We had a bike come in once all rusted to hell nothing unusual till we heard some of it's back story. The guy donating it had purchased it back in the 70's or 80's and road it on the road for a season or two then he put it inside to use as a trainer. He rode it every single as a trainer from that point on. There was a dust/grossness mustache on the top of both brakes; the bottom bracket was "glued together" with a mixture of rust and dried sweat juices; just for kicks took a rag out and some simple green and cleaned the headset... from the un-cleaned portion to the cleaned portion there was about a 2mm difference. Since the brakes were nice we dusted those off and took them off then the scrapper was very happy to take it off our hands.
TL;DR: bike with uber sweat caused rust is gross.

The oddest donation for the exchange of parts that I've received was bologna. 


On 29 July 2013 00:42, David Eyer Davis <davey@bicyclecollective.org> wrote:
Ahah that's priceless James, I appreciate the stories everyone. Here's the 1st draft list, still need to ID some parts:

The Anatomy of a Recycled Bicycle*

1.     Jim Blackburn front rack, donated by the Bike Collective Night Shop Manager

2.     Aluminum rack adaptors home-machined in manic frustration to 'get it to fit' 

3.     Mismatched Tektro brakes with integrated bell off a bike left on a UTA bus

4.     Nuts and bolts scavenged from broken warrantied bikes donated by Specialized

5.     Suntour friction shifters donated from a homeless volunteer’s collection

6.     Fork and riser handlebar overstock from an out-of-business shop in Park City

7.     Headset meticulously pieced together by a mechanical savant volunteer

8.     Ritchey front wheel donated on a Santana tandem, donated post divorce

9.     XTR rear wheel the sole surviving piece from a roof-rack-into-garage incident

10. Spectre stem donated from the personal collection of local pro Dave Zabriskie

11. Chainrings appeared in a mysterious bucket full of beautiful unknown bearings

12. Suntour front derailleur pulled from a bulk donation of police evidence bicycles

13. Trek 950 True Temper MTB frame pulled from a thrift store dumpster

14. Chains can be resurrected from rusty death with lubricants, but this one’s new

15. Park Tool Y Wrench- bought with a grant; the tool for most jobs

16. Toe clips go in and out of fashion, ending up in piles at Bike Collectives

17. Cables and housing: take-offs brought down in bulk from a local bike shop

18. Seat post quick-release: the one salvageable part off of a department store bike

19. Ritchey Logic mountain triple crank abandoned in favor of a compact double

20. Water bottle cages: one from a 1970’s road bike, one from a 2012 mountain bike

21. Tubes with 10 patches from Earn-A-Bike kids classes learning to fix flats

22. Brakes assembled from a cracked touring frame and a spray-painted dirt jumper

23. Vintage Shimano Deore derailleur donated by a cyclist’s husband to clear house

24. 70’s cleat-style Shimano pedals thread into the 1990’s crank with no trouble

25.  Ancient Ideale leather saddle was covered in playa dust from Burning Man

26. Quick-releases came in on brand new factory wheels with misspelled labels

27. Sakae seatpost swapped out by an Do-It-Yourself Shop customer for a longer one

28. Shimano hyperglide cassette salvaged from a ‘taco-ed’ (crashed) wheel

29. Christophe straps were the last nostalgic hold-out from a retired touring rider

30. Blackburn rear rack a take-off from a poorly executed ‘fixed-gear’ conversion

31. Tires brought in a pile from Contender Bicycles when they moved locations

32. Fenders resurrected from a bent mess, stays cobbled together from spare parts

 

*Partially true, partially mythologized, based on stories gathered from the Bicycle Collective Network



On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 1:28 AM, james bledsoe <jamesbleds0e@yahoo.com> wrote:
at the Bicycle Kitchen los angeles  we get a lotta bikes.   The santana was telling.  As the fellow donating  the complete and ready to ride tandem left the kitchen he  muttered, " my current wife won't ride it".  we have kept it and use it for social occasions  as far as i know it hasn't started any divorces.   

From: "veganboyjosh@gmail.com" <veganboyjosh@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2013 5:02 AM
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] What are your oddest part donation stories?

This looks like a very cool way to explain what community shops do. Please keep us posted as it progresses and once it's done. 

I'm also interested in the strangest donation stories.


On Friday, July 19, 2013, David Eyer Davis wrote:
Hi All, 
The Bicycle Collective here in Salt Lake has been given the opportunity to exhibit a piece in the Leonardo Center's upcoming show centered around resource conservation, it'll be a great PR/Exposure piece for collectives and is shaping up to be a lot of fun.

Our concept for the show is to do is build up a badass/utilitarian 80's MTB intentionally from as many different sourced parts as possible. The finished bike is meticulous and considered from a functional and aesthetic perspective but is a total mongrel. The bike will hang in the exhibit on an old great Park Tool stand we've had donated recently.

Behind the bike, we'll hang a full-size printout of the bike taken apart, all its parts exploded. Every part will be numbered, and correspond to a legend to the right of the picture. We're making up a narrative for the parts that typifies the Bike Collective experience: This fork came in on a crashed bike, this frame was from the police impound, this wheel from a local shop, derailers from a dusty box donated by an ex-racer, etc. We'd give the provence and era of the parts and anything significant info on them.

What we'd love from you are the oddest part stories: Where did the strangest thing from your shop come from? Who donated it? why? did they make it themselves? 

If you could forward this around your organizations and have people send us their stories at info@bicyclecollective.org I'd appreciate it.

Here're some previews of the project: 

Thanks, 
David Eyer Davis
Executive Director
Bicycle Collective

The mission of the Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.


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David Eyer Davis
Executive Director
Bicycle Collective

The mission of the Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.


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Dylan Thies
Come on I dare you
Derive me crazy

Don't be charitable because you need to be
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