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I think you'd be surprised by just how many bicycles with flat tires and/or broken (actually, usually rusted solid) chains end up abandoned in the backs of gara

I think you'd be surprised by just how many bicycles with flat tires and/or broken (actually, usually rusted solid) chains end up abandoned in the backs of garages, never to be ridden again. I volunteered for a couple years at the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op[0], and helped fix for sale countless bikes that needed 15-30 minutes of work to correct whatever the original problem was. You're right that a bicycle with busted chain remains viable transportation given a little elbow grease. That said, people who bought a $150 bike probably aren't that invested in cycling anyway, and so when it breaks, even with a trivial repair, it's effectively done for. I know I'm invoking stereotypes about people who aren't invested in something and get into it in the cheapest way possible, but easily-fixable cheap bikes are the bread and butter at OCBC. [0] http://ohiocitycycles.org/ http://ohiocitycycles.org/

Swizec 10y ago
You're right, plenty bikes get abandoned out of pure laziness. But I think most people realize they can be fixed, which is why they're abandoned in the back of their garage rather than thrown in the trash and replaced. Right? For example, my mum has a bike like that. She's been putting off repairs for some 15 years now. Mostly it just needs some love from someone to adjust gears and stuff to work again. She knows it's still a working bike so she doesn't toss or replace. But it's easier to just avoid using a bike than to invest the energy to fix that one. We've tried a couple of times but it's juuuust bad enough to need a professional, which increases logistics exponentially. My point is, abandoned and unused is very different from thrown away and replaced.