Bicycle wheels

I get bikes. Some have aluminum wheels. Do you take em apart? Or bike and all into the shred pile?

If alum rims I will always take them off. If not, it depends on my mood an if I have the time. I prefer to break bikes down if I can, as some can be reused if the rest is crap. Read: More profit.

Depends tho if I have the time an feel like screwing with them. Oh an bikes fit better when broken down to just the frame.

Funny you ask this as I just broke down about 5 bikes earlier. Nothing fancy, but I can resell the handle bars, 2 of the seat posts/seats, all the pedals, and two of the tires.

Sirscrapalot - I break it, you buy it.

I take the alum rims and cut off the spokes with bolt cutters, and now I have a local bike shop I can sell parts to

All the non magnetic ones Ive found have been aluminum, the spokes are sometimes stainlees steel. I use a bolt cutter to cut the spokes off real quick, but if they have the tire I usually just sell them as dirty, since the tire adds a bit of weight to it.

If their not rusty, I can still sell the wheels whether alum or steel. As long as the tire an tube is good.

Their usually rusty tho. Salt air can be a *****.

Sirscrapalot - Off to go ghost crab hunting.

I sometimes sell them to a guy who repairs bikes when theyre still good but a lot of times he doesnt want them. Its hard to sell things around here locally for better then scrap because everyones so cheap! I end up scrapping a lot of stuff if I cant sell it on ebay.

Originally Posted by thekeith

I get bikes. Some have aluminum wheels. Do you take em apart? Or bike and all into the shred pile?

Not a big return for the effort, but if you have the time go for it. Also, I've found that the nuts holding the spokes to the rim are often stainless steel.

Thanks everyone for your input. I've got a stack of wheels going so when I've got time I'm gonna grab my bolt cutters!!

Oh man lol! Sirscrapalot: "I break it, you buy it." I have to jack that quote!

Aluminum bike wheels are always extruded aluminum and well worth breaking down. I use a 4 1/2 in. angle grinder with a metal cut off wheel to cut the spokes. Please be carefull doing this because the spokes are under tension.

Old bikes can be worth parting out if you do any ebay. I bought an old late 1950s Hiawatha boys for $5 at a garage sale and ended up selling various parts on ebay for $70+ but it did take time breaking it down, listing, and boxing parts up. Tried to repeat that a bit later with a girl's bike that looked like a Hiawatha but only made about $20 on the parts total. The frame, handlebars, and steel wheels went into my steel barrel.

I have to remove tires on bikes here, so I cut them off and just put the rim in my dirty alum pile. I used to cut off the spokes but not worth it for me...

Also the small pieces on the rim end of the spokes are usually white or yellow brass. I didn't know until I got a full bag of them in a scrap load from a bike store that said "brass" on it.

Some days I find myself sweeping small pieces of metal into the trash; and sometimes I find myself picking small pieces of metal out of the trash, it fluctuates what I break down depending on how much time I have and how I feel. Sometimes not worth the effort.

My neighbor threw one out, a cheap Mongoose mountain bike. I rescued it even though there were lots of things wrong with it. I know I could have broken it down, but I haven't learned much about bikes (lots of other stuff I'm learning right now) and it was taking up space. I put it on craigslist for $20, took $5 from the first buyer so I could be done with it. If I get a few more, I might start learning about them.

I used some bike rims to make a tunnel house hutch for my chicken.
It was just a wooden frame made from 1" x 12"(inch) wood about 6 foot long. I cut the rims in half in a cresent shape and used some screws to screw the rim to the top inside of the two wooden sides to form the 'tunnel' house shape. Then I added some more 1" x 12" to each end to make it sturdy.

Then I wrapped a length of chicken wire over the roof, down the length of the hutch and used nail/staples to fix the chicken wire onto the wooden sides.

For some weird reason, the spacing of the bike spoke holes was exactly the same as the spacing of the chicken wire hexagons, so I just threaded them into the spoke holes and wrapped it around itself again.
The width of the chicken wire roll was the exact size for the radius of the bike rim too. weird.

I showed it to my neighbour, who was impressed. He saw the potential of using one as a garden 'cloche'. (we had some fun with that word).

Its the sorta thing that after making one, you know exactly how to make the second one in 1/4 the time.

I used a angle grinder to cut the spokes. The learning curve taught me to cut the spokes near the centre of the wheel, not just inside the rim...
If you don't, you end up with a dangerous looking - eye spoking, mass of sharp bike spokes radiating out from the wheel hub.

The spokes, with the nut on them, my neighbour used as marker pegs for his vege garden. Neat idea.
Hes a retired Teacher, Scrapmetal worker, Kiwi - Vietnam vet. Great neighbour too.