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06-26-11, 08:47 AM
I'm a recycle fanatic that hates any kind of waste. I will pull any bike out of a junk bin and try to save it. The problem I'm confronting now is that over 90 % of the bikes being discarded are total junk and dangerously unfit when they leave the department store.The average bike I find now is worth less than $100.00 new and has seized cables and or bent or inoperable Falcon deraileurs.
It takes me about 2 hours to change cables and deraileurs but then you have at best a nice looking $20.00 bicycle with potentially dangerous axles and cranksets that could catastrophically fail during use. Other risks associated with Junk Mart bicycles are collapsing handle bars - seat posts and frames that crack or buckle easily. Todays major bicycle distributors and retailers seem to be devoid of any sense of ethics as they flood the market with dangerous unfit products that are designed deliberately to fail just outside the department store door.
The junk bicycle business isn't restricted to department stores. I've seen a lot of garbage sitting next to $5,000.00 bicycles in " reputable" sporting goods stores. I returned a specialty store bicycle last week that had grinding bearings throughout the first time I used it.
In answer to my question I think the highest and best use of most new bicycles sold today is to salvage seats, reflectors, tires and tubes while converting the rest to prepared scrap metal.
It takes me about 2 hours to change cables and deraileurs but then you have at best a nice looking $20.00 bicycle with potentially dangerous axles and cranksets that could catastrophically fail during use. Other risks associated with Junk Mart bicycles are collapsing handle bars - seat posts and frames that crack or buckle easily. Todays major bicycle distributors and retailers seem to be devoid of any sense of ethics as they flood the market with dangerous unfit products that are designed deliberately to fail just outside the department store door.
The junk bicycle business isn't restricted to department stores. I've seen a lot of garbage sitting next to $5,000.00 bicycles in " reputable" sporting goods stores. I returned a specialty store bicycle last week that had grinding bearings throughout the first time I used it.
In answer to my question I think the highest and best use of most new bicycles sold today is to salvage seats, reflectors, tires and tubes while converting the rest to prepared scrap metal.