Originally Posted by
Maelochs
Most of the bikes I have pulled out of the trash have been trash. Missing wheels, broken spokes, broken shifters .... lots of rust ...
Mostly it looks like people bought cheap bikes (not necessarily trash bikes) but looked at the price for a new brake lever (bent or broken) or a new wheel or whatever ... $20 for the part, $40 for the labor for a $120 bike, no way. So the bike goes behind the shed until finally someone drags it to the curb, rusty and dirty and fixable pretty easily by someone who wanted to.
I made out because if I found three or four junk bikes I could make 1 1/2 or two running bikes and have parts left over.
Bikes which aren't torn up end up at yard sales, or CL nowadays.
I made out almost every week in the early 70's in Philadelphia when perfectly serviceable English 3 speeds, and American (Schwinn, Columbia, Huffy, etc.) single speed as well as 3 speed bikes were tossed to the curb on trash day, as their owners discarded them for the joy of riding 10- speed "racers" with rock hard ass hatchet saddles and skinny high pressure tires with gears not much easier to go up hills than were found on the discarded "disposable" bikes. Needless to say almost all of those discarded bikes had more quality and practical features for riding on the streets of Philadelphia than the bikes that replaced them.
"Disposable" is all in the mind and needs of the beholder when it comes to bicycles, especially when the
term is being used by self described enthusiasts and so-called serious cyclists, or the Internet parrots who repeat what they read on sites like this.