mswantak

Offloaded my '80 Phoenix 3-speed to a guy who put a lot of emphasis on wanting it to be 'completely functional'. Turns out he wanted something to use for five days at the Burning Man Festival, and didn't want to take something he'd feel bad about if it were stolen!

I feel sort of dumb now for taking time to wash it beforehand...

shecky

I saw lots of these 'completely functional' bikes there. Single speed cruisers are most common, and most practical, it seems. Some occasional "nice" bikes. Also, lots of $60 walmart mountain bikes, purchased for the event and abandoned (kinda not cool). I saw a few interesting old roadsters, a nice old Rudge, a couple with rod brakes, one with a spoon brake. I saw three Raleigh Twentys (other than my own). A couple Worksman bikes. Three speeds and coaster brakes really are preferable in that environment. And given the perfectly flat terrain, there's really no need for multiple gears or high speed.

I ended up with no less than six extra bikes total (three donated to us, three simply abandoned at our campsite). Three new $100 walmart MTBs, a cheap old MTB, a Huffy cruiser, and a interesting no name cruiser (the only one I kept). The rest were redistributed to folks without bikes (a real necessity at the event). I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of abandoned bikes after the event. A few folks sweep them up for redistribution next year.

Yeah, washing a bike before the event is a futile activity.

shecky

These are the kinds of conditions bikes have to deal with there. Photo taken with Polaroid B/W pack film. Exposure, etc is fine. This is in the middle of a whiteout.

scheissmacht

a friend of mine was there, he bought a bike just for use during the festival, he left it with some people he met there who are going to bring it with them for him to use next year (he's from VA, they're from L.A.)
I may get to go next year, probaly driving from VA in which case I'll be able to bring whatever I want.

mswantak

Well, if you come across this while you're there, you'll know where it came from.

shecky

I did notice a couple bikes (maybe the same one... who knows) with full chain cases. Maybe that was one of them.

Despite what it may seem like, I really didn't pay much attention to the bikes there.

The trio of Walmart bikes were given to us by some folks at a neighbor camp from back east, maybe even VA (unfortunately, I don't recall exactly). They flew into Reno and purchased nearly everything there for the event. They offered them to us, and we said we'd take them to a Reno street corner with "FREE" sign, since we lacked the ability to take them all the way back home to L.A. However, it never came to that, as we soon found other bikeless burners willing to take them off our hands.