Tacoma bike swap report

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So I prepared my boxes of bike parts and loaded them into the crown vic, brought them down to Puget Sound University, one of their parking lots where I did immediately run into Washington control-freak mentality as to where I should park and what spot do I have, and why did I not pre-register.  I just said “I have lots of good bike parts and a road bike to sell.  [I’m here, I’m going to park, I’m not going to sit here idling and wait for you to verify my presence].  Quite sick of that, I am.  The good thing is that these folks are out in the spirit of bike advocacy, and there was a bus parked where people could ‘practice (I’m not kidding) putting their bike on the bus.  It is, in a small way, someone’s vision of a school of not driving.  With pavement as my only table, I laid out the sundry used but functional shifters and levers, a pile of cranksets matched and mismatched, the extra seat posts, the and a pair of good 26” wheels with a nice 7 speed cassette that I had gone through: $30.  I had, Tucson bike swap style, a $5 pile, a $10 pile, and a $20 pile.  The reason I still have some of those parts is that I didn’t have a $2 pile, but I did have a free box, which was largely ignored.I then spent an hour going through parts and hucking lower end (Shimano DX, etc.) with light rust or otherwise not shiny but perfectly good parts into the ‘free box’ and putting together a crankset. Someone bought my Salsa seat clamp right away, and I wasn’t budging on $20.  The K2 got a lot of interest at only $550.  I must have raised and lowered the seat about 8 times, but no one bought it.  In the end I helped a kid change his chain and tires, upgraded the bus driver’s Huffy with wheels that are not garbage, took in about $80, spent (wisely) about 60 of that, and got a sunburn on my arms.  I call it mission accomplished because I brought my tools, helped people, got rid of a *few* parts that have accumulated, and Lance had an absolutely perfect day walking around, meeting other dogs and people.

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