Brighton BikeHub wins cash to set up ‘banks’ for surplus bikes

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Good luck to you, Drfab. You could do worse than get in touch with the Edinburgh group, Bike Station, who would no doubt have some good pointers on which strategies worked for them.

The Cycloan project is something entirely different, and sadly Cycles Recycled no longer seems to be operating, there have always been these "community projects" but what I am talking about is straight up business, yes it's ethically sound but I do it to make a living, so do maybe a dozen other folk in Stockport that I know of, which is fine because the used bike market is huge.
Given that from the comments it seems that some people actually struggle to get rid of old bikes this seems an increasingly good idea. Buying from licenced scrap dealers is pretty safe in regards to stolen bikes, but if there was a council run bike bank at the centrally located bike hub it could help out people who want rid of them and the people who want to buy scrap bikes to restore or recycle, which in turn could help fund the bike hub. I initially thought this was a clever but snide idea but I have changed my mind. Definately going to speak to the council about something similar.

I'm sure there are scrap guys in every town, but in Kingston upon Thames if a bike is left in town and locked up the scrap people won't be interested. How would it look if they started hacking away at a lock and then chucked the bike in the back of a truck? Is it worth the risk of getting collared?

Anyway, the bike shops round here tend not to touch secondhand bikes. Why would they take something that might be stolen? Fixing them up doesn't pay as well as selling a brand new bike with accessories. It's a long time since F.W.Evans sold a 'one careful owner' bike. I think this Bike Bank scheme could work and I wish it luck. Much better than leaving ugly knackered old bikes out on the street taking up space on bike racks.

Never heard of the scrap man thing. Every time I go to the recycling centre I see 5 or 6 bikes of various descriptions that have been dumped. In fact getting rid of my son's old school bike wasn't that easy. No-one wanted it either. I couldn't even give it away and that was in good nick.

It's the same with tellies mind. We had a perfectly good Phillips 28" CRT. Couldn't even give that away. No bidders on ebay even at 99p and collect.

Any scheme that helps recycle bikes is a good un.

vbvb, you really don't have scrap men where you live? who go around in vans collecting scrap metal? Do you think they just weigh it all in to be melted down? Don't be silly, they sell it to whoever will pay the best price. And they would pay nothing for your wheel but they would take it away for free. If you really think that old bikes require more work than new bikes then you're insane, how many thousand miles do you get out of your 11 speed chain?

Also how is this cash put into promoting cycling? For me promoting cycling means being able to offer a fast and reliable means of personal transport for the price of 4 weeks bus pass, and putting your bike back on the road quickly for a reasonable price if you break it. I'm putting bums on bikes mate and getting cars off the road, making a decent living while I do it too. What are you doing to promote cycling?

As for setting one up locally, if there's demand I may as well bring it up at the local CUG meeting as they're planning to put in a BikeHub, there's one in Ashton not far from here, I even once saw a bicycle in it, maybe something like this would make it less of a waste of space.

There's a similar scheme going in Guildford but you have to take the bike to one specific location. They are refurbed and then sold on 'relatively' cheaply with the proceeds going to charity. Like Brighton Bike Hub it is staffed mainly by volunteers.

Every town or city I've visited already has a proccess for this which keeps a lot of people employed. Scrap man collects the bikes then sells them on to the multitude of bike mechanics around, they then get restored and sold on. This appears to be a cynical attempt to corner the used bike market and get the bikes for free, thereby putting independant mechanics out of business, which seems to have been high on the mainstream bike trade's agenda for some years as they can't compete with us on fair terms.
Quite frankly I am tempted to steal this idea and set one up in Stockport, perhaps along with some other local mechanics.