r garni wrote:
>
> dear all,
>
> this is sort of an annual phobia-based question that
> comes out like the june bugs for me (esp. as I view
> the escalating auction prices on parts): I know I
> should stockpile, but what, and how much?
I'm sitting here on the eve of a national holiday drinking a little vino and contemplating the question of hoarding... errrrrr "stockpiling" parts so I can ride my bike... bikes, yeah lots of bikes... for the rest of my natural life (yeah, "natural" life).
What I did in years past (this was before the existence of eBay): Get an extra Simplex braze on front derailleur (has the weird "water bottle mount" style braze on; never see one of them again, right?) for my team Peugeot PRO10 or get an extra set of drilled MAFAC levers for my PY10CP because Santana Tandems is literally sending them to be recycled as scrap. Buy a spare MAFAC LS2 brakeset in a plastic box you can reuse to store your 8 Track tapes (I'm not making this stuff up) so I can have a set of real MAFAC latex rubber hoods when mine crack (already happened :(.
That was then, this is now: Put all my extra stash on eBay and collect the cash (when I have the "spare time" yeah right) and then just shop on eBay when I actually need something to keep one of the herd mobile.
Well it could work that way. (Dang, I put that part I need on eBay last month, so now have to find another one :::sigh:::)
New plan! Just do trades with friends for the parts I need in exchange for the parts they need. No need to establish values; just barter. This relies on networking, but this is very easy with the advent of the internet and daily visits to Dale's living room, i.e. the CRlist.
Chuck Schmidt
SoPas, SoCal