I've been an amatuer bike mechanic since high school. A local shop would sometimes run into an issue where people would drop the bikes they didn't want anymore at the back alley door of the shop. He showed me the basement once and there were so many bikes. So. Many. Bikes. I've since tried to care about giving life back into bikes. Sometimes I would take ones that I really liked off his hands, fix them up (usually just new tubes and brake adjutments) and either ride them myself, or give them to whoever.
I've not had space to get back to this. For the longest time, I've just had a parted together single speed that I've rode completely into the ground. Recently, a neighbor gave me a welding machine that'd been collecting dust in his garage, cleaned his garage again and found a Ross Mountain bike and passed it my way saying he thought it was for parts, but looked cool. The same week, an old road bike was left across the road from the dog park we frequent. After three days, I told myself if I remembered it on our walk back after work and it was still there, I'd pick it up. I forgot about it and it was still there the next day.
I also have a vintage Schwinn Mesa Runner that I have rode MORC mountain bike trails with. It's a tricky ride, but hella fun. I recently replaced the shifter cables (non-indexing, I learned). Treating myself after all of these years, I picked up a Park Tools mechanic stand and home mechanic kit. The kit came with a book which I've been reading off of and restoring both of the bikes, parting from what I've got laying around, only needing to purchase things like tubes, tires and preferred pedals at this point. The rest has been fine tuning.
I think the movie Wall-E rung a bell that's forever distantly dinging in my head. I know there's no stopping the conveyer-belt of consumerism we seem don't seem to have a huge issue with yet, but it does feel kinda cool fixing things. Un-seizing a chain was kind of nuts. I almost broke my thumb removing a freewheel, but it's a big feeling when that thing fit. I can't wait to shred these things.

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