Remarkable generosity...
debeli
Posts: 583
I'd built up a ripe-for-resto 'mixte' frame for my adult daughter into a sort of urban singlespeed scoot of the type the young people ride.
It then became clear that my elder son (also a young adult) might like something similar, but fixed rather than S/S.
My LBS knew I was on the lookout for a doer=upper for the conversion and showed me one a few days ago - which I bought for a token sum. He stripped the unwanted bits from it - derailleurs and similar - and I said I'd drop the rear wheel off with him - also unwanted - in due course.
So... there I am strolling round to his shop with the unwanted rear wheel and a retired neighbour spots me and says I ought not to need a shop to true a wheel. We have a chat and I tell him the tale of the 'fixed project'.
Oh, he says, I have just such a bike which I no longer ride because my knees are not really as they were. You must have it.
Later that day he shows up with a very handsome, early model of the Specialized Langster, complete with upgrades he'd made over the years. Under his arm were the original brakes and flipflop rear wheel. He wanted only that it should go to a good home, which he seemed to believe my house represented.
What a lovely, lovely thing to do. At a stroke I have a complete (and rather lovely) fixie and the flipflop rear I needed for my son's project bike.
Although we rarely get to choose our neighbours, I do not seem to have done badly in this random distribution.
I am still staggered by the generosity even as I type this....
It then became clear that my elder son (also a young adult) might like something similar, but fixed rather than S/S.
My LBS knew I was on the lookout for a doer=upper for the conversion and showed me one a few days ago - which I bought for a token sum. He stripped the unwanted bits from it - derailleurs and similar - and I said I'd drop the rear wheel off with him - also unwanted - in due course.
So... there I am strolling round to his shop with the unwanted rear wheel and a retired neighbour spots me and says I ought not to need a shop to true a wheel. We have a chat and I tell him the tale of the 'fixed project'.
Oh, he says, I have just such a bike which I no longer ride because my knees are not really as they were. You must have it.
Later that day he shows up with a very handsome, early model of the Specialized Langster, complete with upgrades he'd made over the years. Under his arm were the original brakes and flipflop rear wheel. He wanted only that it should go to a good home, which he seemed to believe my house represented.
What a lovely, lovely thing to do. At a stroke I have a complete (and rather lovely) fixie and the flipflop rear I needed for my son's project bike.
Although we rarely get to choose our neighbours, I do not seem to have done badly in this random distribution.
I am still staggered by the generosity even as I type this....
0
Comments
-
Stick it on eBay, you'll get at least 250 for it0
-
Yes, its good to know that not everyone in life is an asshole.
I gave a neighbour a cheap (paid about £100 for it) mountain bike i bought to use to commute to the train station when i was working in bath. Only used it a handful of times as i soon realised it was cheaper and quicker to drive from swindon to bath and get the park and ride than it was to cycle and get the train.
I also just recently gave away my lads old 12" wheeled bike with stabilisers to a chap at work, i,had spend hours stripping it down and painting it purple for my daughter to learn to ride on, but she never wanted to ride it! So we bought her her own larger bike for her birthday, which she still hasnt ridden! Cost me £40 in paint!
I have also given away tons of car bits i have collected over the years, sometimes i want cash for stuff but sometimes just to get rid ill be nice and give stuff away.My winter bike is exactly the same as my summer bike,,, but dirty...0 -
-
Update: Everything was pretty grubby and caked in road grime, but first impressions were correct. This is a good bicycle.
New BB (a weird 103mm one) and new cones for the front wheel went in. Everything else seems solid and sound.
Then I decided that the (factory) fecal brown colour of the frame was not to my taste. Family have been asked and the leading suggestion so far is "pink like they wear in the Giro".
So everything came off the frame, including the little horseshoe things in the dropouts, and it's been rubbed down for some primer. I have yet to buy the topcoat, as not all the votes are in. But I like the idea of 'maglia rosa' as a bike colour.
With everything off the frame, I'm astounded by its lack of mass in just its alloy and a lick of colour. I know these things get heavier again with reassembly, but the Langster is quite an elegant design.
Other projects are burbling ahead at a decent pace, but this one has somehow tickled me.0
