CustomSteel

I found that if I don't keep an inventory, it comes back to bite me later. Also I find it's best to keep a digital inventory, paper has a habit of walking.

Michael Angelo 

I keep all my parts organized, in bins with labels. THe Shimano stuff goes into the round container on the floor.......

Paramount1973 

Having an inventory would spoil the delight of finding just the right part that I had forgotten I had.

Kobe 

I use the bin & boxes system. Bins separated by part type and a smaller box to collect all the parts that are going on a particular bike. Tires, tubes and rims all get their own seperate rod hanging from the rafters.

If I had to start entering them in a spreadsheet it would take away a lot of the fun.

RobbieTunes

Loosely organized, I can find almost everything.
Ziploc bags are used a lot, and everything is in some kind of box, not labeled.
Wheels are in bags in a closet. Components for an intended build get a new box.
Every frame hangs, every complete bike hangs. Milk crates hold some stuff.
I do tend to keep things I won't be using all in the same box.

I like my garage. No one else hangs out there except bike people.
If it takes a while to find something, it just does.
I often find bonus stuff I forgot I had. Simple pleasures, yes.

wahoonc

I strip those down and sell the aluminum and steel parts for scrap. Get about $20 a bike that way. A few parts can be used to fix similar bikes. I don't ride Next bikes but plenty of people that need help do, so I keep a small stash of parts to help them out. Most of them are on fixed income/disability and don't have the means. One guy has actually gotten an upgrade from somewhere, it is a late 80's Peugeot with a generator, lights and fenders. He likes it a lot better than the Next he was riding.

Aaron

BluesDaddy

This seems like as good a thread as any to ask,

How do you store cables and housing?

I never throw it away unless it's rusty, so I have a rat's nest jumbled in a copy paper box. I'd like to have a neat system that's sorted by brake/shift, mtn/road, inner/outer.

oddjob2

I have a few extra large stainless mixing bowls from garage sales, which are perfect for collecting parts as they come off a frame during an overhaul/rebuild. Grease, grit, and wet parts coming out of the ultrasonic cleaner doesn't affect the bowls, which can be wiped clean in a jiffy.

These Stanley boxes work well for small parts, as do Danish cookie tins.

dddd

Cables and housing, along with chains, are items that I give special attention to inventorying.

Cables are sorted by type, then measured, coiled and tagged for length, finally separated mostly in 10" intervals but as small as 3" intervals for most-common lengths.

Housing is again sorted by type, with Campag and other gear housing being different of OD. Again, bundled into a few different length ranges, with all housings squared at one end to simplify length comparison and selection. Longer lengths of housing are bundled and hung from a nail, with ends butted up against the upper end near to the banding.

The key is to always be able to select the very shortest cable or housing that is needed, saving longer lengthsfor jobs wherethey will be needed.

Housings can be scrubbed out using a long, kinked cable wire together with a PTFE "Teflon" particulate/solvent spray using a tapered applicator tube, followed by an air blast.
The Gripshift lube is Silicon/Teflon (no petro), so never gums up a poly housing even after 10 years. It's hella slick, restoring old housings to work like new:

dddd

+1, This^^^^^

I do have my wheels organized, no small feat!

Here is my 27" wheel inventory, at the ready for quicker flips, since wheel work often bogs down a refurb. Winter is for wheel work, elsewise it might have to be done late into the night!

delicious

Wow! Great tip on the cable revival.

I don't inventory my stuff, though it sounds like a good idea. Like most here, I just keep parts in Ziplocs and sorted into boxes by type of component.

I do have a question: how do people store tires, particularly older ones, to keep them from drying out/sidewall 'rotting'?

3speedslow

My system

Big plastic tubs for large items like saddles,cranksets or handlebars. Smaller bins for DRs,brakes,freewheels,hubs,etc that I can stack. Wheels hang in the sheds while frames are on the wall.

Nothing gets inventoried. I think if I organize everything the best I can, it takes the place of lists. That, and I don't have gobbs of parts.

easyupbug 

My storage place is in Southern AZ so I have had dry rot experience for fifty years. I use this:
https://www.amazon.com/303-Products-3.../dp/B000XBCURW
You can check with any C&V car guy and he can tell you where locally you can get the few good products out there. Avoid guessing or Walmart/Target crap, things like ArmourAll can actually do more harm.

OldsCOOL

Thanx for the salvage tip. I'm due for a trip this week so I may do just that.

big chainring 

I follow Martha Stewerts rules of organization. "Its a good thing".

jjames1452 

I bin them and forget what I have.
Then when I need them, I search Craigslist and eBay for the parts.
A few months after they arrive, I find them in the parts bins and drawers.
Works great!

rootboy 

I just dig through boxes. Writing it down would be no fun.

CroMo Mike 

Rootboy, I'm coming to your house!

dddd

Since many of the tires that I keep on hand (new and used, mostly used) are bulky wired-bead tires, I use thicker, clear HDPE "poly" trash bags, which keeps smog compounds from being steadily attracted to the organic compounds in tire rubber.
The HDPE is "high-density", as compared to LDPE bags, which are supple but easily punctured. HDPE bags are crinkly, i.e. noisy, LDPE is silent and stretchy.
My HDPE bags are commercial-use type trash bags, and long enough to fold over the top of a bag full of 10 or 15 road tires.

Inner tubes are test-inflated in batches, the leakers discarder or repaired, then the whole bundle of 10 or 15 tubes is inflated to just feel firm and left to sit for a week.
Then any slow-leakers are set aside, while the good ones are bagged by type with already-tested/inventoried tubes. They eventually lose air, but all bagged tubes are "known-good", so an assuring supply is established going foreward. The same HDPE poly trash bags are used, with sorting by size, width and valve type.

Anything rubber that is not shielded will rot fast here in norCAL, the air is not so good.

I found some bubble-wrap bags that are perfectly sized for storing up to a dozen handlebars, and this has been a lot easier than storing them in boxes.

I do a lot of wheel and hub/axle work, so axle parts are sorted down to smaller levels of sizes and types of parts like cones, washers and axles. Here I use heavy zip-lock bags in various sizes.
Same goes for pullies and other derailer parts, as well as barrel adjusters and other brake parts. Then there are the brake pads...

Saddles are boxed more or less by type, i.e. "comfort", "racing", "leather, "collectible/rare" and "personal use favorites".

I have one box of computers, most bagged with their matching hardware. A separate bag contains a library of manuals for same, and a selection of batteries resides in the fridge's veggie drawer.

I don't use old-style pedals, so there are boxes of those, waiting to increase further in value I guess.

There's a couple of boxes of old Campy stuff.

Mostly I use the cheap, clear Sterilite storage boxes, in different sizes. I treat them gently, someone (I think oddjob2) mentioned before how brittle they can be.

Other clear boxes contain seatposts, derailers, bottom brackets and different kinds of brakes, and every other part that's on an adult bicycle.

I have one box of track/singlespeed parts, but I specialize only in geared, adult bicycles.