jyl

Bikes go away, to school or on trips or on loan or when they're sold. And then sometimes they come back.

Here is dear daughter's college bike, home after surviving its freshman year in the dorm. It will spend its summer vacation here, getting serviced and maybe tinkered with, before going back to school as a sophomore apartment dweller.



Got pics of your returnees?

cb400bill

My daughter's Suteki mixte has been shipped to Portland OR to my daughter who used it as her sole transportation for two years. When she moved back to Michigan, it came back with her. It's currently hanging in my garage, awaiting another overhaul.

mattk42

@jyl Those look like OSU colors.

Kobe 

I sold this Univega Alpina on Craigslist. Two years later it shows up for sale again for 1/10 of what I sold it for and in awful shape. 24" framed mountain bikes are pretty rare, so I bought it again, fix it up, ride it and realize why I sold it originally, I am not a mountain bike guy. So I sold it again, but I have a felling I will see it again one day.....

The Golden Boy 

Not really "going away" but "college bike"

Junior went to the University of Minnesota. I gave him a 1991-ish Schwinn Sprint. It was a decent bike, it was in nice shape and it rode very nicely. He used that for his time there. One time the key broke off in the cheap U Lock he bought- leaving the bike locked to a railing. The campus police were pretty diligent in not cutting off someone's bike and giving it to someone else- so they needed proof of ownership.

He was a dorm boss on his last year- so his last day, he's packing everything up- and says goodbye to his bike - he unlocked it to set it free. And we stayed somewhere in town that night. The next day, before we left, Junior got this idea to give the bike to his friends- so we swung by the dorms- and it was still there- so he rode it to his friends' house.

That bike lasted 3 years at the University of Minnesota- We may actually see that bike again.

mstateglfr 

I actually craigslist bought a bike that hadn’t been mine, but that I had fixed up at our local Collective.
I had fixed it up probably 2 years ago and 6 months ago I came across it for sale on craigslist. What I actually came across was a blurry picture of a Schwinn World Sport under the title- ‘mountain bike $40’. I responded to the post to politely let the seller know it was actually a road bike in hopes that it would help them sell the bike. They said they knew nothing about bikes and asked if I wanted it. Oddly, I hadn’t thought about buying it.
We met and I chuckled to myself since I remembered fixing that exact bike the previous year.

I tossed some new generic hoods on the levers, cleaned all the components, checked the bearings(they looked like they had just been packed), and sold it for $180. It still had the local Collective’s sticker still on the downtube.

BlueDevil63 

This was one of the first bikes that got me into the vintage stuff. I bought it as a near NOS frame, built it up with period correct Super Record components, tarted it up with gold jewels in the Cobalto brakes and yellow accents and then decided to sell it for some reason. Sold it on Ebay, regretted it and then about 2 years later it showed up on Craigslist in the bay area and someone on the CR list outed it. I contacted the guy and bought it back for about what I paid for it. Along the way it lost the GEL 330 rims it had and got some new Velocity rims.

SJX426 

I have a bike I will likely paint and until you mentioned it, I didn't even think about a color. OSU colors sound perfect! Thanks! May even put a Beavers decal on it!

mattk42

Make it the older logo! There was a joke around campus that we were the Oregon State Naked Mole Rats with the new logo.

mountaindave 

Bought my first road bike went to my brother after college and he did triathlons on it. When he went away to grad school it can back to me. It didn't go too far, but if you knew my brother, I'm lucky it came back in one piece.

b dub 

Over the years I have had a total of 8 bikes stolen. I'm still waiting for any of them to return

jyl

Good eye! For her it should have been green and gold .. .

non-fixie 

I loaned a bike to a friend who called me one day for advice on what bike to buy, as he thought he might like cycling as an alternative to jogging, which was ruining his knees.

I told him not to buy anything yet, but use one of my bikes for a while to see if he liked cycling at all.

I picked this too small for me specimen and told him not to hurry. Aft a year or so I got it back nice and clean and checked by his LBS.

RobbieTunes 

I paid a solid amount for this as you see it below (top photo), but with Valdora tri-bars and seatpost, Campy 10-sp bar ends. I saved the crankset/BB, calipers, Record Carbon FD/RD, and stem, parted out the rest, and in between rode it a bit in the all-carbon trim. I wasn't real impressed, but I've always liked those frames.

A local buyer bought the frame/fork/headset and did various unkind things to it (including a 650c conversion). I fixed it a couple of times. He sold it to a flipper 2 hours away, and I was glad I didn't have to watch the madness. A while later, he bought it back. A while after that, he got an external BB so stuck he tore the cups to pieces and still failed in the removal. I gambled $50 on it, got it out, and built it as you see in the bottom photo, also picked up a PR in a sprint triathlon 20-mile leg. Eventually, I traded the wheels for 2 sets, mounted one, and sold it again, to a guy 2 hours away.

It's safe now. He loves it.

oddjob2

I sold this Raleigh Marathon Mixte last October to a very gracious foreign graduate fellow at UM. She texted me last week to see if I wanted to buy it back as she is returning to Brazil. She used it regularly, but kept it in good nick. So I told her I would take it on consignment to assist her, and picked it up yesterday, while she is enjoying Hawaii with her BF! Ah the student life!

As picked up yesterday

CliffordK

I bought a little 24" Fuji Ace for my nephew for Christmas... about 300 miles away.

I asked for him to bring it with him when he came this summer to visit his Grandmother. I was a little disappointed. It had obviously been left in the rain. It came back with a flat rear tire, and a bit of a rear wheel wobble. Loose bottle cage, no pump, and no water bottle.

I got him to true it up on the truing stand, and got it put back together. Hopefully I can convince him to store it in the garage. Perhaps I'll see it again next Christmas... or next summer from now for another "tune-up".