noglider 

"Hi, Tom!"

About five years ago, my daughter's bike disappeared. She swears she brought it to the basement, though I have my doubts. We called the police when we noticed it was missing. The officer came and took our report, but he was skeptical. He said he had never heard of bike theft from a house's basement. Anyway, he did take the report. He said we should come to the bike auction later that year. If my daughter's bike showed up, we could have it back at no cost.

So I showed up at the auction. Daughter's bike wasn't there, but plenty of worthy bikes were, so I figured I'd buy one. Most of them needed major repairs, but that's no big deal for me. In my senior year in high school, I started working as a bike mechanic. I continued to make a living at it in summers through college. I dropped out of college for a few years and worked full time as a mechanic. So I have the skills required.

I ended up leaving the auction with THREE bicycles, because the value was irresistible. For two bikes, I paid $45 each. They needed major repairs, but, as I said, no big deal. For the third, I paid only $22. It was ugly. But guess what -- it needed no repairs whatsoever.

Thus started my addiction. Now it's a hobby.

As a birthday present to me, about three years ago, my wife rearranged the entire basement and cleared out one room to devote as a bike shop. I've been stocking it with bike tools. I've been to several auctions. I pick up bikes at garage sales. When people are giving away old bikes, I take them if I want them.

I've given one to friends, my nephew, one to my wife, one to the daughter whose bike disappeared and about four to my other daughter who is, from time to time, interested in learning about bike repair.

This past Friday, I gave one away to a neighbor who is recovering from a low point in her life. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol and was in in-patient treatment for a while. She lost custody of her teenage son. As luck has it, her sister has the boy, so things are going well for everyone involved. She now has a job and is living the straight and narrow path. She mentioned she doesn't have a car, so I fixed up a very trashed auction bike and gave it to her.

Saturday morning was one of the six days of the year my town allows us to drop off bulky items at the recycling center. There were about 20 bikes there, near the metal recycling area. I picked up an ancient Schwinn Varsity in excellent condition. My friend who was there helping me said, "Put the bicycle down, Tom. You don't need another bicycle, Tom." Yeah, but it's my house, so I took it home. Not sure what I'll do with it. They're nice to work on but horrible to ride.

So I gave away one bike this past weekend and also picked up another one, leaving me with 16 bikes, if I'm counting right.

Do I need help?

blamire

hell no
sound to me like your just being a bit of a good samaritan
keep it up

DMF 

I dunno. Sounds to me like you need:

a) More tools
b) More people to give bikes to.

You already got the shop and the understanding wife.

Ex Pres 

You're creating very good bike kharma with your giveaways. Keep up the good work.

jccaclimber

You're set, now whatever you do don't make her angry. It sounds like your addiction is beneficial to both you and society, so I don't see any reason to get rid of it.

noglider 

I asked with tongue in cheek. My Lovely Wife fully endorses my hobby, as you already know. The only thing she has asked is to keep the path to the laundry area clear. I occasionally spill out from the "bike shop" into other areas, which is careless of me. She never resents money I spend on the hobby, as she knows how much joy it gives me. I always emerge from the basement smiling, and I tell her what I'm most proud of. This makes me a more pleasant husband, from her point of view.

My rabbi has suggested that I expand this a bit, involve more people, and continue as a charity. I haven't dismissed the idea. A friend of mine says I can get a tax advantage for doing so, and then my bike shop expenses would be tax deductible. How cool would that be?!

DaJMasta

As it is now, any bikes you give away could probably be counted as deductions, which is nice. Expanding into a charity or even a business is a logical step, but if it's really just a hobby, it could be better to maintain the current size. You want to do what you love, but that's rarely logistics.... so going whole-hog to make a charity could make it less enjoyable to work on bikes.


Back as a scout our troop collected used and beat up bikes and repaired them to give to a toy closet. We were young and ill-equipped for a lot of repairs, but we did a decent job and learned something from it, and it seemed like the charity we gave them to was always grateful. Perhaps that could be a better outlet, you'd get to keep your hobby as a hobby, but you'd be able to help out more by doing it.

neil0502

1) I think what you're doing is fan-tas-tic. Keep at it. I've often considered doing the same thing, but ... I've got hellacious eye problems, and simply haven't been able to figure out how I could do it with any reasonable frequency/predictability. Good on ya', though!

2) I have NO idea about ANY of this, but ... depending on where you go with this, there's probably a fine line that -- once crossed -- results in liability to you. I make no comment on the issue other than ... you may want to consult an attorney, at some point, to ensure that YOUR good deed (edit: may I say "mitzvah?") DOES go unpunished

jsharr

Sounds to me like you are a positive karma addict and a good man. Well done.

leob1

Dude, you need serious help, you should have gotten more than three.
Our county surplus sale is comming up, I plan on getting at least 5 or 6 bikes. Last year I scored a Gary Fisher, a Gaint, and a Trek, plus three "m-uffy"s for $75. My kids haven't had a "new" new bike in years. In past years I got a Bianchi, and a Trek, I was the only bidder. I missed a Bianchi last year because I got there late, still make me sick. Like you, I give some away, or sell them for cheap. Just enough to pay for parts, but few need new parts.
So as they say, one man's evidence, another man's treasure.
BTW, I grew up in Maplewood. I rode my first MTB in the reservation, before it was illeagle.

SlimAgainSoon

Nice wife!

johnknappcc

As long as you steal some of the bikes that you fix up and give away, you should be able to balance out that good karma. Muhahahahaha

jack002

Great story, keep it up! I hope you never stop. I could be addicted like this. Soooo easily.

noglider 

OK, you literally got me to laugh out loud with that one.

Thank you, everyone else, for your comments. I have read each one carefully, but I just can't comment on them individually.

I could tell a story about each bike. Maybe I should put this on a blog. Actually, I put the basenote of this thread in my blog, but I'm not sure I want to have a separate blog for this hobby. That would take time away from my repairs!

Chris_W

I think you came to the right place to come out in the open about your addiction. On this forum, you will find many other addicts like you. Unfortunately, if you want to be rid of your addiction then this is the wrong place to be. I find my addiction only grows stronger with each thread that I read, and I'm happy to find out that there are people out there that are deeper into their addicted state than I am.

My addiction started while I was an international student at a Canadian university. I would buy and sell old bikes to and from the other international students who were only there for one or two semesters each. I barely made any money from the bikes, just enough to cover the initial bike cost, spare parts, tools, and repair manuals, but I was addicted and couldn't stop myself. I think my record was about 25 bikes at one time just before my last Fall semester started - I had to rent a U-Haul truck to take them all to the new international student welcome event, where I sold them all in under 45 minutes. But, soon after that I started to collect more again. Now that me and my current friends have more money than we did in my college days, I've graduated to working on nicer and fancier bikes, and my addiction is stronger than ever.

Fortunately, I also have an understanding and supportive wife who has a few bikes of her own (no, not just because of me, she already had four when we met, now she has three plus part of the tandem), plus many friends who feed my addiction by lending me their bikes to fix / upgrade / tinker with. I truly appreciate them helping me to get through each day in this way, I couldn't do it without them. They seem to think that I am helping them out, but I see it opposite to that, so it's win-win really.

Rollfast

I'm an everything freak...Is there rehabilitation out there?