What to do with an old bike you don't use

Most houses round here have one. Behind the lawnmower, two flat tyres, a bit of rust on the chain, and nobody has sat on it since about the year before last.

People put off dealing with it because they assume it is going to be a nuisance. Some of the options are. One of them is free and takes an afternoon, and the one most people think of first is the slowest and the only one that costs money.

What are the options for an old bike?

Six, roughly. Take it to the recycling centre, which is free. Pay the council to collect it, which is not. Give it away online. Sell it yourself. Donate it to a bike charity. Or sell it to somebody who buys them. Which is right depends mostly on whether the bike still has any life left in it.

Six ways to pass on an old bike in North Devon, compared by what each one costs, how long it takes, and what happens to the bike.

What you do	What it costs	How long	What happens to the bike
Recycling centre	Free	Same day	Goes to the reuse shop if it is good enough, or is recycled for metal if it is not.
Council bulky collection	£29.50 Torridge, £32.55 North Devon	Weeks	Neither council lists a bicycle among the items it collects, so ring and ask before you book.
Give it away online	Free	Often days	Somebody local rides it. Freegle and Marketplace both work for this.
Sell it yourself	Free to list	Days to weeks	You get paid, and you handle the messages, the no-shows and the meeting up.
Donate to a bike charity	Free, but you travel	Depends on the trip	Refurbished and passed on. There is none in North Devon, so this means a drive.
Sell it to us	Free, we collect	Days	We clean it, service it and sell it on locally.

Can you put a bike in the recycling bin?

No, and not anywhere in the UK. Kerbside collections work from a list of materials in particular containers, and a bicycle is not on any of those lists in any council in the country. It also will not fit in the box. Recycle Now, the national recycling service, offers no at-home option for bikes at all.

Leaving it propped beside the bin is not a plan either. That is not a collection, it is fly-tipping, and it can be treated as such.

Can you take an old bike to the tip?

Yes, and it is free. North Devon Council’s own guidance says bikes are accepted at your local recycling centre and will “either be placed in the reuse shop or recycled depending on the condition”. Residents can deposit household waste free of charge by law, so there is nothing to pay.

For most people reading this that means Caddsdown in Bideford or Seven Brethren in Barnstaple. Both are open seven days. You do not need to book, and a car needs no permit. Vans do need one, which is free but takes a couple of weeks to come through, so sort that out before you load up.

The useful part is the first half of that sentence: if the bike is still good, it goes to the reuse shop rather than into the metal skip. Somebody else ends up riding it.

What does the council charge to collect a bike?

This is the bit worth knowing before you ring them.

A bulky waste collection costs £29.50 in Torridge for up to two items, or £26.00 if you receive Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction or a qualifying disability benefit. In North Devon it is £32.55 for up to two items, and there is no concessionary rate. Both are kerbside only.

Two things to know. When this was written in October 2026, Torridge was warning that collections of metal items were taking up to nine weeks. And neither council actually lists a bicycle among the items it collects. It is not on their refusal lists either, so ring and ask rather than booking and hoping.

So the comparison is roughly: about £30 and a wait of weeks, against free and same day at a tip a couple of miles away. For a bike, the tip wins almost every time.

Which charities take old bikes?

Here is the honest local answer, and it is not a satisfying one.

There is no bike reuse charity in Torridge or North Devon. The national ones all want the bike delivered. Re-Cycle, which ships bikes to Africa, has drop-off points at Halfords stores, and the nearest to Bideford is Plymouth, about sixty miles away. Sue Ryder takes bikes at selected shops but the nearest taking part is Salisbury. The Bike Project covers London, the West Midlands and Manchester only.

The closest thing to a local option is Ride On in Exeter, a registered charity that takes donated bikes, does them up and sells them affordably. Still an hour’s drive, but an hour in the right direction.

Worth knowing if you are ringing round: British Heart Foundation shops do not take bikes. Oxfam’s own list neither accepts nor refuses them, so ask before you turn up.

If you are driving to one of these, check first what they will accept. Re-Cycle wants frames with less than a quarter of the surface rusted, and is happy with flat tyres and a rusty chain because those get replaced. They take children’s bikes from 12in to 24in wheels, but not toy-sized ones.

How do you give a bike away for free?

Freegle is the one built for this. It is free, it is UK-wide, everything on it is given away rather than sold, and things usually go within days because somebody is always looking. Facebook Marketplace works too: list it at £0 and it will be gone by the weekend.

North Devon Council itself points people at Freegle and Gumtree before paying for a collection, which tells you something.

How do you sell it yourself?

Facebook Marketplace is free if the buyer collects, and it is where most second-hand bikes in North Devon actually change hands. eBay is also free for private sellers: UK private sellers pay no final value fees at all now. The catch with eBay is postage, because a boxed bike is too big for ordinary parcel services, so list it collection only.

One warning on sources. Several cycling guides still say eBay takes a listing fee and twenty per cent commission. That is out of date: eBay’s own current terms say private sellers pay nothing.

Selling takes longer than giving away, and you will field a few messages from people who never turn up. That is normal. If the bike is worth something, it is worth the hour.

Is an old bike worth anything?

I will be straight with you: there is no official guidance on this anywhere. Not from the government, not from the councils, not from Cycling UK. Every “what is my bike worth” tool online is run by somebody who wants either your details or your bike.

The most honest signals are the ones the charities publish, because they have to decide this every day:

• Is the frame sound? Cracks, deep dents or heavy rust mean it is scrap. Surface rust is nothing.
• Would it ride with small repairs? Flat tyres, a seized chain, worn pads and sticky gears are all cheap and normal. They do not write a bike off.
• Is it a proper bike rather than a toy? Re-Cycle draws that line at 12in wheels, and it is a fair one.

If the answer to all three is yes, do not put it in the skip. Somebody wants it, and you may as well be paid for it.

What should you do before you pass it on?

Two minutes, and worth it.

If the bike is registered with BikeRegister, the national database the police use, transfer it to the new owner through your account. If it is not registered, dig out the receipt if you still have it. There is no law requiring you to prove you own a bike you are selling, but a seller who can show where it came from sells faster, and for more.

Take the frame number down before it goes, whoever it goes to. It lives under the bottom bracket, where the pedals are, and it is the only thing that identifies a bike if it is ever stolen later.

How many bikes is this, anyway?

Nobody really knows nationally. The figures in circulation range from eleven thousand thrown away a year to thirty-eight million sitting unused, which cannot all be true, and none comes from an official source.

Locally there is one real number. Devon County Council and its contractor estimated in 2023 that around 10,000 bikes a year come through Devon’s recycling centres, as people outgrow them, break them, or get tired of them filling the garage. That is one estimate from one press release, so treat it loosely. But it does suggest you are not the only one with a bike behind the lawnmower.

The short version

• A bike cannot go in your kerbside bin, anywhere in the UK
• The tip takes it free, same day, and good ones go to the reuse shop
• The council will charge you about £30 and take weeks, and may not take a bike at all
• Freegle and Marketplace will shift a working bike in days, for nothing
• There is no bike charity in North Devon, so donating means a drive
• A sound frame means it is worth something. Rust on the chain does not

If it still has life in it, we buy good second-hand bikes across North Devon and we collect. Send a photo and we will tell you honestly whether it is one we can use, and if it is not, we will tell you that too. Here is how it works.