Went to the dump the other day and, being fairly early in the season, did not expect to find anything worthwhile bicycle wise. I did however, see a couple of road bike wheels in the pile. With care, I waded through the debris and scooped up a set of little used Fiamme tubular rims in restorable shape (tubular tires hold air without leaking, a couple of antique bottles, an antique axe head and a book (the book was in a cardboard box next to the wheel set)...






I have also started pitching unwanted items, such as this Terry knock-off frame set (I truly dislike the style and have very little room to house my small but growing collection. So, this goes...


And I darned near decided to dump this Specialized Sirrus road bike frame/fork. I did, however, come to my senses and the Sirrus just might be travelling to Jamaica with me next Fall...

Glad you came to your senses! As for the Terry style frame, was posting on something like Craigslist free section not an option? Seems a shame to go to scrap.

Glad you came to your senses! As for the Terry style frame, was posting on something like Craigslist free section not an option? Seems a shame to go to scrap. We’ve rebuilt a few Terrys and similar at my shop for small folks who are all too thankful to find something to fit them.

Sadly, many cities in the US do not allow picking stuff up at the dump. I had a discussion with our local recycle center, which is not a recycle center at all, it is a scrapping center. They regularly get bikes. But rather than reuse them for parts or even complete bikes, they say "no way". Instead they scrap them. As scrap, bicycles make lousy candidates as they are a mix of materials, from rubber, to aluminum, and steel. Yet they continue to not allow recycle, even to local bike co ops. Nope, its scrap all the way, every day.

Same problem here, you'll risk arrest for even looking at bikes in the scrap metal bin.

Yeah, I don't get it either, especially with out hyper-eco culture. Seems like low hanging fruit.

The landfill may not allow reuse but the scrap dealer often will allow you to browse the pile. Won't be free but usually cheap.

Answer: a culture that’s much more litigious than it is hyper-eco.

The swingtop bottle shown ("GEYER FRERES 1895") from Alsace I think, is not antique, but probably current production; Cap is plastic, there's probably a rectangular "scoop" in the side near the bottom for bottle indexing and rotation as the label is applied. I frequently find them cheap at goodwill, people online sell them for $20-25 each when they are about $6 filled with fruit-juice-flavored seltzer and not empty. Don't get me wrong, it's good to grab it for use, just not antique value.

The eared axe head is nice, some small hunter or kitchen axes have that small hammer back rounded and smoothed, used to separate medium game hides from the body.

Here everything gets recycled and passed down until it's completed used up, then the garbage collectors pick through what gets thrown out, and finally the pepenadores (people who live at the dump) go through what is left. So it's not a great place to find nice old bicycles, or nice anything. Also, last week the municipal dump caught fire and burned for several days.

True.

"Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on
Now the Lord can make you tumble
And the Lord can make you turn
And the Lord can make you overflow
But the Lord can't make you burn"

- Burn On (Cuyahoga River), Randy Newman

Nice find with the book! For reasons I'm sure the ESPN suits have figured out, Slaying the Badger is one of those 30 for 30 films that NEVER seem to get replayed on ESPN. Sure, I can pay to stream it again...but I digress...

My local transfer station has a giant metal pile away from the main trash/recycle area. Officially, picking is not allowed - however sometimes there will be bikes and other stuff off to the side. I have taken a few bikes and other things and nobody has ever said anything to me. Of course, if something is buried in the pile, there's no way I'm going digging for it. I think that's what the town really wants to prevent anyhow.

At goodwill today; Same stuff, different brand, this is the second-most common style of these bottles I find (EDIT: Oh, this one is different from ones in past which were French wording, this is same brand but in English):