"Opportunity is a bird that never perches." ~Claude McDonald OR "Oportunities are kept beneath the soles of your workboots" Steven Atherton

Another week is winding down to a close.  Today, riding on the short bus, I invariably get a tad lazy knowing tomorrow I have no work to do, well, aside from house chores.  In preparations for focusing on the regular flow of Saturday traffic through here, we worked diligently yesterday to get caught up with everything, and aside for the new "Truck" project, it's all wrapped up.  I finally (pretty much) emptied out Bone Row.  Had a couple hangers-on, that I had not yet decided what to do with, that finally got scrapped out.  Too much work needed, with no potential return to justify, so they're in the parts buckets.  At least we got some unique pieces off them, as they were older folding bikes.  Pumped out three newbies, a cute 7 speed 20" MTB, a repainted 6 speed cruiser that we lightened up with an infusion of alloy and speeded her up a bit with some thinner road tires.  Topping it all off, got in a decent set of hybrid wheels to finish off that custom paint Triathlon bike we did.  Oh, that one's a bit of an odd bird!  21 speed, Shimano equipped with grip shifters, straight bars, and a springer comfort seat!  In you FACE, Mr. Conventional!  Then moved on to the tear down on the tandem.  Felt a little somber about that, as the bike itself is in awesome shape!  Obviously some promotional ride someone won, then didn't want, it sported several references on it to "Select 55".  I think that's some kind of watered down American beer.  Plus, it's going to be a repaint, although it already has a really sweet metal flake candy red paint job, that is really cherry!  Oh well.  the customer want's Magenta and orange, so who am I to judge!  As it is going to be a total custom rebuild, not many of the original parts are going back on, so we ended up with a super clean variety of parts from it!  Sweet set of alloy rims, complete with single speed freewheel, NEW set of MTB tires (why did it come with knobbies?) set of chrome lift bars, brake assemblies with NEW shoes  etc, etc!  Yes folks, we hate throwing ANYTHNG away!
OH, ugh!  Speaking of "throwing away", talk about missed opportunity!  Got a call from a gent that works across the street from another local "boutique bike shop".  Seems they were "cleaning house" and had discarded, in his words "a HUGE pile of bikes and parts" by their dumpster, and if we wanted them, we should hurry down and grab them.  This is the only downside I can see for NOT driving a car!  ARRGH!!!  I called my two available "pick up artists" but neither were available at that moment, which I understand implicitly, as they're not at our disposal.  They both called me back shortly thereafter, but by the time our scrap guy, Terry got there, it was all gone.  Scrappers in this town, are like seagulls.  They come out of nowhere when there's food to be found.  What peeves me, and forgive me the indulgence, is the unnecessary waste.  I realize, contacting us and asking if we wanted it, is Polyanish to think and extremely unlikely.  They're not going to want to feed their "perceived" competition, but WHY chuck it?  There are at least three, well known charities in this town alone that service the homeless, indigent, and recovering addicts by supplying them with bicycle transportation.  They have their own operations to rebuild, service and supply the rides to a LONG waiting list and are always in need of parts or full rides that they then rebuild and give out.  I'm sure they would have jumped right in their truck and come down and grabbed the goodies, and been incredibly thankful for it!  But instead, they just chuck it all to the curb!  Just something VERY wrong with that!  A bicycle is NOT an intricate mechanism with a short shelf life.  it's not an outdated electronic, or wear worn automotive part.  The only reasons, truly, to chuck a bike, is if the frame is damaged or in the rare case,  its just so far gone, nothing can be salvaged.  Yea, we do get them from time to time, but it's the hardest thing to bring ourselves to do. We'd rather take the time and parts to get it back on the road then to be scrapped, shipped to China, melted down and made into something else to ship back to us and sell at Wal-mart.  Ooooo, was that a bit too nasty? 
Enh.
ANYWAY!!
As I said, today is all about slapping palms and answering questions and general meet and greets.  And, with nothing to work on, yet again (gotta wait until Monday to get the parts for the work we have had come in) going to putter. 
SO, hope to see y'all soon!!


Here's dem goodies!

20" 7 SPEED MTB!!
ONLY $45.00!!

UNCONVENTIONAL URBAN COMMUTER HYBRID!!!
ONLY $145.00!!

MEN'S 6 SPEED CRUISER!!
ONLY $95.00!!

OH!  And available again!  Just back in and cleaned up from a two week Vacation Plan are....

LIKE NEW 21 SPEED MTB!!
ONLY $80.00!!

CLASSIC PEUGEOT URBANO HYBRID!!
ONLY $140.00!!