People with a certain blood type are called universal donors. I have to say that in the cycling world I consider myself a universal recipient.
Seems many of my riding buddies have stuff to throw out that is way better than anything I own, so rather than toss it they give it to their favorite charity, me.
I even seem to be one level lower on the food chain than Eric Ferioli so I get a lot of stuff from him. Much of it gets piled up with the other flotsam in my garage, but there are a few gems. One of which was this little black carry on bag, that with the addition of a bungee cord across the front became a messenger bag. I already had two real messenger bags, one I actually paid for and one I won at a CRW banquet, but this one was a better size and had all sorts of little useful pockets for rain jacket, spare tube, etc. So this became my main commuting bag.
Many years ago my friend Stewart gave me a pair of cycling shoes. He's somehow gotten them for free at his local bike store, and didn't like them for some reason. This may have been my first pair of clipless shoes, and I wear them to this day. The Velcro straps disintegrated some years ago but I found an old pair of toe clip straps that I cinched around them, works like a charm.
I've got a lifetime supply of jerseys ever since Larry Telford bestowed his extras on me and Ken helped round out my wool jersey collection. After my article came out about how the ER staff mercilessly excised my old Lifa polypro shirt from me, Rick Gowan filled the void with a fine Lifa jersey of similar vintage. Tights'R'us with contributions from Ken and Susan. Susan's aren't real manly, but beggars can't be choosers.
A couple of years ago, I staged what I called the "Little Event." This was modeled on the famous "Big Event" of yesteryear which was a multi-club flea market, where good things were available cheap. At least in the early days. Toward the end, it seemed the same old junk was being carted out year after year, and the old junk just seemed to circulate amongst the purveyors of old junk. As I analyzed the most recent BE's it occurred to me that the only stuff of any value at all was at the NEBC table, the racing club. Racers have to be on the leading edge, so they change equipment about as often as I change clothes. Which makes for lots of good pickings for those of us on the trailing edge. So, I decided to have a mini version of the old big event, which would consist of one club, NEBC, and be held in my garage. I expected a throng of racers showing up with last years stuff which I could buy for a song. Alas, it was not to be. Only stuff that showed up was worthy of the Big Event in its final days, and I could swear I has some seen some of it at the actual Big Event years ago. I actually ended up selling stuff, which gives you some sort of the idea of the quality of goods. But I was looking for a front wheel for my winter mountain bike, whose has been eroded by years of sand being ground into the rim by the brake pads. Bob and Lee were trying to sell their daughter's old mountain bike. I offered $10 for the front wheel, and they accepted, with the proviso that I had to take the rest of the bike. This then replaced my old Proflex, which has seen better days when I bought it used and had seen a lot of worse days subsequently.
Bob and Lee were the sponsors of another bonanza, since when they were moving out of their big house in Bedford, I got a call that a large pile of bike equipment was destined for the trash unless I saved it. So, I was over there in a flash for a bout of dumpster diving. I salvaged all sorts of good stuff. Good being a relative term of course, though remarkably a good proportion of the stuff was even below my low standards. Some if it I had to rethink later, for instance the corncob racing clusters which I really can't push any more.
Lately, I've been extremely lucky, being the happy recipient of wheelsets and indeed whole bikes. I guess it's true, all things come to he who waits.
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