Beware the free bike!

We were given an old unwanted Btwin full suspension bike and I thought it would be great for me to strip down and rebuild it into a lovely bike to make someone happy. (I’m not the mechanic so need the practice too, supervised by Chris).

So I started off giving the bike a jet wash. I wouldn’t recommend this normally as you can damage the bearings, but I planned to replace them.

Then I took the wheels off, and removed the cranks and pedals.

Then started to extract the bottom bracket, at which point I heard a clonk as a chunk of the frame fell to the floor.

It turns out the drive side drop out had cracked and failed. We (I mean Chris) had already noticed the rear mech hanger looked bent, which had pushed into the frame. Should point out – I didn’t cause this!!

So unfortunately this bike won’t return to service. We will salvage the useful bits; mud guards, brake levers, pedals, etc. Then recycle the scrap. Unless anyone has any suggestions for re-purposing old broken bike frames? (Extravagant plant pot?)