Bikes left over from Burning Man
- Thread starter socal_jack
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holy smokes .....LEFT OVER .... geeeezeee thats a sweet lookin mess of bikes there .....LOL
:shock: :shock: :shock:
Man,hopefully They do something good with them. Donate them to homeless shelters for the less fortunate. The majority of those things are just big box store mtb's. (does get ya' curious though :wink: )
-Kreep-
-Kreep-
wow, I didn't know that many people leave them behind. that's so wasteful, and seemingly not in the spirit of Burning Man.
I wouldn't mind being there a few days either. And then go hit Bonneville for the motorcycle speed trials. Perfect vacay for me. Fiance aint havin none of it though :-(
They rounded up about 2000 bikes left behind this year. (yikes!) There are 50,000 people out there, so there are many bikes. Some people leave their bikes behind on purpose, but many of them were 'borrowed' by jerks and then dumped somewhere else. Plus the harsh climate tears up bikes, so if someone's wheel gets taco'd, or sand grimes up the crank, they often times give up on the bike.
There is a community bike program out there (see all the green bikes in the herd?), and they get first dibs on bikes to convert over to the program (single speed cruiser bikes). Then the rest are hauled back to Reno, and usable bikes are fixed up an donated to surrounding communities. Bikes that have no ridable value are stripped of useful parts and then scrapped.
There are all sorts of old and oddball bikes out there, and on more than one occasion I've wanted to find the owner and see if they wanted to trade it. There are thousands of (previously) new department store cruiser bikes that people purchased at the nearest walmart/target/ToysRus before driving out to the desert.
I volunteered at one of the bike repair camps out there, and assisted in fixing 40 flats, 3 bent wheels, 5 loose/broken seats, 12 derailed chains, 7 unaligned brake calipers, and other assorted issues, just in the span of 4 hours. Many people complained about the quality of walmart bikes, but I kept reminding them that walmart bikes aren't meant to be ridden on rough desert in 100 degree weather for a week.
There is a community bike program out there (see all the green bikes in the herd?), and they get first dibs on bikes to convert over to the program (single speed cruiser bikes). Then the rest are hauled back to Reno, and usable bikes are fixed up an donated to surrounding communities. Bikes that have no ridable value are stripped of useful parts and then scrapped.
There are all sorts of old and oddball bikes out there, and on more than one occasion I've wanted to find the owner and see if they wanted to trade it. There are thousands of (previously) new department store cruiser bikes that people purchased at the nearest walmart/target/ToysRus before driving out to the desert.
I volunteered at one of the bike repair camps out there, and assisted in fixing 40 flats, 3 bent wheels, 5 loose/broken seats, 12 derailed chains, 7 unaligned brake calipers, and other assorted issues, just in the span of 4 hours. Many people complained about the quality of walmart bikes, but I kept reminding them that walmart bikes aren't meant to be ridden on rough desert in 100 degree weather for a week.
yoothgeye
I build stuff.
That's awesome that they take care of them so well. I don't know much about Burning Man, but I was watching PBS during late nights of the Biker Build Off and one night there was an art program and a painter was at burning man doing instructional painting for the program. He was explaining that everything you bring to Burning Man must be carried out, that he couldn't even dump the dirty water after he rinsed his paint brushes in it, but that he had to seal it up and take it home with him. :shock: So seeing that many bikes left there just tells me that most of the people there don't understand the event.
I have never been to burning man but I've been to other burns. I have never seen that many bikes left behind. It seems if you ride a bike there, you should need it to return. I used to help in the cycle garage at a commune that I stayed at for a bit. There were old skiptooth schwinns and others, several bikes that would now be considered choice bikes, just being ridden on trails from one end of the commune to the other, and to another commune and back. I still see some of those types being used at 3 or 4-day music festivals, and to be honest I never really see the cookie-cutter bikes, so I'm not really sure what the idea is with that. But even in a maze of bikes as big as the one above, if they told you to pick out 2 or 3, I'm pretty sure you'd have no trouble cutting through the junk and finding a couple good standout bikes.
WOW.... any prewar tank bikes WOW....................
