Thanks for the heads-up.


3speed - I don't think I could use any of your parts... but I *DO* know where you could take them!

Over on the east side, if you're driving away from the capital on E. Wash and make a right on Milwaukee St, there is a guy that runs a small time neighborhood bike business out of his garage. He's a few blocks down, on the left (North) side of the street - easy to miss if you're not looking, but the whole yard is FULL of bikes, wheels, frames, and other sorted mountains of low-end bike parts.

I stopped in and talked to him for a while once, and found out that he had been fixing up bikes out of his garage for decades - he pretty much exclusively deals with department store bikes and other mid to low end frames, but he cleans up and fixes them and sells them cheap to the neighborhood kids. Not a get-rich deal at all - we're talking like half a day to fix and clean a bike, then he sells it for $30, ready to ride - that kind of a deal.


I was in pretty much the same boat as you a few months back - had a few parts bikes and a bunch of misc parts, and nobody would take them. Dream Bikes was 100% not interested when I called - too much effort to rebuild, and they didn't seem to want used parts either? If it's too low end, stuff doesn't even move in the "free" section on Craigslist. But I dropped a Subaru-load of parts off at this guy's place on Milwaukee St, and he was thrilled to see them.

I was about ready to haul them to the metal recyclers... but even if they're low end crap parts, it's still good to know that they will get a second life.