punkinevil

Today was a toasty 53 degrees, so I had no choice but to take advantage and go out for a spin. At one point, another rider went zipping past me heading in the opposite direction... and in that blink of an eye, I realized he was riding my old bike that I had traded this past August. It was the yellow Schwinn Caliente that I got new in 1988, so I am intimately familiar with it. I just found it very unsettling to see someone else on my bike, especially in a city this size with this many bikes. Is this the same feeling as seeing your ex (who you dumped) out with another guy?

Cache

I keep a video archive so I can relive the good times. Same thing for bikes.

zukahn1 

I regularly see a half dozen or so of the nicer bikes I have fixed up sold being riden around in my niegborhood and it doesn't bother me. I actually like seeing them used rather than sitting away someplace neglected.

John E

I had the opposite experience on a slightly drizzly ride through Rancho Santa Fe. I passed a gentleman, started chatting with him, and said, "This [my mountain bike] is my inclement weather bike." He replied, "I know -- I sold it to you."

Yes, one his commute home after a 12-hour shift, I had just met up with the San Diego firefighter from whom I had bought my Team USA red-white-and-blue Schwinn mountain bike three years prior. I also frequently see the near-neighbor who gave me the Bianchi, but that hardly counts.

coolkat

I was at a Goodwill recently, and they had a little-kid's bike I had donated to a different Goodwill about a year ago.

obrentharris 

Yesterday, at the start of the first of the Grasshopper Adventure Series rides in Occidental, California I ran into the young man who bought the Rock Lobster tandem that my wife and I rode for about twenty years. Seeing him and the tandem and his girlfriend really made my day! They had converted it from drop bars to uprights, replaced the cantilevers with v-brakes, and added a rear rack. It was really gratifying to see the bike that we had loved so much being ridden and treated with such care by its new owners!

Here it is when we owned it:



Brent

DIMcyclist

Actually, I'm kinda proud when it happens.

I occasionally see the person to whom I sold my old Fuji zipping around the neighborhood, and find myself quite pleased that she's still riding it three years later. Further, that with the exception of a rear rack & a much nicer wheelset, it's virtually unchanged in terms of its basic set-up: I did the final build to her spec (since I have plenty of extra parts on hand), and she still enjoys it every bit as much as I ever did.



I've also spotted my old black Trek in the wild, but only parked & locked up; not with it's new owner.

Both bikes seem to be well-cared-for and well-ridden, which leads me to think I passed them on to just the right people.

look171

I had a carbon bike call ICE (innovate cycles engineering) that was custom painted by JB. I sold the bike to a mtb rider. about 5-6 years later, I see some women loading it on top of her car at the Rosebowl. I was walking with my very pregnant wife, so we stopped by to see if its real. I told her it was my bike at one time and now it great to see it again. She got really upset, defensive and said she bought it from her doctor and it was brand new due to fitment issue. without saying anything more, I see JB's sig on the chain stay, and scuff makrs on the seat tube where I kick out of my pedals. Yes, I am weird, I kick out inward often. Some scratches were still there that I created when I had the bike. I smiled and went off on our walk. She seem to be still pissed off as we were going away. What are the chances in a large city like LA to see your old bike again. I even see my old truck and an old car I used to own once or twice around the neighborhood. Scary.

DIMcyclist

Funny how that works...

I sorta had the opposite experience last fall when I dropped by a bike shop in Salem and chatted for a while with the original owner of my Torelli; just shooting the breeze, swapping ride-stories about the bike, & drooling over a minty old Merckx Strada OS frameset they acquired earlier that week.

Duane Behrens

And they got their bikes from the right sort of fellow. Bump.

EddyR

I have been a bike flipper for a long time and have sold many hundreds of bikes around Charlotte NC. I get people coming up to me all the time and saying I sold you my bike, do you remember me? I have sold some very large bikes and I see those people a lot because we go to the same places. It is not hard to pick out those 6'6" guys. I live way out in the country so I don't see my old bikes very ofter. I did see one at the WS bike show last year.

David Newton

I was at a vintage motorcycle rally, and an old fellow made a couple of comments about my BSA. He wandered away, and a lady, his wife, came up and told me that my bike used to be his, bought new. I chased the guy down, it turned out he was a legendary mechanic, and we talked all weekend about this, and his other bikes.
It was a great experience.

CroMo Mike 

My son had his bike stolen on campus. A few weeks later he saw it chained to a bike rack on the same campus. It was easy to recognize because we had done a lot of work on it and changed several components. Guess who got their bike back.

RobbieTunes

I have the same experience with ex-wives, and they're often signaling that I'm still #1 .

gomango

Kidd69

I was going to play golf with brother about twenty five years ago. I had purchased two matching Takara bicycles. They were stolen from my carport. We rounded the corner and there was a kid on my wife's bike. I stopped, knocked him off the bike and told him this was my bike. He started running and I never caught him. I did get one of the bikes back however.

jimmuller 

I fully expect that one day someone will recognize a bike I'm riding as once belonging to him.

arex

I have trouble selling old vehicles, simply because I know it's gonna weird me out to see someone else driving it.

punkinevil

I guess I more surprised at myself for feeling anything. I would have thought that I wouldn't care at all, since I never really liked that bike...even owning it for 25 years. I suppose the difference is I have always been bike-monogamous. Of course when I was a kid, we just had the family hand-me-down bikes (including a green 60s stingray, if memory serves), but it wasn't until I was around 12 or 13 when I got my own, albeit used Varsity. I would still have that bike today if it hadn't been stolen when I was 21. That next bike, the one I saw, was mine from the age of 21 until I was 46. Maybe I would feel different if I had gone through more of them, or had more than one at a time.

Pompiere

I haven't had to worry about that, the last 3 vehicles I traded in were more likely headed to the scrap yard than the used car lot.

hairnet

Somewhat related. When I was a small child my father sold his yellow painted Jeep Grand Wagoneer, which I loved. Sometimes I see that it being driven around the city and a couple years ago I came across a house with the Jeep in the driveway. It always stirs up warm vague memories and impressions.

bobotech

I have seen bikes that I fixed up at my co-op rolling around but they weren't mine.

I really don't flip bikes but I did sell one recently to the cashier at the gas station near my house. Cashier's name is Joe and he is a nice guy. WHen my son and I rol up to get our drinks after a ride, he always asks about our bikes. He rides his bike daily to work even in winter and snow and ice. He was riding a horrifying wallyworld MGX faux suspension mountain bike like this:


Weighs like 40+ pounds, had a BB that was missing all the bearings, shocks that didn't much of anything other than add lots of play to frame at the pivots, no brakes, shifting was next to non-existent, nasty broken grip shifters, etc. And the bike was a typical smaller frame and the guy is like 6'2" with a 34" inseam. And he rode it daily from home to work and home. 10+ mile round trip.

So I am moving and remembered I have this Diamondback Outlook XL frame that I fixed up a year ago to sell (never got around to it). Typical entry level LBS quality bike. Fork wasn't anything special but I put nice v-brakes on it, deore thumb shifters, deore derailleurs, nice FSA crankset, decent quality true double wall wheels with freehub rear wheel, all new cables, etc. I sold it to him for 40 dollars which is probably around what I had into it. NOw everytime I see him, he can't stop gushing about how awesome his new bike is. How light it is. How he no longer has to stand to pedal, he can just relax and pedal, how much better it is in the snow/ice, how he can stop finally, etc. I was actually going to just give it to him but he insisted on paying for it.

So I really enjoy seeing that bike being used as a daily driver and the appreciation from the owner.

SJX426 

When I was in high school in Hawaii, I purchased my first car, a'56 Chevy 4dr with a 265 and stick on the column. It had rust issues, so I learned how to do body repair and the futility of rattle can paint with rubbing compound follow up for months! 3 years later I was working in Hawaii doing construction after my first year in college. On the way to the airport at the end of the summer, I looked in a parking lot and guess what! There was my 56 with the same rust pattern on the door!!

Having lived in a lot of locations around the world growing up, there wasn't much chance of running into something I once owned. Now I'm on the east coast so I won't be seeing anything but family that is familiar except a few places where I grew up.

Ramona_W

I haven't had this experience but something similar did help me decide which bike I wanted to keep. Two 1995 Treks became available: an 820 and an 830. I was immediately drawn to the 820. Part of the attraction was technical- perfect slope on the top tube, the reach was right, etc- but other things I couldn't pin down as readily. I rode it around town a little and created a few memories and it made me smile to see it standing there amongst other bikes. But everybody told me that the 830 would be the bike to have because it had a better frame so I tried very hard to like it. I swapped bars and stems and got it pretty much dialed in to fit me and put the 820 out for sale. And, as so often happens when you put a bike up for sale, someone came to take it for a test ride. The thing is though, the whole time he was looking it over, adjusting the saddle height, going around the block, I kept thinking "That's my bike! That guy is riding my bike! What the heck?!" He decided he'd have to mull it over and come back a different day and I'm telling you I had the price tag off that bike so darned fast. We put fenders on the 830 and a woman bought it soon after. She brought it in last week for some 30 day adjustments and even though I'd ridden that bike too, I felt nothing for it. On the other hand, the 820 gets parked in the bedroom quite a bit- small apartment- and I still smile and give it an affectionate pat on the saddle when I pass through.

PS I just reread this post and realized I sound nuttier than the Christmas cheeseball. But maybe this is a good place to share that kind of emotion without getting locked up.

RALEIGH_COMP 

Just going to places that I haven't been for a while, can sometimes create similar feelings for me too. The park that I usually end up at on rides is the park that i always went to as a kid. Now taking my daughter there to play, definitely gives me some odd feelings. A bit of feeling older, maybe some longing for the old days; and just the recognition of where you've been, how long its been, whatever you were going through at the time (good or bad).