Rubbish tip finds for a project?

[Bodhbh]

The local council tip is on my commute home and tempted to stop a couple of times a week and have a look what bikes they've got kicking about for a project over winter. I just wondered what luck people have had doing similar? Am I likely to find something worth renovating, or liable to be wasting my time? I suppose the only real answer is to suck it and see for a while, but be interested to hear others experiences.

 

[battered]

I've done very well on Freecycle. It is indeed free cycle, I started with 2 BSOs that I made into 1, a mate now rides that. Another needed tyres and cables out of the bits box, I rode it around for a while and gave it to another mate for shopping duties, it does well. Best was a Dawes Galaxy that needed very little and I gave it to my Dad, he uses it very rarely and I've ridden it more than he.

A mate has done very well indeed at the local tip. I think he employed the simple tactic of turning up with a bag of pork pies once or twice and getting the blokes to put bikes to one side "I'll be back next week". His 2 sons have had free bikes for years on this basis, too many people throw away decent bikes when the tyres get split or a chain breaks. As his boys have grown out of bikes he's passed them on to neighbours and taken the old ones for spares.

On that basis I'm convinced that if you want simple wheels for going to the shops or pottering about with the kids and you know one end of a spanner from the other, you can cycle for free.

 

[PpPete]

Mostly it's just kid's sizes MTB style BSOs at mine, occasional 1970's "10 speed racer" - but they want money for those.
This however was a class find. I picked it up before the guys had even had a chance to sort out whether it was worth selling.

 

[Bodhbh]

A mate has done very well indeed at the local tip. I think he employed the simple tactic of turning up with a bag of pork pies once or twice and getting the blokes to put bikes to one side "I'll be back next week".

A useful tip! (excuse the pun)

 

[Garz]

Hopefully not putting a downer on this idea but I tried it to some extent. I visitted a few sites through my line of work and both sites shot me down through todays stupid H&S rules.

Basically the councils are scrapping all the bikes and re-cycling the materials. They had a couple of incidents when people got hurt riding the machines afterwards putting in claims so now they arent supposed to allow people to do this.

Im still after a set of cheap wheels to put on my reclaimed bits for a commuting tank (drop bike) this way but to no avail yet. If it's half decent people want over-priced infalted cash for them. The demand for second hand has made the cheaper route much harder than say 5yrs ago.

 

[3narf]

I did it a few years back; I found a frame in a skip and had it powder coated for cheap at work. I was in the process of upgrading loads of bits on my Orange at the time, so all the cast-offs (wheels, forks etc) went on the skipper which turned out to be quite a nice bike. Sold it to a mate for £100. I did tell him the frame came out of a skip, but he was well chuffed with it so I didn't feel too guilty.

It was really nicely set up, as well, by the time I'd finished it.