Someone just didn't want this lovely old Nishiki International anymore and proved it.  The Nishiki was waiting, patiently and perhaps with hopes of a last minute adoption.  Waiting at the local Dump!

That one Landfill Site alone, representing a city of 120,000 citizens, receives close to a thousand thrown away bicycles each year.  Some of the discarded bicycles are in rough, well used and even abused condition.  Some are pretty good, and every now and again, something really nice gets pitched out.  If fact, the really nice pitched out category might be larger than one would think.

The local Landfill Site manager likes/supports the idea of recycling bicycles and tends to turn a blind eye to people who collect discarded bicycles.  Most of the bicycles collected are donated to a local bicycle recycling non-profit organization, Bicycles for Humanity.  Annual estimates of bicycles salvaged and recycled from this Landfill site exceeds 400 units each year.

Part of the deal for bicycle salvage between Landfill site management and the chosen few scavengers, is that they do not allow bicycles to pile up.  With that in mind, maintaining the site is a two or three time, each week, affair.  The cost in time and gasoline is considerable, for those who maintain the vigil.

None the less, the cause is good and, at the time of this writing, 4,000 bicycles have been sent from Thunder Bay to Africa.  People in genuine need benefit, Mother Earth benefits and, every once in a while, something nice, in the old road bicycle category, comes along.  This nice old Nishiki International is one of those pitch and salvaged discards.

A point of interest, in the last ten years, dozens of very collectible and even high end vintage road bicycles have been salvaged from Landfill Sites.  In recent months, a lovely old Motobécane Grand Jubileé was all but snatched from the jaws of the metal recycler.  In the past ten years, the number of really nice, high end vintage road bicycles must equal fifty, or more, many of which are presented in the pages of MY "TEN SPEEDS".

NEXT - BUILDING/RIDING THE NISHIKI

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