Great Lakes - Where to get used parts in Milwaukee

I'm new to the Milwaukee area and wondering if anyone knows of a good place to get used bike parts? I'm envisioning something similar to what I had in Minneapolis (e.g., Sibley, One on One, the Hub), a shop with bins of modestly organized old parts. Thanks.

None that I can think of, if there is, it's on the east side. There used to be a second hand bike shop on Farwell, but don't recall the name. What kind of parts? Wheels and frames? or nuts and bolts?

Not so much frames. I've learned that you usually have to make more of a special effort to get good used frames. I'm talking more about deraillers, brake levers, old shifters, old hubs, seat posts...that sort of thing.

Old Campy and such? or Suntour, Universal, cottered cranks? 3 speed? 5 speed? 6 speed? 7 speed? Single?

(boy, am I nosey? :D )

Well, I'm mostly working on a few 80s road bikes at the moment. I tend to be more of a shimano guy - just because that is what I am familiar with as that is what came with my old bikes. I also find value in keeping everything interchangable between the different bikes, more or less. Right now, I'm playing with two Trek Elance 400s (an 86 and an 87, I think, for my fiance and myself) and an '89 Schwinn LeTour (my old commuter - not too bad, has a double-butted True Temper CrMo frame). The elances have indexed six speed shifting with light action rear deraillers but mine has a "new" wheelset with an 8 speed cassette - so I'd like to upgrade the shifters to brifters on that one (although works well enough with the downtube) or even 8-speed indexed downtube shifters (don't think these are that common)... my fiance prefers the vintage look - so she prefers the downtube shifters and the 6-speed freewheel. I'd also like to turn the Schwinn (which really is pretty much a Schwinn in frame only as it has parts scraped together from everywhere) into more of an upright position bike to just putz around town more casually. That also needs a new wheelset, possibly different cassette/freewheel, and some different tires - but I already have the desired handlebar and the shifters (provided it stays at 6-7 speeds and I want indexing). So, I just like to browse used parts and put things together and make upgrades when I come across things I like at a good price. But, provided things are generally working, I don't go out of my way to spend lots of money on specific new parts if I don't have to. In Minneapolis, where I just moved from, I used to go to this place called one on one bike studio. They had a basement with bins and bins of used parts pretty cheap. There could be a lot of bad parts, but I enjoyed digging around to find what worked. Was hoping for something similar here. But, it sounds like I may not find it...

Now there's some info we can use!

I don't know of any place like that, but the two 'bike shops' (as opposed to bike Walmarts) that I can recommend would be Bens Cycles (6th and National) or The Bikesmiths (Locust/Murray). I like Bens myself. THey don't have any parts bins as far as I know, but they have a warehouse across the street that they run their ebay business out of and they have STUFF! There is a new place in Bay View on south Packard that looks like a good shop too. (just south of Layton on the east side) They opened last year and have a small bike museum which is cool to look through.

The other place to make an inquiry would be on the "bikelikemad (http://bikelikemad.org)" forum which is pretty much just Milw / Madison, and that bunch of riders runs the gamut from top end 'cross racers to 'living in the attic' fixie riders. You'll have to sign up to read that forum, but I've never gotten any spam from them and it's good people on there.

:D

You might try Patio bike shop out on Forest Home ave. They have some used parts, mostly higher end stuff, but I've bought odds and ends there. I know they tend to be open odd hours. You also might try Cory's on Murray Ave. Unfortunately Milw doesn't have a good fix up old 70's, 80's bike shop. I tend to buy stuff on line or get it from stripping bikes. The other place you might try is the bicycle collective on 29th & Clybourn near Marquette

There used to be a shop on n. oakland, bikemilwauke.net or something like that. The guy had a pretty good selection of older used parts. He packed up and left though about a month ago, and there's a bike/longboard shop there now thats mostly focused on cruisers.

Either Brian is still in town or the "new" shop owners are using his name/email.

As to the OP, keep an eye on craigslist, some of the larger volume flippers might have parts available. A couple of times now I've heard reference to "Back Door Bikes" when inquiring about a bike for sale and the seller mentioned that name for where they got their bike (not sure if it's real or if it's some inner city guy working on bikes in his garage for neighborhood folks).