Treasure Trove!
 

I am all a-quiver and a-twitter.

Some of the details of this story might be incorrect. I'll correct them as I learn more.

The bike co-op where I volunteer, in a midwestern college town, has been offered a cache of used bikes. The offerer's father used to rent them to the college students. But, it seemed, he stopped doing that "a few decades ago." The bikes have been hanging in the basement, and in a shed, and under a tarp in the back yard, ever since. According to a second-hand account from my colleague at the co-op, he witnessed "about 100" 70s Raleighs and Schwinns in the basement!

This is an important haul for the bike co-op, which might use it as the basis of a lending library of bikes or some other initiative.

Probably not going to be any Paramounts. However, you can bet I'll be trading some fair donations of cash or kind for the tastiest morsels I can get my hands on. Bwa-ha-ha! :D

Can't wait to see 'em!

I'll try to get pics and post when I have more info!

Eric

Sounds quite exciting, and you will definitely have to keep us updated!

East Hill

UPDATE:

Moved the bikes yesterday.

There were about 120 bikes (and 240 wheels). Lots in rough shape, but some well preserved.

Highlights were a few nice Raleighs and Peugeots. One Schwinn Super Sport. A couple of old-school, made-in-England, Raleigh-family bikes with dynohubs; one with rod brakes.Two wheels with two-cog AWs.

One wheel with the old-school Schwinn disk brake.

LOTS of Varsities. Lots.

And many lo-grade american bike-boom bikes.

Lots of wheels with too much rust to save or fool with, though plenty of nice hubs to be saved.

A strange dearth of handle bars. What the heck happened to them??

A couple of rounds of photos coming.

Less a treasure trove, I think, than a whole lot of work to assemble working bikes.

Eric

Definitely a nice find for the co-op and the cycling public! With gasoline going to $7 a gallon bikes will become very desireable. As for the missing HB's, probably sold for scrap.

Sounds like one of the local shops, of which the new owner disposed of at least 100 completely rusted - solid rust from front to back, mind you - Schwinn Varsity frames and other assorted disasters (Taiwanese Royal Enfields, cheap Ross frames, etc.) that had been accumulated, stripped down for no apparent reason, then left out to rot by the previous shop owner.

-Kurt

UPDATE #2

I have now spent many hours sorting bikes and wheels, examining the haul, and looking for treasures.

Turns out there were almost 200 bikes.

Found:

A second Super Sport, a small frame, disguised as a spray-painted varsity, among the varsities (the other is a 1973).

A 1959 (60?) Continental frame with the simplex suicide shifter and one DT boss for the rear, spray painted blue over the original gold :twitchy:. You can still make out some of the decals underneath.

A 1964 varsity with downtube shifter bosses. Always wanted one of those. Too small for me. :mad:

Three -- count em, three Bendix two-speed kickbacks. At least two of them work. The other is sticky and I couldn't tell.

Pics soon, I promise.

I am so exhausted from sorting that stuff for hours. When you have that many bikes all around, you get an intuitive feel for the meaning of "bike boom."

Eric

Yes, where are the handlebars?

My colleague called the guy whose house held the bikes, who called the landlord (who, it turns out, is not the guy's father and is not dead), who reported the following, which can be summarized thus:

"They're in Germany. Don't ask."

:eek:

Was is los? Deutschland? :eek:

-Kurt

Deutschland hat viel handelbarre.

Eine Attrappe hat einen großen Fehler gemacht dann.

-Kurt

We have a shop in town that got its start from a very similar trove of bikes. They bought out a place at the coast where the guy was intending to rent out bikes. Mostly I think he just disassembled them. Not sure how that was going to work for renting... but anyway. The trove became the basis for a business selling used bikes and parts, trading parts, etc. Now one of my favorite shops. It's a couple years later and the shop is going strong. Maybe your co-op can really make something of it. Good luck!

Karl