weirdest bike find ...

[2manyoranges]

OK this should flush out some oddities.

The weirdest bike find I have experienced is friend Ant, who found a Dynatech ti frame in a hedge along a small country lane in Sussex. Obviously had been there for ages. In his size. He built it up into a great bike which he rode hard for years. Weird.

On a more urban note, I found a very early Cannondale SM800 frame leaning against a lamppost in Sarf London. Originally the pre-90 white frame with red graphics. It had been roughly sprayed matt black and was very very sad. Just the frame. It was there for months, seized BB and all. So after someone had kicked around a bit I took it in, removed the seized BB carefully, and built it up into a fast urban hack bike. Then Karma'd it on here when we moved out of the smoke. Lovely thing.

Oh...and then a friend once went to the tip in Rottingdean to dump a load of metal. His dump-radar immediately spotted in the pile of bike frames a curly-lug Hetchins. Perfect. Just sad. 'Can I take that?' he asked. Sure said the tip guys. Result.

 

[mattbrown]

Re:

Found a BMX down an embankment of a dual carriage way mid early nineties. Was hand painted black, and wasn't too far away from my local village so I hadn't heard anyone had had theirs stolen. I remember had a tioga chainset (once piece crank), and twin top tubes. Aero type forks as well I think.

Best tip find has got to be a jump bike with fully working Marzocchi MXC forks and a full set of Magura HS11 brakes amongst other things.

 

[2manyoranges]

blimey you did well with the jump bike. Which frame and forks?

 

[Hotwheels.]

Re: Re:

Best tip find has got to be a jump bike with fully working Marzocchi MXC forks and a full set of Magura HS11 brakes amongst other things.

That belonged to a guy that worked at the tip, he couldn’t get home that night.

 

[2manyoranges]

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....ah ha! So speaks someone who has not ridden a jump bike to the local post office ... if you needed to ride a jump bike more than 200 metres you too would leave it at the dump in disgust ....

 

[mynchiboy]

Re:

I've always been a little unlucky finding bike related stuff by chance. I still have my full Titanium Raleigh bought a few years back for the princely sum of £30.. seller thought it was a Rockhopper, but I knew different

The one that still burns me to this day however was a Raleigh Aero Burner (the top end one with the curved arayas and oval tubing). It was all complete but covered in cobwebs and dumped with the trash outside a town house in Notting Hill, around the corner from where I worked at the time.

I was more space conscious back then and another chap walked off with it from right under my nose, whilst I was working out in my mind where to store it :facepalm:

 

[MR OX]

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Mine has to be the complete pink & black F.w Evans with full (what I now know is) deer head at the tip super good nick, just needed dusting of & tyres & tubes. Went back three times that day to buy it but bottled out as I had a small & full shed + didn't fancy explaining why I had another bike to the boss. Didn't think to take it to my workshop. Still kicking myself now. :|

 

[ishaw]

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Not really found anything myself. Though when I was a teen I did find an xt equipped dawes or saracens, iirc it was 7 speed thumbie type,u brake etc. I was too worried to take it home so stashed it somewhere while I wondered what to do with it. Went back hours later and it was gone.

There was a thread on here where someone found an sts in a skip. Perfect condition with various trick bits. Another similar story with a dekerf.

Closest I got to this was a very cheap specialised fsr that was mint. I say cheap, it was a few hundred, but terrible ebay pics and description, but it had spins which wera as good as new. Practically gave the rest of it away as was happy with just the wheels. Also got lucky one collect only bike. Was again badly listed but for a mid 90s bike, owner had upgraded a lot of the parts to m970 which the ad didn't mention.

 

[mattbrown]

blimey you did well with the jump bike. Which frame and forks?

Nothing special, a Barracuda. Had really bad chainsuck.

 

[d8mok]

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I’ve mentioned before but I stopped a lad riding a STS Lobo round sherwood and offered him £500. Kept it a few years and sold it for £2300. It had wrong stickers but everything else was there.