Don't Let A Good Part Go

A discarded MTB wheel gets a bright new future.

A few months ago I did a double take.  We were doing some exploring and ended up in a dead end alley that are common in twisty, turny European cities.  Lo and behold, amidst a pile of cardboard, old carpet, and trash bags was a pile of bike wheels.  Now, I don't normally rummage through other people's garbage, but good grief!  Who the heck throws out perfectly decent wheels?  The bike shop on the other side of the alley, apparently.  They weren't high-end or that great looking, sure, but that didn't warrant chucking them in the alley.  They were true, had all their spokes, and the hubs were in good shape.  Oh well, their wastefulness was our gain.  We made out with a decent stash of beater wheels of various ages, types, conditions, and sizes.  Turns out none of them fit our bikes, but just because you can't use a wheel for its intended use doesn't mean you can't use it at all, right?

It didn't take long to formulate some crafty plans for these wheels.  First project on the list was to solve a lighting problem in our living room. In most rental situations in Europe, you have to buy all the light fixtures and have them installed when you move in.  We happen to have an exceptionally sweet landlord who bought most of the lights himself.  One of the lights he bought was the overhead for the living room, but for some unknown reason it has never shown up.  There was mix up after mix up at the shop and from what we gather, the subject was eventually dropped.  It's a long complicated story, but the gist of it is that we still didn't have an overhead light in our living room after nearly a year of living here. His money, not ours.  Whatever.

In steps a lonely, discarded mountainbike wheel.  We figured with a little dressing up, we could concoct a decent light from it for a fraction of the price of a store bought fixture of similar size.  So, we made a trip to the hardware store.  We picked up some craft wire, a couple boxes of decorative bobbles and doodads, a cheap overhead light fixture, a roll of tape with some built-in color changing LEDs, and some chain.  There's nothing a little steel wool can't tackle, so between it and a little degreaser I got the wheel as shiny as it was the day it rolled off the floor.  We fed the cord of the 10€ light through the hub and adhered the LED tape to where the old rim tape use to be.  I used the craft wire to hang some extra bicycle chain and bobbles from the rims and the shade of the central light.  After a handful of hours and 80€ or so later, we had a pretty nifty light for our living room.  All the wiring was already hooked up at the ceiling so all we had to do was plug it in.  Et voilà!  We now have a light!

I, for one, am pretty pleased.  For our first reuse project, the Cycle Recycle light came out pretty darn good.  Turns out there are all sorts of things you can do with an old wheel, so there will probably be more such crafts in our future.  After all, we still have a few of those redeemed wheels waiting for a second chance.