trail_monkey

I posted a couple times yesterday regarding some old beaters I scavenged to make one bike out of for my wife. So 4 miles away from me lived a gentleman and his wife who had a program where people donated used toys and bikes. Everything was free. People were encouraged to come over and get a bike for their kids or themselves. Often times people would take parts off one bike to fix another. He'd been doing this for years! To say he has quite an accumulation is an understatement. Everything is outdoors exposed to the elements. He has a couple acres of old bikes laying around. This is where I found my 85 Panasonic DX 3000 a few years ago that I restored. I found a Trek road bike and fixed it up for a friend. We found some 60s Schwinns that were beat up badly and made good garden art. This place has been picked pretty clean of the good stuff. Most of what's left are old dept store bikes from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I got to admit it's cool seeing an old seized up Mossberg 10 speed. Never knew they used to make bikes. Anyways the fella recently passed and his widow is cleaning house. The program is finally at an end. I find myself wanting to dig deeper in case there are any pieces worth anything before it's too late. I know there are a couple old bikes with solid ashtabula cranks that have internal geared rear hubs. But I don't know if the bikes were cheap bikes in the day or decent. Is any internal geared hub worth grabbing or are there cheaper ones that are better left to the trash pile?

Charles Wahl

My counsel: avoid getting into hoarding if you can help it; it is a sickness, even if relatively benign compared to others. If you live with others, it's an imposition on their lives too -- speaking from experience here, and I am guilty of it.
But, whatever floats your boat.

rhm

Sturmey Archer hubs have their fans. The usual model (AW) is durable and reliable and people often need spare parts for them; so, in general, worth picking up. A lot of the less common models are more desirable. Any Sturmey Archer hub with an aluminum shell is worth picking up. So... yeah, grab the Sturmey Archer hubs and related parts if possible.

The same probably goes for Fichtel & Sachs hubs, but you won't see so many of those. You'll probably see a lot of Shimano ones... it's hard to work up much enthusiasm about those, though.

trail_monkey

Well I shouldn't have worded things that way. I'm actually not a hoarder. I throw more stuff away than I save and usually regret it later. My dad was a hoarder and I refuse to be that way. But it was a term I was just using in a general sense for my topic. basically I was wondering if any of these internally geared hubs were worth getting on their 26-in wheels in case I ever wanted to throw something together in the future. I didn't want to go collect some hubs that were known garbage and not equivalent to one of the better quality ones. I know I seen one over there the other day and the cable was frozen but I assume if I cut the cable the hub itself would still work internally. I have no idea what brand it was.

rustystrings61 

In addition to @rhm's sage advice above, maybe keep an eye peeled for SunTour derailleurs, in particular the V and Vx models. Lots of those were used as replacements because they were relatively inexpensive, and they're still very fine units and worth rescuing before they become scrap metal. The same goes for their ratcheting shifters. You might see an old Shimano 600 or two, as well - those were once relatively inexpensive and were also used as replacements for Delrin Simplex Prestige units that failed.

Good hunting!

trail_monkey

There was tons of sun tour derailleurs there at one time. I'll have to look. But all of the sun tour and Shimano derailleurs I have found were built into the cheap derailleur hanger that had the little 9 mm hex nut that held it into the horizontal drop out. I get confused as to what was quality back then compared to today? I know that certain derailleur configurations and even the cheap Ashtabula cranks are usually an indication of a cheap department store bike. But yet you see some of these really old Schwinns running ashtobola cranks so I don't know where to differentiate. I've also seen several old Raleigh bikes in this pile a few years ago that had sun tour derailleurs that were built on the cheap derailleur hanger. To my untrained eye I assumed that was a cheaper bike since it didn't have the hex nut to unscrew the derailleur from the hanger. Those raleighs have been taken by someone else unfortunately so they are not there anymore.

rustystrings61 

Okay, so you will need to take a wrench to loosen the claw adapter from the dropout. Even high-quality derailleurs were often fitted to the adapter claws, because there were many, many fine bikes built that did NOT have an integral derailleur eye as part of a forged dropout - those came later. Even Campagnolo derailleurs were often fitted to adapter claws, because plain horizontal dropouts allowed the use of different derailleurs in the years before everyone standardized on the Campagnolo pattern we all use today. Simplex had integral forged dropouts with their own unthreaded, bolts through from the inside setup, and Huret had a threaded one that requires the use of an adapter because the shoulder (?) is at 4 o'clock instead of 7 o'clock - and then there were other systems before then that are now long gone.

Anyway, the SunTour V-GT Luxe and its cousins are ALL good rear derailleurs, whether used with adapter claws or not.

BFisher

Definitely don't hoard, but it is nice to have a good selection of spares on hand. Figure out what you like/want and grab an extra few.

trail_monkey

Wow thank you for that information! I just knew in modern times that any good quality bike had a derailleur without a claw adapter. I wasn't aware that back in the day the high quality stuff used the claw adapter. Thank you so much for clarifying all this for me. there's probably just as many old Shimano derailers as there is sun tour on these bikes.

Dave Mayer

I volunteer at a high-volume, big-city bike Co-op. Want to cure yourself of hording? Then volunteer at a similar Co-op. Yesterday we had several bikes come in as donations, including a fully-functional $2,000 E-bike that was basically abandoned by a lady who could no longer ride. She could have sold it, but liked the shop and its volunteers. Plus we had many bags of tires, wheels and parts to sort through prior to sale. Yes, there were many decent Suntour derailleurs in the pile, plus Campy stuff.

I used to have a big stash of old bike stuff including Superbe Pro, Record, Dura-Ace etc. I purged and donated most of that to the shop a few years ago. I no longer want to hang onto anything that I am not riding. Good riddance.

trail_monkey

I've actually done the same thing. A year ago I purged a bunch of stuff and threw away about six aluminum chain rings from old sakae crank sets. Now I wished I had one of them for this project I'm working on. You can't win for losing

shelbyfv

I wouldn't bother with it. Low end old stuff is still low end, old doesn't make it any nicer or more interesting.

Hudson308 

Sounds like some people in the know have already picked this pile over long ago. I agree it would be worth it to go through once more and pull out the remaining Suntour derailleurs, S-A hubs, high flange hubs, thumb shifters and forged aluminum cranks. Suntour didn't make much junk. They made some heavy derailleurs sure, but even those shifted very well.

scarlson 

Nothing wrong with a little light junk collection, don't let people stigmatize! KonMari your life and you'll find you soon need some of that junk that didn't "spark joy" for you in some moment of death-cleaning-rampage. Then the commercial industrial complex dictates you must either rent or buy from robber baron Jeff Bezos. Better yet, pay him for some premium digital content and don't bother at all with earthly things. Feel zen yet? Or just discouraged? It turns out you can learn a lot from owning an object.

Junk ownership is a spectrum, and yes there's some sickness to be found at both extremes. There's satisfaction to be found in clutter. It's just not currently in vogue. Free yourself a little bit from wage slavery and the capitalist machine through junkpile ownership! And treat the so-called hoarder kindly. Lots of people getting labeled hoarders who shouldn't be (including me). It isn't a problem if it doesn't hurt anyone else.

Cougrrcj

I never had any problems with my early '70s Sears Free Spirit w/Shimano 3-speed. In fact, I preferred it to the S-A, because setting the shift cable was easier! The S-A had an annoying trait of having a null space between 2-3 that caused be to just about neuter myself on several occasions.

Those Shimano 3-speeds made great winter-beaters!!!

Nemosengineer 

It's not hoarding if you just collect the good stuff.

Miele Man

Hoarding? Or preparing for the future when some of those parts might be really scarce and in high demand?

Back around 2014 I came across a small bicycle shop just outside of another city near me. They were selling a lot of NOS stuff really cheap because there wasn't much demand for it. I was able to stock up on (hoard?) a number of NOS Uniglide cassettes and some other rare items such as Dura Ace AX brake pads.

Sometimes hoarding can be a good thing. I think I now have enough Uniglide cassettes and Dura Ace AX brake pads to last me the rest of my days.

Cheers

Miele Man

I had a CCM Golden Sabre with 3-speed Shimano hub and a twist-grip shifter. I loved that bike. Unfortunately it got stolen during a 30 seconds stop I made and didn't lock the bike.

Cheers

RobbieTunes

If it involves bikes, it's not hoarding.
It's saving, preparation, predicting, preserving, collecting, discerning, triaging, fitness accumulation, spin casting, and landfill selecting.
If there's one thing this forum can do, it's irrational rationalization.

J.Higgins 

A couple years ago, I fell in with someone who had well over 1000 bikes. All were of "decent" quality - no wallymart junk - but he still triaged his stash. He would sell off anything he didnt want, which were primarily British three-speeds and average-quality road bikes. He was into bulk-deals, and he would sell me as many bikes as I could jam into the back of my pickup for $100. If I packed them right, and used enough straps, I could get 8-10 bikes in there. I looks like a giant porcupine rolling down the road!

Soon, my affiliation with him grew my personal stash up to 60 bikes, then 100 or more. I stopped counting after a while. That massive blob of bikes in my backyard, covered with blue tarps, made me feel kind of gross inside. I realized that it was time to take action or just set back and let it become a burgeoning hoarder's leviathan. So I started dismantling.

One at a time, I brought a bike in, stripped it completely and saved anything that was worth saving. It actually took three weeks of careful and deliberate work to eliminate that awful glut of bikes on my lawn.

I think its safe to say that I have a nice repository of spare parts, everything in labeled clear-plastic totes.

Moral of the story: Get all the bikes and parts you need or want, but just don't let them sit and become home for vermin.

trail_monkey

The problem with this place over here is some of these bikes have been sitting out in the elements for years. Add to the fact that they're 1960s '70s and early '80s vintage and what you do find that might be worth salvaging a lot of times isn't worth salvaging if that makes sense. I found probably six or seven bikes or loose wheels yesterday with Shimano three-speed hubs and every one of the shifters, on a complete bike, had the plastic piece busted that the cable housing sat into. That must have been a common place to fail because they were all broke. I found three sturmey and Archer three-speed hubs and every one of them was completely seized up. I did bring one home and cut it out of the rim and tried to disassemble it in my bench vise. I got it down and it was full of rust and the bearings were corroded and it was still seized up in the planetaries. I'm pretty sure there was nothing worse salvaging in this thing. So yeah the parts are over there but most are too far gone. The majority of the Shimano three-speed rear hubs that I found actually worked. They were all the 3s hubs. I brought one home and tore it apart and it was still full of grease and in excellent shape internally. But I'm getting to the point I just can't see purchasing spokes and lacing up an old used rim with an old used hub. I just don't think it's worth the money so I don't think I'm going to mess around with it. Anything I can clean polish regrease and reuse I will do so. But if I have to spend money to put anything together I don't think I'm game.

rhm

Ironically that has been my experience with Shimano hubs as well. Easy to adjust, and smooth shifting, no problems. But if they don't work perfectly, they go in the junk pile. I wouldn't know how to fix one, and wouldn't know where to get spare parts if I did.

Kobe 

I have seen a couple of Browning's too. They were low end bikes.

You sound like a Doomsday Prepper.

curbtender

I've found when you hoard, you become the parts supplier for other people. I'd say stay with what you like and let the rest go.

Hudson308 

That seems like a reasonable strategy. Sometimes junk is just that.