The scrapping of old bikes ! *****YIKES *****

[Ian Raleigh]

What do you reckon chaps ?

My Son has got a job working in an industrial unit which buys and sorts out any metals, i know the scrap business is booming
but christ you should see what comes and goes through this buisness, my Son see's on average 50 bikes a day stripped and broken
up many which are mountain bikes and just lately he's spotting good retro road bikes going through, the stuff you see in the back
of a garage and lost and the owners not giving it a thought if they are actually worth far more than giving it to the bloody scrap man.

Today my Son came home with some real goodies... a pair of road racing wheels and in my eyes were worth a bomb !
Campag' hubs/stainless steel spokes/mavic GP4 complete with rotted tubs/Regina CX block.
Full set of high quality spanners 2mm right up to 30mm, still in their un-used packaging.
Pair of really mint MTB wheel-set including mint foldable tyres,really filthy but after a wash he swapped them over onto his MTB...lol

I've told him if he spots anything that says Campag on the equipment he's to put it to one side.

Two weeks ago an old chap died and his widow phoned the scrap dealer and he collected 20 vintage road bikes,
my Son tried to stop the gaffer from breaking the bikes up but didn't succeed he just un-bolted and threw
steel frames into the 'steel bin' and alloy parts into the 'alloy bin' my Son spotted that every bike was high quality but did his gaffer give a shit ? No he didn't.

Why are some people so stupid to throw these things away ? Ebay the things :roll:

 

[biggs682]

does not surpise me at all

 

[half cog]

Now you have really got me going.Here in Yorkshire all the local skip sites are contracted out and they are not allowed to let anyone take anything off the site. Before that happened I got a 1957 limited edition Carlton grand prix from one of them.Chrome ends and nervex pro lugs. A real beauty. Today that would have been scrapped for a couple of pounds worth of metal. Consider all the lost time and energy that went in to making it . Its not saving the planet. Its not recycling. Its sheer mindless vandalism that is going on.I am willing to bet that it also applies to other things as well.How many antiques are being dumped and broken up. items of furniture that someone could find a home for. These people are destroying our heritage in the name of being green. Many of these items can never be replaced.Rendering any usable item back to scrap is a retrograde step and diminishes the worlds assets.Sadly it is convenient so they wave the green flag and tell you that they are saving the planet. More a case of a quick buck with little effort. Sickening.

 

[rocky ridge]

and most of theese old bikes that havnt been serviced for years and have knackered tyres and cables
WOULD STILL RIDE BETTER THAN THE AVERAGE HALFORDS BIKE
its criminal and not economical to not sell things to people who are willing to pay for them

 

[Spokesmann]

I thought this thread was about damaging paintwork, now I find its about SCRAPPING and not SCRAPING.

 

[Johnsqual]

It's not even properly in line with green principles: the idea
is Reduce, Re-use, and only then Recycle. How do people get these
contracts if they don't understand something basic like that? Oh,
political corruption, that explains it...

In Belgium and the Netherlands, they have programmes where people
who can't find jobs are employed to repair bikes that are then loaned out to students or to poor people. At least that way the bikes aren't scrapped.

Johnny

 

[Jonny69]

Generally people don't want old bikes. They only want £1000+ carbon bikes on the cycle to work scheme, with cleats, shoes and full lycra gear, under the impression that you need a minimum of that to commute two miles?

Shame to see the oldies get minced.

 

[was8v]

The scrap man doesn't care, they are usually pretty astute business men: It would take him a lot of time to learn about old bikes, time to clean them up, time to photograph and list them on ebay, time to deal with customer service and refunds etc.

Why bother? He got it for nowt, a 2 min strip down and chuck it in the right bin earns him his expected profit. Your son faffing about thinking about old bikes is time he should be spending working.

Get your son to work out what the average profit there is in the bike for the scrap man - get him to keep an eye out and offer them a bit more cash. Cash will hopefully talk to the scrap man!

Hopefully he will be inundated with more bikes and together you can start a classic bike recycling business....Maybe the scrap man will buy into it!

 

[Johnsqual]

Generally people don't want old bikes. They only want £1000+ carbon bikes on the cycle to work scheme, with cleats, shoes and full lycra gear, under the impression that you need a minimum of that to commute two miles?

Shame to see the oldies get minced.

Maybe the mentality is different here, but the scheme is very popular, especially with students. And I think the market for older bikes is getting better in the UK. This site exists, after all...

 

[hamster]

The scrap man doesn't care, they are usually pretty astute business men: It would take him a lot of time to learn about old bikes, time to clean them up, time to photograph and list them on ebay, time to deal with customer service and refunds etc.

Why bother? He got it for nowt, a 2 min strip down and chuck it in the right bin earns him his expected profit. Your son faffing about thinking about old bikes is time he should be spending working.

Get your son to work out what the average profit there is in the bike for the scrap man - get him to keep an eye out and offer them a bit more cash. Cash will hopefully talk to the scrap man!

Hopefully he will be inundated with more bikes and together you can start a classic bike recycling business....Maybe the scrap man will buy into it!

Quite - once he sees that he can get more from them than the metal value...

Alternatively, your pal needs to buy them off him for more than the metal value and then resell.