My $5 Ride

I got a message last week that on Saturday the University of Washington Police would be having a bike sale. Their website said that the sale started at 9 am so I was in line at 8:50 am....in the waaaaaay back of the already long line.

As the line inched forward I watched people emerge with 2 and 3 bikes each, mountain bikes, hybirds, hey was that an 1970s Raleigh Olympian? whoa nice Peugeot Mixte!  Apparently getting there 10 minutes early was 20 minutes too late.

The space formerly filled with bikes was emptying fast.  In what may have looked like a mad scramble to the uninitiated I executed a hard target search of the immediate area and found my prize.....of sorts

Hey for a 5 spot its worth it just for the parts and dammit I didn't spend my morning coming here in vain! Don't even think about a test ride however....

At least I was better off than arriving at 9:30, as I waited in another long line to pay for my prize things got even emptier and emptier....

One cool thing about this whole deal is that with everyone buying bikes that needed "a little TLC" conveniently  just a block away is a great bike shop dealing with new and used bikes and parts -Recycled Cycles and the folks were lined up down the block to get some love for their new purchases.

Ok so what does this awesome $5 find look like?  Well its a Raleigh Reliant which appears to be a USA made entry level bike with Suntour components and at no extra charge a extra helping of rust.....

Oh did I mentioned some urbanite converted this to a hybrid straight bar commuter?    Or that the once soft suede saddle was cracked and dried out? And a Reliant? was this some sort of unholy co-marketing with Plymouth?

My original thought was that for $5 I was getting a SunTour drive train and a wheel-set at the very least, and then I thought well I can do the whole down the frame refurb rebuild back into a road bike option, but my last idea was to do a "stealth commuter" as in make it mechanically sound but not too cosmetically nice so it would uninteresting to bike thieves but solid mechanically and great for the commute.  More to come on that subject.