We had a really nice frame the other day come in to the coop. It still had all of its components except for wheels. While we were all excited, but there was one problem. The person who donated it had cut both stays on the drive side with what looked like a bolt cutter.

We naturally assumed that the frame was broken elsewhere and the person was preventing us from building it up.

My question is this.

How do you dispose of a "broken" frame?

EDIT: That is IF you dispose of a broken frame. I know there are those of you out there who will probably try to fix it, depending on the prestige of the frame of course.

Depends on if I consider the frame unsafe (in a non-obvious way) to build up and/or if I'm under any space/time constraints.


Unsafe frames/forks gets cut. Usually with a pipe cutter. If I'm heading to the recycling center anytime soon, one cut.


Otherwise, more Cuts. Reduce it to a bundle of tubes. Stays gets cut near the seat tube, then folded.

I strip the frame, cut the toptube and lay it by the alley for a scrapper. It's gone by the end of the day.

I set mine next to my garage. I have an arrangement with the a local scrapper. Any metal there is his for the taking. Never there more than a day.

Take a sawzall to it and make a wind chime from the results.

I've got a Klein Quantum II with a wrinkled seat tube I've been trying to figure out what to do with. I keep thinking bike art, but I'm not sure what I would make or where it would go. For the time being, it just sits in the shop waiting....

You can save a lot of frames that look beyond repair if the value of the frame is high enough and the repair is inexpensive enough. I've replaced dropouts, steerers, straightened what appeared to be terribly bent rear triangles, but sometimes it's "he's dead, Jim".

In that case, consider repurposing.

I gave my first Capo Modell Campagnolo to a friend who taught bicycle repair in a local adult school program. He cut away the (bent, straightened, eventually ruptured) frame tubing to illustrate double butting to his students.

There is a guy in my area who recycles road bike frames into recumbents. He'll cut the frame tubes and joints into whatever configuration works for him, then make a complete bike out of them. He picks which tubes and joints he's going to save, brazes them together, sands them, paints them, adds everything else needed (wheels, components, bars, saddle, etc.) and makes a pretty nice product. Not an amateur attempt, this guy knows what he's doing.

He's not looking to pay more than $10-20 for a frame and fork because he's essentially doing everything from scratch. I've sold him single frames and a bunch of frames on different occasions.

How did they get access to my garage for the drawing?
No kidding only thing different is I say that to my daughter!
Regards, Ben

There's always eBay:

30x chopped in half Volagi carbon fiber bikes frames repair scrap robots parts | eBay

I know a local frame builder who might be interested in a high quality frame. I'd just give it to him if he wanted to tackle it.

Otherwise some of my cycling friends have made planters, trellises and similar outdoor projects from old bikes.

Nice drop outs get chopped off and turned into bottle openers which I save and gift to people.

If it has older Simplex dropouts like this

Please send them to me! I have a project which needs the drive side rear one.

Another thing to do: replace the cut stays, and send the bike back into the world.

I put a broken frame in my garbage can for the trash men to pick up. Never gave it much thought.

My cousin had a T-shirt shop 20 years ago and made me this........



It's only gotten worse.

I've got a crashed steel Bianchi Forza when a car hit the rear triangle (with me on it) and bent it pretty severly. I was thinking of giving it to one of the ghost bike groups, to put some junk parts on, spray paint white, and use as a memorial to riders mowed down by stupid drivers. It has some sentimental value and undamaged fork, so it's still hanging on my garage wall. I did use the headset for my Raleigh build up.

Leave it out for the metal scrappers:

Cut both drive-side stays? Did they not have a chain breaker, and wanted to get the chain off? So strange.

I have this mid-70s PR-10 with a cracked seat lug and the other shown cosmetic defects/molestations. I was going to send it to [MENTION=365306]nesteel[/MENTION] last year for shipping cost until I started tearing it down and realized ... in addition to what's pictured in the thread, the steerer tube had at least 4-5 threads totally gouged out from someone running the headset too loose for too long w/o fixing it. A threaded headset would never run tight again without repairing it.

I never want to ship something a fellow BF'er might consider 'garbage' on receipt, so I reached out and we both decided to hold off on shipping. I feel like I let another member down when I shipped a Trek with a broken DO cross-country a few months prior, didn't want to have the same experience. Up to the attic it went...

I think the PR-10 frame could be salvaged by a BF'er with frame experience like [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] but it's been sitting in my attic ever since.

I've also got a mid-80s burgundy PH501 in my attic with the newer style Simplex DO, but it's got a gnarly dent on the TT. The DO stylings changed (IIRC) in the first of the '80s.

Oh - and as for how I get rid of frames...

If it's buildable, it goes to the coop.

If a frame isn't rideable but has potentially usable parts (like, for helping a fellow enthusiast replace a tube or braze on), it goes into my attic. I added cheap sub-floor up there a few years back and that added 800sq ft of usable space to toss frames into. Nothing else up there unless heat won't mess it up, so ... why not store (horde?) frames for a rainy day?

Our local co-op has all the equipment to repair frames, although I don't think they're doing that. They have used some MTB frames as donors for cargo bike projects.

I'm still hoping to start doing some frame repairs and frame building, so I'd love to get my hands on some really nice frames to rebuild. Too much good usable stuff gets thrown into the trash

Still going a little slow with getting started though

My Local CO-OP recycles steel and AL Frames it doesnt use so i just give them the frame, it helps out with the poundage of recycle they get to sell to the scrapper.

I'm not inventive, I recycle the steel.

Seat's on backwards.

That's the repurpose part.