Game Theory and Picking Up a Recycled Bike in Edinburgh

So Saturday morning saw me lucky enough to pick up a recycled second-hand bike from The Bike Station, a charity project in Edinburgh that “…accepts donated bikes from members of the public and recycles them for use by priority groups of people such as the long term unemployed, those who have been homeless and those with mental health problems. A proportion of renovated bikes are sold to raise funds.”

The key of course to my new set of wheels is the bikes they sell, and it was an interesting application of game theory. Opening at 10.30 am, I arrived at 10 to be fifth in the queue. By the time the doors opened, and the announcement that there were 24 adult bikes on sale (and around 30 people in the queue). So the challenge was to get a bike that works for me, at a reasonable price. The sales are advertised as having an average price of £45, but the cheapest I saw was £55 (and someone else had that, a rather interesting orange affair); but that’s not to say they weren’t there. So I cast my eye briefly over the assembled bikes, picked out one or two that fitted what I wanted while walking to the back of the shop (quite a big frame, chunky tyres, not a ‘racing’ bike) and headed over to them.

My first choice got snapped up pretty quickly, but I got a hold of bike number two. After a quick test run, I had some queries on the back gearing system; to which The Bike Station whipped it up on the stand, stripped the rear gearing, sprockets and chain for a new one, no questions asked. Test run complete, I cycled it home, and very happy I am with it too. It might not be the fastest bike in the world, but given the hills of Edinburgh (and the stop start nature of the city) the multitude of low gears is going to be very useful.