Mad Honk 

Once again I will say it is just a rant. Last night I took in a Trek 3500 that I spent close to seven hours doing a change over from one broken frame bike to a newer one I pulled out of the heap at the local scrap yard. It require finding a seat post and clamp to make it complete and ride-able. Wheels were true, a new headset that cost me $40, new brakes, cables and tune up. Easily a $150 bike. The shift supervisor asked me if I wanted to work on the bike, and I replied it was a donation. His response was that I should move it out of the shop with other bikes going to the recycling yard. So I guess that the mindset is: even good and sale-able bikes are just something to be discarded.
As for my original comments, the recycling yard is a five block drive down the street from the co-op. It takes very little effort to haul the junk there and they will even unload it for you. So not a bunch of problems with the offer, but I won't get into a urination contest with the co-op. I will step aside on this one. Smiles, MH

squirtdad

have you ever worked at co-op or bike charity? this is not minimal work it is a lot of work and they have to worry about liability etc.. and there are upfront costs with no guarantee of return. 500 bikes is a lot just transporting them would mean renting a truck and multiple trips.

Dave Mayer

I volunteer several times a week at a high-volume Big-city bike Co-op. We get lots of academic institutions and building managers, and even commercial bike shops wanting us to pick up lots of bikes. Invariably, there are no commercially valuable bikes in the lot, only occasionally salvageable parts, and the (small) metal value of the alu and steel. This takes a fair amount of work to separate the two, and remove the rubber and plastics.

As far as hidden treasures in these lots: ...as if. These bikes have been first screened by the folks which is discarded them, thieves, the donor program administrators, etc. There is nothing of value here, just ancient, rusted-out department store crap.

The real reason for the donation: the donors are too lazy to haul them to the dump.

Mad Honk 

Squirt Daddy,
Yes I have, in fact I sat on the key-holders board of this co-op for 18 months or more and was there at the request of other board members. I also understand the liability issues, and a lot of others like the fact that this co-op gets a blind eye from the city on occupancy and fire regulations. Yes this rant is about lack of foresight by current board members. The University offered an option for me to take a single pick-up load at two week intervals so as not to overwhelm the Bike Project, which would likely be an ongoing thing. My dollars spent for the transport, and the Universities dollar to load them up every two weeks. Who knows, maybe they will find that elusive Team Miyata in this lot of bikes. MH

Mad Honk 

hazetguy,
Yeah I remember all of the hours in production, and all of my friends who were rider extras in the movie. I'm in it somewhere but it is a past history. One of the principals at the co-op also has a poster of Team Cinzano hanging over the cash register in her own bike shop here in Bloomington. And Tom S. and I often joke about the pedal installation scene. He was given a three year suspension from coaching last year for daring to question the young guns on the IUSF board. Makes me kinda glad I stepped away after ten years of working for the IUSF as chief mechanical steward, and another eight as a coach of some really good teams. Those years of Little 500 were pretty special back in the day, but I'm just another old guy these days. The university gets all of the race bikes donated to them from sponsors each year and they sell them to the teams for a profit, and many are just discarded after the race. It isn't as special as when I rode the race in 1970, it is now just a commercial operation designed to get $. Kinda sad but, it is the current situation. Smiles, MH

Wilfred Laurier

My experience with co-ops is that the limiting resource is person-power. There are an infinite number of junk and abandoned bikes in dumpsters and apt building bike rooms and left on bike racks, and each one takes a significant amount of time to evaluate, strip for recycling, or refurbish. 500 bikes could be up to a half-person-year of full-time work just to decide which are keepers and which are junkers (likely 90-95% of them), all taking time that could be spent with clients and community members walking in needing help fixing flats and broken chains, or rehabbing the odd decent or classic bike that turns up.

If you have a new co-op that is on its first few dozen donated bikes then maybe this 'nest egg' could get things rolling, but if the org is established that number of bikes sounds unworkable.

Wilfred Laurier

The co-op where I used to volunteer always had a shortage of bikes going out the door, but a glut of bikes coming in and being tossed into the pile for later evaluation and/or (most often) disposal. The limiting factor was the number of volunteers available to refurb the bikes once they were earmarked for such.

JonathanGennick 

Wait. What? Is there something about that scene? Making a mental note now to watch the movie again.....

Mad Honk 

Jonathan,
The sound effects in that movie are really what makes it work well! You will never listen to Rossinni the same way again! And you have no idea how many hours were put in with a microphone held close to the rear stays at the deraileur to get that characteristic noise of chain drive for the sound department. "Momma, The Italians are coming!" Smiles, MH

Mad Honk 

Jonathan,
The pump through the front wheel was a stunt double scene that took a bunch of takes and a lot of tumbling. Anyone who ever rode in the" Little Five Hundred" knows the feeling of being put down on their right shoulder in a multi-bike crash. I still have cinders in my right shoulder from the track.
But again, the thread has wandered off course. Smiles, MH

Andrew R Stewart 

I have third party association with "Breaking Away". I lived in Chicago as the movie was in early release, working in Cyclery North as a fledging builder. We were invited to the local bike community's pre release showing of the film. What an experience! Watching a movie with 300 of your cycling buddies, a movie about our passion and our coming about in life. The cat calls were loud at the "artistic licence" riding moments as was the sucking in of air when that pump went into the spokes.

Is it time to close this thread down? The OP led out with a claimed rant and we followed with out initial best intentions. As the OP has offered more history we have learned that both the situation is negotiated to a seemingly agreeable result and that the OP is far more experienced at this stuff then initially led to think. My feelings is at this point there's no new learning from this thread. Except that with more initial disclosure and with better reading between the lines we won't be so confrontational. Andy

Bike Jedi

Actually, I don't think you realize how valuable this thread actually is. I have been lurking for a long time, think about co-op's a lot, and don't often see conversations like this on the different forums I visit. This is actually one of the most insightful threads I have read in a long time, even the back and forth of opinions. whatever took place, there is a wealth of information in here for those of us who don't know what it is like to walk in those shoes, think about, and process. In fact, there should be MORE conversations surrounding topics like this. There is actually a lot more in here than meets the eye for other folks.

Thanks for bringing this stuff up.

3alarmer 

... that's a good one, Andy. A real zinger.

squirtdad

@Mad Honk thanks for update.....and clarification on co op participation. No disrespect wan intended, I just had not got a feel that you understood the work involved from previous posts. I was speaking from my experience with a local bike charity. It was a lot of work to get 200+ bikes out of the founders back yard (with his smiling wife watching) to the the first brick and mortar location.

wedgeSG

I agree that this thread has been incredibly useful. I flip a few bikes, and wished that I had acquired some of these insights long ago. More times than I care to count - I’ve driven for hours, paid out purchase, fuel, and time costs in hope of finding a buildable specimen. More often than not, I do well to break even after sitting on the nicest one for too long...if it ever sells at all. Today, I still follow that trend, but with a much more jaundiced eye. To say that “the free bike will wind up being the most expensive” couldn’t be more true. Recently started on an old Trek cro-mo hardtail. By the time it’s complete, (was only useable bike out of a truckload of 7), the only options are either keep it, or sell it at a loss to attempt some retrieval of investment. The rest were donated to an individual - simply because I couldn’t bring myself to invest any additional time in stripping parts from the also included ones. As the OP has made clear, associate yourself for very long and the bikes find you. At this point, set the terms to suit your needs: since it’s the recipient that’s doing the favor here. If it doesn’t work out, doubtful the deal won’t get suddenly sweeter, or others will present themselves.

Mad Honk 

Wil,
I think there is always going to be a glut of junk involved with co-ops that take donations. While on the board there I always insisted on taking everything brought in. Even unicycles, and 12"coasters. The policies are liberal; kids bikes are free to parents who bring the kid in or request one for a kid. Parts are free for anyone willing to look through the boxes of parts on the walls. (those parts were all put into bins placed by the local Fastenal company, and sorted by type). Wheels are free, used tyres and tubes are free, and there is an earn a bike program that requires one three hour shift of volunteer work. The parts that are sold are cheap, $4 for any tube, $1 for any cable, and $.50 for housing. New parts were wholesale plus 15%, tires and seats etc.
In this co-op (with the earn a bike program) there should be more than enough labor to make things work. I suspect more organization and better management control might help, but I am no longer on that board. Smiles, MH

Mad Honk 

Squirt Daddy.
The first time I took two senior co-op folks to an apartment complex to pick up 60 bikes, they thought it would take multiple trips to load the donated bikes and get them to the co-op. I demonstrated to them how to load thirty donations on the back of one full sized pickup truck, and turned the job into two trips. A pre-sort yielded thirty bikes that went straight to recycling avoiding any other work by the co-op. JMHO that good work practices make work less traumatic. Now remind me who it was that said: Opportunity isn't recognized because it is dressed in work clothes and looks like it takes some effort.
Smiles, MH

Mad Honk 

Ok, Andy, SD, and 3alarmer,

Tonight I got another of those calls from a senior member at the co-op asking me to bring a trailer so they could clean up the co-op! Go figure!
I'm not at all excited about the frantic call, but understand that this senior member hasn't been involved for at least three months. And with this I also understand that he agrees with me about getting rid of junk bikes. So off I go to do a Purge of junk bikes.... Thirty five bikes and four trash bins of parts to the recycle shop on the morrow on my pick up. And about thirty kids bikes after that tomorrow. Out of the bikes they decided to throw out, one Schwinn mixte bike could be salvaged. But the rest had mainly one or two pieces to save. So I will let you know what the current value of junk prices are after I unload them. A simple purge like this opens up a lot of room in the 2500 SF shop they have, but it is hard to overcome the hoarders in the system. More to come........ Smiles, MH

3alarmer 

...besides being the "donations" guy at mine, I eventually became the only person who would throw anything away. It was not too long after that that I moved on to other endeavors.

What's weird is that I'm kind of a bike parts hoarder out in my garage, and I definitely have more bicycles than any one person needs. But I only keep stuff that can be used, and I'm pretty fastidious about categorizing and zip tying the stuff I keep so I can find it when I need it. There's this unfixable situation at many co-ops where they figure they'll get people with zero experience to do all the stripping and parting out. So to those people, it all looks the same. And the idea that you'll need all the small parts from stuff like brake sets or derailleurs in order to use them again is a foreign notion. They just get into a rhythm of taking stuff apart, and once it's apart, the various pieces end up all over the damn place.

It really requires someone knowledgeable to be doing oversight and purging on a weekly basis, and some instruction for the dismantlers on just how to save stuff.

But having done it for a few years, it ain't gonna be me. I gave at the office.

Mad Honk 

Yeah,
I found a double Shimano crank set complete with the bottom bracket in the junk today. I remember zip tying the arms together and the special bottom bracket with it so it could be re-used. The left arm had been pilfered and the crank and BB became junk. Go figure..... MH

BTW, the junk from the project was $46 and some change for 1 and 1/2 pickup loads. This was all processed as bailer scrap.