My weekend of dumpster diving a closed performance bike shop
01-12-09, 07:44 PM
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My weekend of dumpster diving a closed performance bike shop
Its stealing, its recycling, its sharing, its saving the environment and more then anything it hurts like heck to see intentionally destroyed bike parts.
A few days ago the final going out of business sale finished at my local performance and a crew was brought in to put the remaining content in the trash. On saturday I went to the alley behind the shop and rescued some stuff:
a few chains that were out of their packaging
some dual sided SPD/platform pedals
2 NIB heart rate monitors
a few new and used 700c tires
a hand full of tubes
a lightly used alex 700c rear road wheel
a snowboard
some miscellaneousplywood and 2x4s
three of the heavy rubber mats used in the repair area
some random tools including a set of park bearing presses and some circlip pliers
a cateye HL-EL210 with batteries in it
some random bike computers/sensors
a big bag of performance brand socks
a few half used triflow spray cans
lots of other small things I'm forgetting
Ok, neat, so I saved a few random things that may get used. But thats nothing compared to the stuff that was intentionally destroyed. Carbon wound forks with one leg broken off. Mavic hoops and wheels that have zero brake wear and price tags but split rims and other components that were obviously not used but now unusable. I get it, company policy is to destroyed stuff so that stuff isn't reused/resold that could otherwise be sold. Its just hard to see bike parts rendered useless.
Picture this, the entire steel bike display rack was disassembled and in the trash to. I called up the owner of a bike shop I used to run and together we loaded 2/3 of the rack in and on to his subaru wagon. If that thing gets some good use in his shop I'll be glad.
A few days ago the final going out of business sale finished at my local performance and a crew was brought in to put the remaining content in the trash. On saturday I went to the alley behind the shop and rescued some stuff:
a few chains that were out of their packaging
some dual sided SPD/platform pedals
2 NIB heart rate monitors
a few new and used 700c tires
a hand full of tubes
a lightly used alex 700c rear road wheel
a snowboard
some miscellaneousplywood and 2x4s
three of the heavy rubber mats used in the repair area
some random tools including a set of park bearing presses and some circlip pliers
a cateye HL-EL210 with batteries in it
some random bike computers/sensors
a big bag of performance brand socks
a few half used triflow spray cans
lots of other small things I'm forgetting
Ok, neat, so I saved a few random things that may get used. But thats nothing compared to the stuff that was intentionally destroyed. Carbon wound forks with one leg broken off. Mavic hoops and wheels that have zero brake wear and price tags but split rims and other components that were obviously not used but now unusable. I get it, company policy is to destroyed stuff so that stuff isn't reused/resold that could otherwise be sold. Its just hard to see bike parts rendered useless.
Picture this, the entire steel bike display rack was disassembled and in the trash to. I called up the owner of a bike shop I used to run and together we loaded 2/3 of the rack in and on to his subaru wagon. If that thing gets some good use in his shop I'll be glad.
01-12-09, 07:54 PM
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Score!
It sucks to hear about the destroyed stuff though.
It sucks to hear about the destroyed stuff though.
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Recommended reading for all cyclists - Cyclecraft - Effective Cycling
Condor Cycles - quite possibly the best bike shop in London
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!
shameless POWERCRANK plug
Recommended reading for all cyclists - Cyclecraft - Effective Cycling
Condor Cycles - quite possibly the best bike shop in London
Don't run red lights, wear a helmet, use hand signals, get some cycle lights(front and rear) and, FFS, don't run red lights!
01-12-09, 10:09 PM
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A local one man shop closed and I got an LED trouble light, a 4" side wheel grinder, and his shelves. The grinder needs work.
01-12-09, 10:55 PM
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Often warrantied stuff is destroyed so that people will not dig it out of the dumpster and try to use it(Warrantied stuff is usually dmaged in a fashion that might make it unsafe) or get another warranty out of it(This used to happen all the time when we had a Performance closeout center nearby.)
01-12-09, 11:00 PM
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If I tried dumpster diving at my local Performance store I'm not sure whether I'd be able to tell the difference between the dumpster and the store.
01-13-09, 12:39 AM
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^ performance store did you say? 
It's either a really bad store, or there were some really trick parts on that dumpster...
It's either a really bad store, or there were some really trick parts on that dumpster...
01-13-09, 12:57 AM
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Stuff returned on warranty in a lot of industries isn't returned to the vendor in a lot of cases. Often, the store is told to destroy it so it can never appear again as a RMA-able item. If ever that serial number of the smashed stuff pops up, the store is likely in BIG trouble. I remember friends of mine who worked for a big box retail store having their "hardware compression" parties where various things, up to and including entire computer systems were rendered into scrap metal in various ways.
I'm sure its the same way with bike parts.
Grats on the find nontheless. That is pretty awesome.
I'm sure its the same way with bike parts.
Grats on the find nontheless. That is pretty awesome.
