depending on the socio-economic climate that your shop is in, there are likely to be a lot of used 650 a/c tires floating around at LBSs. I know that they get donated to BICAS all the time b/c there are a number of smaller roadies out there who take their bikes to nice shops for tune-ups and new rubber. In towns with a lot of serious mountain biking enthusiasts I imagine that 650b tires will begin to be donated in the same manner. I think that it is a good idea to keep a sock of these around. If you can&#39;t find used ones though... swapping to 26&quot; does seem in order.<br>
On a similar thread; BICAS uses tons of 26x1 3/8&quot; wheels in both the EA3 (590 mm) and Schwinn (597 mm) sizes. It almost always means selling folks new tires ($10/each) b/c there are never decent used 26x 1 3/8&quot; tires. At the bike church we always sent all those wheels to the metal recycling, for lack of space. While it is nice to send less stuff to the furnace, most of those old schwinn wheels are such total crap that folks are back all the time with broken spokes or frozen hubs... what do your shops do? Is it better to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">reuse</span> a wheel that will serve fairly poorly and require buying new tires or <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">recycle</span>&nbsp;it to take it out of circulation? The question is rather narrow, but is, I think, emblematic of two tendencies that run through our projects... that of reusing and that of cycle-advocacy... that I think we would do well to better understand.<br>
hope all are well,<br>kyle<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 8:46 AM, Matt &lt;<a href="mailto:mattface@gmail.com">mattface@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Put 26&quot; wheels on it if you can make the brakes reach, and sell the 650b wheels on ebay or to some local geek looking to build up a Porteur bike.<div><br><div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<div>On Jul 2, 2008, at 10:19 AM, Urban Bike Project Wilmington, DE wrote:</div><br></div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">Someone at UBP on Saturday was having big problems changing out some dry rotted tires on a Schwinn MTB/hybrid that had been donated. Come to find out (after repeatedly trying to fit any size decimal or fraction 26&quot; on there) that corrosion on the rim was hiding a little stamped &quot;650B&quot; mark on it.&nbsp; The cheapest 650B tire on harris is $25 and i&#39;m not sure the bike shop we get our parts from would be any less expensive.&nbsp; The bike is in great condition other than the tires but $50 is about what we would sell it for.&nbsp; Should we swap the 650B rims for 26&#39;s? I would hate for someone to ruin a tire and have to wait a week for something to get ordered online or at a bike shop.<br>
 <br>Here&#39;s my question to the group....What do you do with perfectly usable oddball bikes/parts that aren&#39;t particularly cool or collectable?&nbsp; Think the &quot;fancy parts&quot; thread of last year but with solid stuff that sits around gathering dust...<br>
 <br>Brian<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Urban Bike Project of Wilmington<br>-a 501(c)3 non-profit bike shop-<br> 1908 N. Market Street (entrance is in the parking lot behind the building)<br>Wilmington, DE 19801<br><br>Hours:<br>
Thursday 6:30-9:00<br>Saturday 1:00-4:00<br><br></div></div>Visit us online at <a href="http://urbanbikeproject.org" target="_blank">http://urbanbikeproject.org</a> _______________________________________________<div class="Ih2E3d">
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