Rocky Gravol

Because it was to expensive to ship them home?

I just returned home from two weeks in the Mid-coastal region of Maine.
I was helping a friend on a project.
My friend bought two Motobecans off of craigslist, for a little over $300,
a Grand and a Super Touring, for some entertainment while we were there.





Belfast Harbor in the background.

It was a little hard to justify the time and cost to ship mid-level bikes, back home,
so they were left there.

In the big picture, considering the cost of the project,
$300 for entertainment was cheap.

Has anyone else done the same thing?

Related post.
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...er-saddle.html

nlerner

Left there in someone else's possession? I like that idea of passing them along.

On another note, we just passed through Belfast on the way to and back from Deer Isle. I really like that town.

Blue Belly

I've stored bikes with relatives but never bought to drop.

Dylansbob 

I kinda did the opposite. About 10years ago, my wife and I drove from OH to MN for a job interview in St Cloud. I had a very rough trek I made into a cheapo fixed gear that I rode around for a couple of days while she interviewed. Before we left, I locked up at a bus stop with a cheap combo lock. We took a couple days getting home and when I did I put up a post here on bikeforums for a free bike to whatever member was in the area.

gomango

I bought my Rivendell Rambouillet in a small town outside of Munich, rode it for three weeks while we were there last time and left it in my BIL's basement.

They live in a small border town in Bayern near Austria.

That way I'll have a nice bike to ride in the Bavarian Alps whenever we visit.

Sure beats renting.

Rocky Gravol

That's funny.
"Just e mail for the combo"

-holiday76

yeah.

Dylansbob 

I looked it up and was surprised to see the posting was still available. Too bad I didn't think to take a pic.


https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespee...-cloud-mn.html

RobbieTunes

Not on purpose.

CliffordK

In the late 80's I bought an old bike in Italy. Rode it around for a year. Then I brought the wheels home with me and left the frame in Italy with friends.
The next trip I snagged the frame.

It has been sitting around ever since. I know where it is, and have to bring it back here sometime and take a look at it.

So, somewhere I have a classic Italian road bike with cottered cranks and a Campy "Record" (the steel one) derailleur. I don't remember the brand, but it was badged with the name of a small Parma frame builder, but I was told that it may have been rebadged which never made sense to me. I'll snag the bike again sometime and perhaps get it put back together for the first time in nearly 3 decades.

revcp 

Not bikes, but at the conclusion of a canoe trip that ended at Fort Severn on Hudson Bay, we left our three Old Town Discoveries (not my favorite canoe).

daf1009

Nope...can't say I have done anything like that...

billytwosheds 

That's my philosophy with surfboards as well. Keep one at each place you expect to visit again soon, ride your own stuff!

jetboy 

i have left bikes a few times..

1. I bought a bike off Ebay and flew into honolulu and picked it up- rode it for a month, then gave it to the friends who had let me crash on their couch. I think it was about ~$200.

2. I once again came into honolulu and found a bike laying in a ditch in Manoa- fixed it up, rode it for about 2 months.... then I put the kickstand down and left it sitting on the sidewalk the night before I left with "free" on it. crazily enough, in the morning, it was still there. but before I left for good.. it was gone.

3. it was not vacation (neither were the two above really, I was a grad student at UH working on my thesis) but I left a bike at university when I graduatedt: again, "free bike" sign and walked away. amazingly, when I came back to visit the next year for my friends graduation: I saw a guy on the bike and it was all fixed up and looking really nice - he had found it, taken it in and really done a good job restoring it. SO that made me pretty happy.

brianinc-ville

With ski gear, you can often leave stuff at a consignment shop, where they'll mail you a check when it sells. They usually give you a diminishing portion of the sales price as time goes on, until (if it doesn't sell) they take possession of it after a year or so. I've never tried that with a bike, but I bet it's an option in some places.

wrk101

Shipping cross country is not that expensive. I've been using bike flights recently, their rates are excellent.

Myriad of consignment options depending on the location.

Giving them to someone at the location? Sure, I would do that.

I bought a set of Bose 901s with an equalizer on vacation in Utah once. I was on my motorcycle. Boxed them up, mailed them home, they were waiting for me when I got there. Just carrying them to the post office was challenging. But I just couldn't pass on a deal.

Vacation by car = always bring bikes, bike stuff, and other finds home. Even when I drove the Miata to Key West, I brought two road bikes home.


Looks like a Rolls saddle on the second one.

SchwinnMechanic

No but I wish I had. In 2001 I rented 10 bikes for a week on Nantucket for my family (5 kids) and visiting friends. The tab was $2800 - almost as much as the rental house. I could have bought beach bikes at Walmart for half that and left them. Next time...

oddjob2

I bought the 1985 Prelude last month in Palm Beach. It needs an overhaul, new tires, a saddle change. It will hang in a PB garage for me to ride when I visit friends.

jcoll003

Not vacation, but last time I was in DC doing some work at the NMNH, I bought a bike off of CL to commute back and forth from up around N street where I was staying for a few weeks. It was an 80's Univega in an awful pinkish color. Kind of funny - that was the summer of the Mineral earthquake. All of the federal buildings evacuated with everyone all out on the mall. I'd forgotten about that bike. It was kind of beat, but it zipped me to and from the Smithsonian in a fraction of the walk time.

I didn't pay much for it and I passed it on before leaving - left it in a bike rack near the capital. Wonder where it wound up.

randyjawa 

Last year, while driving across Canada and then on to my trip to the islands, I...

Bought the Peugeot Thunder Bay, Canada and left it in Jamaica...



Bought the Marinoni in British Columbia, rode it in the Rockies for two weeks and then sold it in Winnipeg...



Bought the Jamis in Winnipeg, rode it for a week or two, and sold it in Winnipeg...



Got the Mercier in Winnipeg and brought it home, to Thunder Bay...



Just starting to prepare for this year's trip to the islands with my new best bud, an alloy Bianchi with gears galore...

Cougrrcj

In Feb of 2014, I bought a nice Miyata 712 off Craigslist when I was out in Phoenix visiting my elderly mother... She drove me to go see it, and I rode it the 40 miles back to her place. I rode it maybe another hundred miles or so that week, then left it in her garage for the next time I go there to visit.

smontanaro 

In February, we vacationed in the Sarasota area (me, my wife, her best friend). I bought three bikes from Tampa CL. We donated a no-name three-speed Ellen used to a church thrift shop. The folder Carol used got boxed up and shipped back on the plane (no charge, though the baggage guy said, "I should charge you $75 for this"). The Trek 510 I had serendipitously purchased from BF member @zebede got shipped back via bikeflights.com. It's still hanging in the garage. Lacking my normal packing materials, I didn't pack it all that well, and the front wheel got a bit dinged up.