Cheap bikes and bits

(apologies if this appears twice. Tried to send using Google Groups
earlier today, but it crashed when sending and nothing has appeared yet)

I notice there's a few contributors/lurkers here in south west Scotland,
so you may be interested to know there is a Strathclyde Police auction
of lost property bikes in Dalry tomorrow (Saturday 4th June).

The auction house claims there will be "Hundreds of bikes including new,
nearlly new and high spec models, Mountain Bikes, Kid's Bikes, Scooters,
Bikes for Spare Parts."

I've never been to one of these yet, so can't advise on whether the
bikes are likely to have been those worthy of being nicked (despite
never being reclaimed), or those worthy of being dumped. My interest is
now in the hope there may be something there to help with a little
replacement work without having to resort to cannibalising the other bike.

Starts at 11:30am. More details, and probly a map too, at
URL:http://www.wilsonsauctions.com/police_lost_property_strathclyde.htm

Cheers
Stross

in message ,
Stross ('mail@REMOVETHISstevenrossDOTplusDOTcom') wrote:

I've never been to one of these yet, so can't advise on whether the
bikes are likely to have been those worthy of being nicked (despite
never being reclaimed), or those worthy of being dumped. My interest
is now in the hope there may be something there to help with a little
replacement work without having to resort to cannibalising the other
bike.

Let us know what it's like, and whether there are bargains to be had. I
remember getting a rather nice bike in an Edinburgh City Police auction
once (and if you can remember when the Edinburgh force was separate
from the Lothian force, you'll be able to work out how long that was
ago).

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
There's nae Gods, an there's precious few heroes
but there's plenty on the dole in th Land o th Leal;
And it's time now, tae sweep the future clear o
th lies o a past that we know wis never real.

Simon Brooke wrote:
in message ,
Stross ('mail@REMOVETHISstevenrossDOTplusDOTcom') wrote:


I've never been to one of these yet, so can't advise on whether the
bikes are likely to have been those worthy of being nicked (despite
never being reclaimed), or those worthy of being dumped. My interest
is now in the hope there may be something there to help with a little
replacement work without having to resort to cannibalising the other
bike.


Let us know what it's like, and whether there are bargains to be had. I
remember getting a rather nice bike in an Edinburgh City Police auction
once (and if you can remember when the Edinburgh force was separate
from the Lothian force, you'll be able to work out how long that was
ago).


There were bargains to be had, if you don't mind buying tatty or broken
low-end bikes from no-name budget manufacturers. You could have walked
away with 4 or 5 bikes for 1 UKP. The few diamonds in the dust[1] were
then bid up to what I'd consider to be decidedly unbargainlike price.

I did so nearly bring home a GT Palomar that reached the dizzy heights
of 8 UKP, but don't really need another old, last-resort, back-up bike
(my everyday hack may be short a wheel at the moment, but I just make
the simpler choice between the mountain bike or the road bike each day
rather than dusting off the existing back-up!).

Stross

[1] A recent and clean Specialized hybrid, and a very scruffy Cannondale
Killer-V 500 that could have been restored to a reasonably decent.