Enthusiasts and mechanics needed for cycle recycle scheme!

Good Morning Lucia,

Is there any more information available? Such as;

* How the bikes will be sold or donated.
* If there is a little extra pocket money to be made by doing this on one’s spare time ( a few pounds a bike maybe).
*Are the bikes for a charitable cause? In which case one might volunteer to help out for free with a few bikes now and then. *How spares will be paid for.
*What one has to do to prove one can actually fix bikes safely to an acceptable standard. Just as a simple example, I have the skills and I also tinker with my classic car in my spare time but how do I prove my skills? I am a hobbyist not a qualified bike mechanic. I have some specialised tools for removing Shimano cassettes and bottom brackets but not all the tools One might need for some things. Not that this is a major problem.
*Why just Stanford In The Vale. This recycle centre is closing at some point anyway so I understand. All local recycle centres need to be in on it preferably.
*Is it an on-going thing or just a small one off collection of bikes?

Can anyone think of any other questions about this? There is possibly a little money to be made depending on the quality of the starting materials and cost of spares. Sometimes one can get one good bike out of several bad bikes but you need a good stock of old bikes so you can do this as not all parts are interchangeable as there are many variations.

The bikes need to be safe but some cheaper models are hard to work with as I have experience with. The cycles will not be worth very much. One can buy a new bike from Halfords or on the internet for around £100. Depending on what is wrong with the bikes some might not be fixable without making a loss.

There used to be a shop in Oxford that dealt in used bikes. It was along from Beeline Bicycles I think, on that road somewhere. If they are still there then perhaps they would recycle the bikes.

There may be other schemes or businesses around the country who would take bulk collections of old bikes.

Regards,

Mike.

For starters there should be a ‘help yourself’ notice at the tip. That would be the simplest and most efficient form of recycling.

http://www.bsbcoop.org/ (as the above link was not working too well just now. I guess volunteering for an organised group like this is helpful as there are qualified mechanics there to back you up a bit maybe. I wonder how much it would take to gain a cycle mechanic qualification. I might look into it later out of interest as I love messing with bikes.

The chap in the other link (Dr Bike) is fully qualified. Maybe you need some kind of qualification to back you up with something like this, even if bikes are reasonably simple, either a qualification of your own of a qualified team leader as part of an organised group of volunteers.

I did not mean to sound negative in my first post. I would love to help out with something like this if I could. I am good at fixing things (and wish I could do something with bikes as a living) but there is always advice that an experienced mechanic can give to make sure that everything is as it should be over and above good intensions.

If there is a way to form a more local group, taking advice from people like those at BSB then it would be a great way to spend some of one’s spare time. It was interesting to read what the chap was saying about insurance and being qualified though.