A couple weeks ago a buddy of mine asked me to keep an eye out for a inexpensive mountain bike or hybrid for him. He and his girlfriend only had one car and he worked two jobs, needed a bike to get to the second. I told him that I had an old 90s Univega hybrid that I'd fix up for him. $20 later and one day, he had a tough but quick (and free) new bike.

Two days ago he and his girlfriend broke up and she took the car. Now my buddy is commuting on the bike I built him 7 days a week, almost 30 miles a day. He loves it. It made me proud that I could help someone like that and share the love of cycling (especially commuting/utility style) with someone.

Very nice.

Bravo Zulu! That's a mighty kind gesture, and I am sure your friend appreciates it a lot

End result...the bike was worth more than the car.

bike might be worth more than the ex girlfriend too


or this is another example of a bike breaking up a relationship... jk

If you got no girlfriend anymore, I guess you got time to ride 30mi/day...

Good job helping out with the bike though! I also enjoy helping people resurrect or buy old bikes and put them to good use.

It's a great feeling hu? You should think about volunteering at your local bike coop. That feeling becomes your drug. (Not really, but it does feel good to help people.)

You're a good dude.. story made my day..

He's going to be really fit soon, shouldn't have trouble finding a new girlfriend!

If we had a local coop, I definitely would. I would like to say I did it just out of the goodness of my heart but it just happened to make room for a new bike for me ;P

I try to help out where I can, I've fixed up a few bikes for some neighborhood kids without bikes before, but making sure this one was worthy of a 30 mi commute was a lot more pressure!

Is this a thing? Starting to bike a lot and loving your hobby so much that one day you find yourself single? Cause that happened to me 7 years into a relationship. Well, I guess there were other reasons in my case too. But maybe cycling gave me a new perspective and I became aware of them?

And, as for your original topic, [MENTION=397770]Crawford53[/MENTION], what you did for your friend is amazing. I've helped out friends with minor repairs, but I would love to help someone with a bigger project feel this passion.

Not always; riding is one of the best things my wife and I do together!

As to the OP, I too have helped people out with free or super-cheap rides; it's one of the best reasons to keep old bikes around...

...or pick up old bikes. A few weeks ago I 'rescued' a 24" Diamondback MTB from where it was left for garbage pickup. I haven't attended to it yet, but I expect some air in the tires, some lube all over, and rotating the fork frontways will make the bike serviceable. Chain's got a lot of surface rust, might need to replace chain & cables, but we'll see. But 24" is too small for my kids by now, so I'll find some other kid to give it to.

So true! I have a friend at work who is an absolute BEAST on a road or mtn bike (or running or swimming...), but his wife would "never touch a bike with a 10 foot pole". I'm a clyde that rides slow enough that my relatively athletic wife who loves to ride can always keep up with me (and can beat me up any hill). I got the long end of that stick...

Mine is also athletic and looks terrific in riding pants...