Found Bike gets repaired, ridden, and cashed in

Last week we went night mountain biking and my bright light caught the reflector of something off the trail. It was a

bike

, 1400 feet and 3 miles above the trailhead. This means that the owner of this motorcycle gave up a significant descent, which he achieved with great difficulty. But as far as I'm concerned the only thing he earned was the title of idiot, for leaving his stupid mistake in the woods. So today we're going to go up with a bunch of tools and parts, try to get this thing working again, and hopefully make it down the mountain. If we fail, we'll head back to the trailhead like this idiot should have done in the first place.

Since this

bike

looks like a department store bike, I bring zip ties, duct tape, spoke wrenches, a 15mm socket wrench, and of course a grip. WD-40 would certainly be useful for this job, but I'd feel weird spraying it in the woods. So we'll do without him. To be honest, I have no idea what the story of this is, so I hope we're prepared. It will take us about 30 minutes of walking uphill to reach this bike, and when we finally do, a story will unfold. What really happened that day? Was this bike really left here on purpose or was it the result of an accident?

Is there a body up there too? I guess none of you would leave your beloved bike unattended, much less in the woods. So what happened? Well, I don't see any bodies anywhere, nor a path of destruction leading to the bike. But the front wheel sure has knobs. That means this bike was run off the road in what seems to me to be textbook rage. I think the story is like that. Friend invested minimally in mountain biking and even less in maintenance. That's fine, but then he climbed the mountain on his dilapidated bike, experienced a breakdown less than a mile into the descent, and was faced with the task of dragging it three miles back to the trailhead.

Instead of taking responsibility and walking down with him, she made the selfish decision to walk down without him. Very elegant. Oh, by the way, this guy also named Seth stopped to help me get the bike out, which was great. It's worth mentioning that this bike could have easily been taken out this way, as I'm sure many of you have done. Now let's get to work on this front wheel. When a tire is so destroyed, it cannot be perfected again. But it can be improved. First, start by manually bending it as much as you can. The fact that this wheel bent back so easily is not surprising, but the initial curvature was probably the result of very loose spokes.

In fact, these spokes are very loose. So I'll start by putting an even amount of tension on all of them and then adjust the spokes to get the wheel as straight as possible. This is called alignment and is usually done on an alignment stand. These pins help determine where the edge curves. At the apex of the arc, locate the nearest spoke by pulling on the opposite side of the hub and tighten it a quarter turn. Continue repeating this process until the wheel is completely straight. This particular wheel will never be completely straight, but I can make it a hell of a lot better than it was.

I'm using these scissors to locate the arches and then a spoke wrench to make adjustments. After about 20 minutes of playing with this wheel, it spins freely and holds its shape. I might even go back to the car. Now to make this bike safe, relatively speaking, to ride downhill. I could have stocked up a little better in the brake department, but even a full set of cables and housings would be too expensive for this task. I'm using a smaller caliper shift cable on the stock front brake housing to reduce friction and it seems to be working. The rear brake is practically stuck, but we can get it to work.

I'm also installing this very simple chain guide to prevent the drivetrain from binding on the way back. Many of you know very well the kind of destruction this can cause. As for the tires, they are dry rotted but miraculously retain air. Then we'll return them to a reasonable pressure and call it a day. Now we are ready to take the step. This won't be like the other videos where I go down the mountain irresponsibly fast in a death trap. The tires on this bike are rotted and, let's face it, the front wheel has been resurrected. I've already booked a trip to Whistler this summer and I intend to survive long enough to enjoy it.

I have more self-control than to try something stupid with this. If you've ever descended on one of these bikes, you know it's even more grueling than climbing, but I still maintain that it's always a great day when you're on a bike, even this bike. I don't have room for this bike in my house and to make it safe again I would need two new tires, a new rim, a set of cables and brake pads. That far exceeds the cost of this bike, so let's do a little experiment. This five gallon bucket will be filled with all the ferrous metals removed from this bike.

In this pile, aluminum. Everything else, unfortunately, will end up in the landfill. But these metals will go towards building a better tomorrow and getting reimbursed for my time and work. That's right, you could make quite a bit of money from all this junk. Ball bearings, spokes, bolts, they're nothing more than dollar signs to me at this point, and considering the morning I had with this, it's only fair that I get as much profit as possible. After all, in order for others to do their part in cleaning up forest litter, there needs to be an adequate incentive, and today we are going to find out how much it is.

When the guy didn't even bother to remove the metal from the bucket, I knew I was in for a meager payout. The mere fact that I forgot my bucket at the junkyard means I'm out almost three dollars right there, not including gas. So what consolation prize can I buy with this $3.06? I had to pay 15 cents out of pocket for this taco, but it came with fries and free access to the salsa bar. So what did we learn today? Maybe a little about how to grind wheels and perhaps a better understanding of what one should bring when embarking on a bike salvage.

But I think, above all, we learned that you shouldn't go into the woods with anything you're not willing to take with you. This video is not intended to be a commentary on department store bikes. This is an idiot's fault. His taco bike has officially become an actual taco that I'm really enjoying. That being said, thanks for riding with me today and we'll see you next time.