Commuting - Freeing old bikes from bike parking. Wrong?

At the university I'm attending there are at least 4 bikes that I can think of right now that have been locked to the bike parking for quite a while. All of them have either the wheels stolen or are generally unridable. They are all x-mart specials and I was wondering if you would think it would be wrong to go free all these bikes from the bike parking. Maybe I could give these bikes (frames really) a good home and weld them together to make double deckers or cruisers or whatever I want. Moral delema. What say you?

It's wrong.

Recently, I saw a bike that had been sitting idle for about 2 years in my work's bike room get used again as soon as Spring hit. No matter how abandoned you think those bikes are, someone somewhere owns them.

If the bike parking area is often crowded, complain about the abandoned bikes to your university. But don't take things that don't belong to you, okay?

What's your motivation? Are you trying to free up congested bike racks? Or are you just trying to rationalize getting some free parts?

If you are looking to make room in the racks, then perhaps a call to the campus donut patrol can get the hulks relocated to long term storage someplace else. If you are just looking for an excuse to test your bic penmanship, then I'd say leave well enough alone. You can get better rust buckets at the local thrift store and you won't have to explain those bolt cutters to some guy with a gun on his belt and powdered sugar on his shirt.

My boss at an old job used to ride the rattiest looking old cruiser bike I've ever seen. I doubt it was even safe for anything more from her office to our rental shed. I'd taken it for a junk bike if I'd seen it lying on the street, but she rode it everyday. Anyway, don't steal.

At the train station I ride to there were a couple of abandoned bikes that had been vandalized. One was a nice old Schwinn 3 speed in excellent shape (vandalized on its first day) and the other was a Gary Fisher mtb. Schwinn had the rear wheel stomped in half. Fisher had a missing rear wheel and stomped front. After a few months I put a tag on both offering to help repair them and/or buy them as scrap (with $ amounts listed). Both tags were ripped off and torn up two days later and the bikes disappeared the next day.

If you are attending a University then you should be able to look up the word "stealing" or "theft".

Not acceptable.

There are some bikes that are pretty obviously abandoned... tacoed wheels, flat cracking tires, chain rusted shut. The problem is that most of these are crappy bikes to begin with, and the rest are crappy by the time you're sure they're abandoned.

And I still think it's wrong to steal them, even if it hurts to see them wasting away...

I see your point BTC. I don't think they would be worth the trouble to take the time to free them. Picture yourself there on the ground with a hack saw and a pair or bolt cutters. Wacking away at some old bike lock. You'll be labled the Bike Taker and no one will ever trust you again.
But aint nothing wrong with your ideas. I certainly would not think of it as stealing but a rescue mission. I say do it!

One campus I lived used to clear out bikes from the bike room once a year, plenty got left! What's bad is, I had a bike that was the same model as one that "lived" there and looked abandoned, and mine got snarfed too! The good side is, I complained and while they didn't pay for it, they found a way to give me a grant for an amount that was like 2X what the bike cost anyway lol.

I would suggest contacting the campus police or other authorities and asking. Generally there is some LEGAL procedure for acquiring abandoned property, usually something along the lines of the police take it into custody and if no one has claimed it in X amount of time, you may have it.

For that matter, the cops may tell you something like "no you can't take them, but of course, if they disappear, we won't be looking too hard... <hint hint>".

Its totally not worth it if the bike was x-mart stuff, but if it was a nice bike, and the wheels/frame are totally mangled and its been there for months, that's a pretty fair sign no one cares what happens to it.

Its a shame to allow decent components to go to waste!

My old campus had two programs set up for old bicycles. A certain number were auctioned off. The proceeds of that were used to take the remainder, clean them, tag them, paint them yellow. They were distributed around campus as free rides - first come first serve.

I watched a Bianchi (Lower end Japanese, but hey) with no wheels rust away for 3 years on a rack next to several Magna's that never moved, either. One day, Sunday, in fact, the rack was empty. All were probably tossed in the dumpster.

I gave the apt manager who was responsible for the rack my # twice, but to no avail. I wonder what really happened to it.

Up here there are tons of the bikes like you are talking about, mostly I notice rusted chains. I mean, if you are going to have a bike, at least do a little maintenance, right? Half the people that do actually ride have half-flat tires and horrifically noisy unlubricated drivetrains...I dunno just really disappointing to me. I can see why one might wish to give a bike a better home where it will get some decent treatment.

If you're just looking for cheap junkers check your local police auction. They may have what you want and everything will be nice and legal. :)

Most college campuses of average size have some sort of 'year-end clearance' of abandoned bikes,
and subsequently auction them off in one way or another. If ASU doesn't have some sort of
reclamation system in place, maybe you could try to organize one. If you are only thinking about
taking a bike for yourself -- that is wrong, unsound ethical practice, and otherwise bad karma.

I would be getting them off the bike racks mostly just to free up the bike racks. I'm talking about bikes that really are unridable. So I guess I could give the cops a call and see if they can cut them loose and keep them somewhere else. Hell, summer is coming soon so I would think they could get rid of the one's that are just left there. Maybe a note could be left or something. These bikes really aren't worth taking anyways, I was just thinking if they were just going to be thrown away anyways why not practice welding.

I would be getting them off the bike racks mostly just to free up the bike racks. I'm talking about bikes that really are unridable. So I guess I could give the cops a call and see if they can cut them loose and keep them somewhere else. Hell, summer is coming soon so I would think they could get rid of the one's that are just left there. Maybe a note could be left or something. These bikes really aren't worth taking anyways, I was just thinking if they were just going to be thrown away anyways why not practice welding.

If you get the police involved, they will probably be unable to do anything except put a tag on the bike and then, at the end of the notice period, haul it away to a campus or city police evidence locker. Our city has a warehouse where all the bikes, cars, tools, etc. are stored until a surplus company removes it for auction.