randyjawa 

About ten days ago, on a Wednesday afternoon, I headed to the dump to dump my kitchen waste. I was very happy to find a few near mint but somewhat incomplete bikes there, all laying in a pile on their sides. On top of the wee pile was a lovely little used, if used at all, Bianchi "Grizzly"...


I snapped it up immediately and headed for home. The bike shows little or no wear at all. The other bikes all looked to be near mint also (perhaps discards from a closed bike shop???) Sorry for the poor pictures but Mother Nature has not been cooperating this past week, or so. The "Grizzzly"...

Glennr134

1987 Schwinn super sport, letgo find for 100 bucks. Hardly ridden. Still had Schwinn labeled tires . One small chip near shifter but otherwise mint.

repechage

I always find those fork crowns amazing.
I cannot tell if the seat stay tops are open. ?

clubman 

repechage I always find those fork crowns amazing.

Me too. I've seen some examples of these forks where the blades have twisted lower down but the A&P crown intersections are straight and sound. Weird, soft steel maybe.

I cannot tell if the seat stay tops are open?

Yes. And the higher Flyer models have even thinner pencil stays. Nice design.

Lascauxcaveman 

1986 Univega Nuovo Sport. Dead, solid, minty perfect. I rode it about 150 miles over the six years I owned it and sold it this spring wearing the original 34-year-old tires still on it, in rideable shape.

rosefarts

My 1985-6 Spectrum was pretty close.

Bought by a friend of my dad's who wasn't a cyclist but liked nice things. Ridden under 500 miles by my estimate. Left to sit in a basement for the next 35 years and given to me when he passed.

A minor scrape from chain suck was the only real damage. The hardest part was washing residue from living in a smoker's home for so long -magic eraser and dish soap.

Bike came with two spare DA stems, two extra seats, a custom painted Silca pump, a spare DA front derailleur, a brand new Kellogg spare fork in 41mm (I like the 45 on it better), and a box of receipts/letters from Tom Kellogg and Wayne Stetina.

I've posted pics before, still can't quite believe what I got.

jamesdak 

Funny thing is.....

As I go through my bike and then the one's I've passed on it seems that most of the "mint" ones I didn't keep. Go figure.

One was this small Schwinn Circuit I got hoping my one son would take to road biking. Didn't happen so I moved it on.



Years earlier I found a Club Fuji that was awesome under the grime. Only real issue turned out to be the grubby bar tape falling off.


How I got it.

How I sold it

Yeah, it was nice!

Then keeping with the Fuji theme I found this Team Fuji. Looked like a disaster when I picked it up.


How it looked after a good bath.

How I sold it.

A real beauty that I regret selling.

joesch

Agree, A functional bike should *never* end up in the dump. Bad owner. Should have a take me, Im free sign and put near street or donate to thrift shop so both charity and hopefully a needer bike rider can adopt.

jamesdak 

Of the bikes I've kept. the 1985 Fuji Opus III was pretty close to mint. Didn't come with the stock tubular wheels and had a different saddle. Didn't even think to ask the owner if he had the original. Everything else was original to include the cable housing and cloth bar tape. Only marks were a minor scratch and some decal damage.


As I brought it home, freshly serviced by the seller.

Pretty dang nice, yep original pedals

As I have it now. Original bar tape still under the new leather stuff. Pedals are stashed and will stay with me as long as I have the bike.

Holding up pretty well despite the miles I put on it. I think the Grand Prix Classic tires look great on this one.

BlueDevil63 

klasse

'87 Radac mentioned above...minty fresh, the hoods were cracked.






just sayin'...........

pcb 

This '72 Hetchins Italia was all-original, mostly unridden, and cleaned/detailed by the seller, who bought it at an estate sale. Before FedEx almost killed it. It's now near-mint, with numerous new small scrapes and paint chips, minus the rims FedEx trashed, and I managed to re-bend the rear rack mostly straight. Waiting on some Earle Young-built wheels using the original Campy HF hubs and Pacenti Brevet rims. I ride it with the newer/wider Nitto bars/stem shown, a kinda period-correct wheelset, and I couldn't help myself from upgrading the calipers from Weinmann centerpulls to Campy side-pulls. And I upgraded the original steel Gran Sport rder to a Rally. There was a short-lived long-cage Campy NR rder experiment, before I got the Rally. That photo shows the original steel-cage Record pedals, now replaced by the MKS Urban pedals and stainless MKS clips. Oh, and the bar-mount bottle cage setup isn't original, or the chain. Or the cables/casing. So it's all-original, 'cept for all the stuff that ain't. Kept all the original parts.

tricky 

No pics unfortunately, but I had a mid 80s Novara Randonee that was cherry and original. I also owned via community property a red Schwinn World Sport that was pristine. My father bought it at a garage sale and gifted it to my ex-wife, but it was enormous despite being a step through. It was probably my size and we didn't fully realize it until she took it for 1 terrifying ride in our apartment parking lot where she could barely reach the bars and pedals.

pcb 

I got this '72 Schwinn P-15 Paramout in '06, on a trade for a '99 or so Schwinn Peleton frameset. I think I had about $250 in the Peleton, so I did OK. Looked like it had hardly been ridden, and everything was clean and shiny. Changed some parts around and rode it for a bit, but it was a little small for me, so I eventually sold it off. Hopefully somebody's still out there riding it.

pcb 

Despite this '98 Rivendell Custom Road frameset being neo-retro in its own timeline, now it's just around the corner from being vintage in its own right. It's a '98 Joe Starck build that I just picked up, pretty low-mileage and mint-ish, with just a few small paint scrapes/chips. There's more build detail over in the "whaddya been wrenching on?" thread, but being all minty I figured I'd post a coupla pix here, too.

Have to get it out on the road and see how it rides......

72ChromeP15

1962 Paramount P-12
Got it from the original owner with no decals, stripped it down and sent it to Waterford to have them applied.
Otherwise, the photo Is basically how I unpacked the box after purchase.

gthomson

I just can't figure out who decides to abandon these beautiful bikes? Even if you had no clue of their value, you would at least look at it and say, "this is a mighty fine bike"

randyjawa 

I have a theory about this...

Fred or Martha Wannabe buy a bike, or bikes, hoping to get fit and have fun doing it. The fun part seems to come to an end with the sore butt part, which, of course, happens after the first ride, in many cases. A couple more rides and the fun factor is, definitely, compromised and the bike is forgotten. With luck, it might have been put away in a decent location, away from the ravages of the environment and potential impact damages. In fact, almost word for word, the lady I bought this Trek from put it away after only a ride or two. Lucky me and lucky that I had forty bucks in my pocket...


Bikes, like the Trek, are the Garage Queens and more than one has come my way, over the years. Looks like some pretty nice near mint steeds have been found by many others too. Isn't this fun!