By Barnaby Quillfeather, Fundraising and Fellowship Reporter

NEW LANCASTON — When the doors of the fellowship hall at Thistledown Road Chapel open Saturday morning for the 27th annual Fall Rummage Sale, shoppers will find racks of sweaters, a wall of slow cookers, three bins of mismatched Tupperware lids and, in its usual spot beside the fire exit, a beige stationary exercise bike that the church has been trying to sell since the year 2000.

"It's a fine bike," said sale chairwoman Mavis Okonkwo-Hale, 71, who has personally priced it 26 times. "The pedals go around. The little screen lights up if you pedal fast enough. Nobody has ever pedaled fast enough."

The bike was donated in the spring of 2000 by a member who said he "wouldn't be needing it after all." It was originally tagged at $40. By 2004 it had dropped to $15. In 2009, the committee tried a bold new strategy and raised the price to $85, on the theory that people trust things that cost more. That year it drew the most attention it has ever received, mostly from people asking why the exercise bike cost $85.

Since then, the sale committee has tried nearly everything. The bike has been bundled with a box of cassette tapes, wrapped in Christmas paper as a "mystery item," and, in 2016, offered as the grand prize in the fellowship hall cakewalk. The winner, a retired mail carrier named Herb Lindqvist, chose a coconut cream pie instead.

"I looked at the pie, and I looked at the bike, and I thought about my garage," Lindqvist said. "It wasn't close."

This year's tag, handwritten on an index card and taped to the handlebars, does not list a price. It reads simply, "Please."

The bike's long stay has given it a certain standing in the congregation. The youth group drapes it with a scarf every December. Children who were not yet born when it arrived have grown up, married and brought their own children to the rummage sale to look at it. Last year, someone added a small plaque to the seat that reads "Est. 2000."

Church treasurer Glenn Abernathy-Pruitt said the sale raises roughly $1,900 each fall for the youth mission trip and that the bike, while never contributing a cent, has cost the church nothing but floor space.

"Well, floor space and a lot of carrying," he added. "It lives in the furnace room 51 weeks a year. Getting it up those stairs takes four deacons and a hymn."

There has been only one serious offer. In 2013, a man from out of town picked it up, looked it over and said he would come back for it after he got his truck. Members say they still save him a spot in the parking lot.

Okonkwo-Hale said the committee has discussed simply putting the bike out by the curb, but no one has the heart.

"At this point it's not merchandise," she said. "It's a member. It's been here longer than the carpet."

At press time, a visiting family had asked whether the bike was for sale, and three volunteers had run to find a pen.