :lol:

Found another one. This one is a 1999 Gary Fisher Gitche Gummee. It has a flat front tire and one spoke is broken. bike blue book says it is worth $50 to $75. I am not going to sell this one. I did a convertible conversion for my brother because he said he didn't want to buy another bike. I am putting his motor on this one. He can't complain about the price



One of these days I will find one in my size. I keep telling myself that.

Look so nice for dumped bikes.

I found three dumped in the street today. I'm noting that the one shocked fork was bottoming out with barely a touch. Two guys pull up in a truck, desperate to snatch them away from me. These are WalMart bikes on their best day, those guys are guessing they can make them worth something?

Dauntless said:

Look so nice for dumped bikes.

I found three dumped in the street today. I'm noting that the one shocked fork was bottoming out with barely a touch. Two guys pull up in a truck, desperate to snatch them away from me. These are WalMart bikes on their best day, those guys are guessing they can make them worth something?

Click to expand...

The walmart bikes have a hard time selling. I have found that the road bikes sell the best if you convert them to hybrids. The problem is that walmart sells cheap mountain bikes new so it doesn't really make sense for people to buy used. The road bikes are where the money is.

I found a 2009 Specialized RockHopper with front suspendion at the transit train station.
http://www.specialized.com/ca/en/bikes/archive/2009/rockhopper/rockhoppercompdisc
No rear deraileur

Richier neighborhood, not the hood.

found a newish rocky mountain hybrid bike in a dumpster in front of my building. broken frame. nice set of mavic 700c rims and a brand new set of shwalbe marathons mounted!! score!!!!

those are great finds.

i used to do this alot i would go to thrift stores get old bikes for 5 or 10 dollar fix em up tune the gears then flip them for 50 bucks each

Here's a tip, if you find a steel frame (doesn't everyone carry a small magnet in their car?), and...it has lugs at the joints...they are worth a lot to the "fixie" crowd. Its a fashion thing, no explanation is necessary. I'm just glad to see any useful object be "re-puposed" rather than simply thrown into a landfill...can easily get $50 for the frame alone.

I'm going to check around the garage for the makings of a "hipster zipster". 8)

The thrift stores around me are selling them for $50 still needing those gears tuned.