Crazy cat lady bike guy?

[gromike]

I don't know, but I fell into a pile of bicycles a couple of years ago, and now I live with these things. $250 for the three, not including upgrades (of course).
No ladies here, so some of my bikes can come inside for the winter. Better than motorcycles in the living room!

 

[marvin78]

Nice looking 'vintage' Gary Fisher ( for a full sus ) <3 The Cannondale looks like a very comfy cruiser.

Not into drop bars myself, flat bars are as low as my back will go but that Cannondale also looks mint.

Nice collection!

 

[slaphappygamer]

Good thing you don’t have to feed them. That gets expensive.

 

[docw009]

We know a highly intelligent woman with a six figure pension, no worries about money, who regressed into a cat lady. Kind of sad. Has a bag of cat food delivered every two weeks.

 

[gromike]

Yeah, better to be a crazy bike guy, I guess.
My affliction started three years ago when the local non-profit bike shop redid their mission statement. That ensued the opening up of their bike shed and getting rid of bikes and parts. I ended up with 5 bikes then, and went back later and bought 2 more. Add that to the 4 bikes I already had and I'm at almost a dozen bikes. The Gary Fisher is my 7th, and last, ebike conversion, just need to mount a battery and install a controller.

Next it will be, if I live long enough, a cargo etrike.

 

[marvin78]

I'm actually surprised you got those decent prices back there, because those are really decent bikes.

Your local non-profit done a good job ( assuming they didn't arrive in excellent condition already ).

 

[Chalo]

My something-over-a-dozen bikes and handful of not-exactly-a-bike things are mostly crammed into the far end of my 20 foot container, and for the moment hopelessly trapped by a raft of my darlin's possessions. At least most of my hoard of loose components is both accessible and still sorted well enough for me to go in and grab what I need.

Where I'm living, I keep two electric and two acoustic bikes of mine, two electric and one acoustic bike of my honey's, an electric sidecar with chairs on it, and an electric chopper trike set up for towing a parade float.

 

[gromike]

Your local non-profit done a good job ( assuming they didn't arrive in excellent condition already ).

Those bikes were donated to the non-profit. One part of their model is to go through and fix them up and resell under a warranty. From what I gather they don't want to put the time and money into a twenty year old suspension bike. Offer a price and they will sell an uninspected bike without warranty as is. Those old high end bikes are a dead weight for them.
The expensive bikes seem to have a blessed storage as they age in place. The pictured Specialized Roubaix was in like new condition, as if someone in the mid-2000's bought a $3000 bike for one Seattle to Portland bike race, and never rode it again.

 

[marvin78]

Those bikes were donated to the non-profit. One part of their model is to go through and fix them up and resell under a warranty. From what I gather they don't want to put the time and money into a twenty year old suspension bike. Offer a price and they will sell an uninspected bike without warranty as is. Those old high end bikes are a dead weight for them.
The expensive bikes seem to have a blessed storage as they age in place. The pictured Specialized Roubaix was in like new condition, as if someone in the mid-2000's bought a $3000 bike for one Seattle to Portland bike race, and never rode it again.

I voluenteered at a local non profit which fixed up bikes, we didn't get gem's like these.

Most of the bikes they got where 'donated' by the muncipality's clean up crew, including removing bikes parked at the train station outside of indicated area's. The real nice one's, left 'on accident' were picked up during the grace period almost always and what was left were the 'stationsfietsen' or clunkers ment to transport drunk people from the bars to the train station.

I mostly did their computer stuff which got donated, but my station was right next to one of the bike mechanics. I never seen anything of the quality you got there, come through that 'second chance store' I voluenteered at. Not in bikes anyway, though I seen some very odd ( and valuable ) computer parts come through being donated.

250 is a good price then btw, they don't have to keep storing them and you as someone who knows what he's getting is happy to get them back on the road in good condition. Everybody wins.

 

[Chalo]

Old donated suspension bikes (regardless of condition) and old e-bikes tend to be an unrewarding boondoggle when a bike collective tries to fix them up to fully functioning condition. Many to most of the hardtail MTBs we turn out get rigid forks in the deal, and many of the full-sus and e-bikes leave the place as-is, for pennies on the dollar (or they get parted out for the components that have longer working lives). I'm trying to do a better job of redeeming old e-bikes and e-components than we've been able to do up to now, but I'm not wasting my time or my employer's money on full-sus, hydraulic anything, tubeless anything, or electronic shifting anything. That's for selling to others who want to waste their own time on it.

This work has much more sharply delineated to me between "consumer" bikes that are for buying and replacing, and "transportation" bikes that are for delivering good functional value for a long time. The most expensive bikes are mostly not meant to be kept around. It's sad, and it's a travesty, but it's also one of the many foibles of capitalism.

 

[amberwolf]

I'm the crazy dog *and* bike (and computer and music instrument and....whatever technology can be misused and repurposed) guy.

If the dogs didn't chase the cats away I'd probably have those too.

Just peek into any of my build threads for pics of any or all of the above. :lol:

 

[Chalo]

The expensive bikes seem to have a blessed storage as they age in place. The pictured Specialized Roubaix was in like new condition, as if someone in the mid-2000's bought a $3000 bike for one Seattle to Portland bike race, and never rode it again.

At my commie shop, we try to sell that stuff on eBay if we can, if it's worth the ordeal of packing and shipping. But folks who come in the door are looking for $20 to maaaybe $500 bikes, not $5k bikes selling for $1k. So that makes the in-between stuff, not golden enough to bring in big riches on eBay but too nice to sell for a sack of nickels to someone who's going to park it in the backyard in the rain until it rusts into a lump, kind of tricky to get rid of. We're trying to use social media, Craigslist, and FB Marketplace to reach a less thrifty local buyer, but our paid staff are already overcommitted and our volunteers are inconsistent.

Sadly, a lot of the e-bikes we sling fall into this difficult price range, and hang around until someone makes an insulting offer that one of us decides to accept. Better that they return to the road than expire on the rack, I guess.

 

[gromike]

Yeah, the bicycle world is in upheaval. Everyone is going to ebikes, and cheaper ebikes appear every day.
Though my heart is going back into pedal bikes.
I have acquired bicycles for cheap that I hadn't even ever dreamt about riding, just because times have changed.
My local non profit bicycle place only does pedal bikes and it could do a lot better in marketing their bicycle inventory, but how much would that net them?
I just want to say, that the market for second hand bicycles has collapsed,
I feast upon that field.

 

[amberwolf]

around here, i can no longer find bikes of any kind at the thrift stores. they say they get them but they sell instantly as they bring them out of the back, usually to the many many many homeless around here. same for wheelchairs and anything with wheels/storage big enough to carry things around with.

that's why i took the freecycler up on their offer end of last year for the ancient trike and small stack of bso's....anything i can't use i can give to someone out there.

 

[marvin78]

I feast upon that field.

So, also a scav

around here, i can no longer find bikes of any kind at the thrift stores. they say they get them but they sell instantly as they bring them out of the back, usually to the many many many homeless around here. same for wheelchairs and anything with wheels/storage big enough to carry things around with.

That sounds so depressing.

I never thought I'd see that day, but even here in my small town, we now have an 'approved' encampment. While there is shelter available, we have several people who feel more comfortable sleeping in a tent under a bridge. And not only 'feel more comfortable' but to the point where the social workers are so fine with it because they would cause issues at the shelter anyway.

Whole piece in our local newspaper, because 'everyone who owns a boat has noticed the encampment'. But if you didn't own a boat, the only indication there is something going on is the junky bikes parked at the bridge head, and the quite visible trail going down the embankment. It is rather out of the way, and that's probably why the muncipality is ok with them.

 

[amberwolf]

here, the authorities are busy fencing and gating off places where people who have no other place to live have been sheltering, along with any other way they have of making places useless or inaccessible (not just to the homeless, but anyone else that actually does need to be there but isnt' wearing a badge)

the alleyways are the current big thing to clean up and lock off; they're in the process of doing that in my neighborhood.

suposedly it is to lower crime and whatnot, but criminals aren't going to care if theres a fence or gate, they'll do what they want anyway, just like always.

most of the homeless just need a hand up, (some don't want it)
i've come very close to being there myself more than once, and just luck kept me housed till i could catch up (if i had become homeless, i would've also become jobless as i would not have been able to handle working a job and having nowhere safe to go afterward; i can barely deal with life as it is. once i became jobless i would have never been able to recover from that).

i'm not in much of a position to help, but if i can end up making one working bike out of the bsos that i can give to someone that needs it, it's something. dunno when that will happen, as i have to do whatever i need with the bits first, but...eventually.

 

[Chalo]

I tell myself all the time, more folks on the margins are more folks to man the guillotines when the bubble busts. Hopefully we can conclude the business of the American Civil War sooner rather than later; fighting ongoing skirmishes every generation is tiresome AF.