jungwiar

I spent some quality time last looking at the last ~10 pages of Catch of the Day and feeling very jealous of all of the nice catches people have had in the last few months and woke up motivated to getting one for myself. I have nothing to complain about as I have scored (or had scored for me - https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...=sports+tourer) quite a few nice bikes this year including my wife's front freewheel system Schwinn, son's Trek 800 mountain bike, some flippers, etc. Still, seeing other people's good fortune made me want for another find.

Anyway, after having some inclement weather chase us home from our kids soccer games and having to take the car to get a bite to eat, I was in a rather foul mood (ok - not really, but I did want to ride from the game to go eat instead of taking the van...). Since I still had the catch of the day in the back of my mind, I took the family on a drive thru the local neighborhoods to see the sights (ok - Monday is garbage day in my neck of the woods and I was hoping). As we were approaching the turn into our neighborhood, my wife spies a bike tire (tyre in this case) sticking out from behing some old furniture. I slam on the brakes and see two matching bikes sitting out for the garbage man!!! Woo-hoo - Score!!! I quickly open the back door to the van and we shove them in. After getting them home, find two vintage English 3 speeds in remarkably good shape. One is a 1972 Triumph and the other a 1957 Philips. I back the van up, drag them out, straighten the bars, put some air in the tyres and take the kids on a very relaxing ride around the neighborhood (this time not looking into everyone's garbage so intently)...

Here they are after the ride, the ladies Philips is in excellent shape (cobwebs, dust and a little rust aside) while the gents Triumph has a broken cable stop for the S-A hub, a split grip and bent mud guard stays. Both are entirely original down to the "Made in Great Britain" Dunlop Tyres.


Sorry for being so long-winded, but it was a great way to end the weekend...

USAZorro

Nice.

Xlr8n

Nice score! Are your sure you didn't just accidentally snag two bikes that the neighbors had parked in their driveway after a Sunday ride??? Those are way too clean to be sending to the dump! Good find and Enjoy!

maureenkh

Very cool, I love the old "his and hers" matched three speed bikes. Yours look great. Enjoy getting them back to tip top shape.
Maureen

bikemeister

Nice score! It's a crying shame what people throw out these days, isn't it?

BikeManDan

I sold basically the same bike but the chainguard said Phillips and not Triumph

robatsu

Excellent find!

treebound 

I like that, don't even look at them until you get them home.

Nice find.

Milwaukee city has in the last few years implemented a Recycler's License (or verbage to that extent) making it functionally illegal to snag people's bikes and such from their garbage piles without a license.

It still happens, but you have to be expedient about it.

jungwiar

I guess I should look into if it is legal or not in Madison, but we have a pretty strong Freecycle "program" going on here so it is fairly common to see people rifling thru stuff on the curb.

I kind of overstated the not knowing until getting home - I instantly recognized the peaked fenders as being Raleigh Sports-esque and thus a worth-while to snag. We were just in and out quickly... I always get a paranoid/exhilirated feeling when I snag something out of the dumpster, so that motivates me to be quick.

txvintage

Sweet find!

I think one of those 3 speed "Gentlemen's Bikes" is getting pretty high on my want list. I'm envious!