In
this photo, you see David Peckham of the Village Bicycle Project
talking with John and Mike up at the garage. We invited David to look
over our inventory and see how much of our junk would be worth sending
to Ghana.

Almost all of it, it turns out.

In David’s right
hand (resting on the seat of John’s craptacular new trike) is a rusty
old single-piece crank. We had dumped it into a box with some other junk
that was destined for recycling. After all, we’re up to our necks in
single-piece cranks, why on earth would we keep a rusty one?

But
David said these parts are very valuable in Africa, that they will use
and reuse parts until they’re worn down to practically nothing. He told
us of chunks of rubber flip-flops being used in place of bottom bracket
bearings, of pieces of tire tube being spliced together with needle and
thread, of a man cutting a tin can with a machete to fashion a washer
to hold a spoke nipple in place.

I’ve always been a hardware packrat. The bottom of my toolbox is filled
with nuts, bolts and other odds and ends – even an old broken
derailleur that I’ve been carrying around for over a decade because,
well,You Never Know When You Might Need It.

I was always a little embarrased by my own compulsive hoarding.
But now,as I’m stripping down wrecked bikes or prepping good ones for
shipment to Africa, every last piece, no matter how rusty or battered,
simply glows with potential. I was seriously debating whether to trash
a twisted suspension fork from a Wal-Mart bike, knowing full well that
someone would figure out a way to straighten it and make it work.

So
in addition to piles of bikes, we’ll no doubt be sending over some
boxes of parts as well. I might even use the opportunity to part with
that old broken derailleur.