Weird Bike Finding Coincidences

I am not a spiritual or religious person, but I’ve had a couple of weird bike finding coincidences. I don’t think that there is a bike god, but a few more occurrences such as this might cause me to question that statement.

I started picking up discarded bikes in the fall of 2006. The second bike I found was a Huffy mountain bike with a damaged fork. The third bike I found (a month later) was a Huffy mountain bike with a damaged frame. I put the undamaged fork onto the undamaged frame and made my first bike donation to the Salvation Army.

In August of 2007, I found a kids’ bike with 16” wheels out for the garbage. The front wheel was damaged and not usable and there was no tire on it. It was also missing a saddle. Four months later, I was walking the dogs one morning and I found a saddle, a 16” front wheel and a 16” tire. These three items were found along the side of the street in three different locations. They were found a few miles from the bike I found a few months earlier. The parts were exactly what I needed to finish it. I donated the bike to the Salvation Army later that day.

One block over from my house has been a weird vortex of random bike parts. Over the last four years I have found a usable 700c tube, a chainguard, a Blackburn rear rack, a cannondale seat bag, a Rhode Gear bike rack for the car, a BMX bike, a kids’ bike, a low-level Peugeot 10-speed (my first French bike – some usable parts) and a strangely assembled Roadmaster. Most of these items were found in different locations at different times. This is the block I walk the most. I wonder if other blocks in my town have the same density of bicycle flotsam?