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New life for old bicycles

Collections

I've been thinking about my growing collection of dubious parts. These things pile up like dust bunnies under the bed. They're all as perfectly workmanlike as they ever were, but they never worked all that well in the first place.

So... here's a running list of probably useless parts I now appear to collect. I'm sure I'll never get rid of them, since there's nothing wrong with them. I'm also sure I should.

  1. Rear wheel frisbees/pie plates - All discolored and cracked, of course.
  2. "Suicide" brake levers - Someday maybe I'll find bits to allow you to toss the "suicide" lever and keep a perfectly good brake lever, but even if I did I'm not sure it would be worth it.
  3. Reflectors - If you want people to see you at night, wear bright-colored clothing and get a light!
  4. Stem-mounted shifters - I can't believe there's not a sensibly-priced option to convert these to thumb shifters.
  5. Steel handlebars - Riser bars, flat bars, drop bars, I've got them all, but I can't imagine why I'd use them.
  6. Heavy steel seat clamps - The ones with a half dozen fiddly parts that don't work very well.

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Tags: musings