Lemond1985

Nothing but kid's bikes, and cheap suspended ATB's that no one wants. I suspect most of these bikes will end up in a landfill by next year.

Why do people even bother to try to sell such junk? And why did they ever buy it in the first place?

cudak888 

Because that's what's available, for better or worse.

When was the last time you walked into a bike shop and saw a Pashley Roadster? Or anything close to it? Rare thing.

Even then, they're overpriced in comparison to that Giant hybrid when put side-by-side.

-Kurt

Clang

Craigslist's not all garbage; it's just mostly garbage.

Schwinn Prelude - $130 (Sw Bakersfield)

https://bakersfield.craigslist.org/b...923258217.html

Lemond1985

I look at what kind of models are selling well these days, and it makes me concerned as to what we will have coming down the used bike pipeline in the coming years. A whole lotta junk, IMO. Even a lot of the high end stuff (all black, of course) looks pretty inferior to bikes built in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. And people only knock off 100 bucks or so, from the original (outrageous) purchase price.

It looks as if the golden age of finding great vintage bikes on CL are basically over, for the foreseeable future. With occasional exceptions, like when a collector with no friends or relatives that ride, dies.

bikemig 

The inventory of quality vintage bikes is drying up on my local CL as well. The last really good bike I picked up was an early 70s Motobecane Grand Record a year ago. The pickings are slim but that's OK because that's saving me money,

dedhed

Pretty much A-Z available here.

https://milwaukee.craigslist.org/d/bicycles/search/bia

gomango

[QUOTE=hazetguy;21007273

Not sure what you're expecting to find on CL, but if you're looking for that $100 Pegoretti or Moots Ti, you might be waiting a long, long time for that to happen.[/QUOTE]

The nice bikes are out there, but folks would have to be willing to spend more than two bucks.

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/d...920870295.html

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/r...923259066.html

Wildwood 

The gems (both classic bikes and good deals) are still out there.


But as to why people buy and sell junky stuff - well, if it got used and nobody wants to fix it up, then it becomes junk. If it got left outside in the rain then it's junk. America is good at junk.

Fahrenheit531 

Heh. Over here we've got an old Trek in my favorite 531, a Raleigh International, and a nice 80's something that looks Japanese, all in my size. And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Tragically I have neither funds nor space, and so they sit while I covet. hahaha

seedsbelize 

This is all I ever get, locally,and much lower quality. I don't boither anymore.

Bad Lag

The single, most fun bike I ever owned was a 20" wheeled, single speed bike that came to me well used.

Adding multiple gear ratios just adds clap trap and may actually decrease the fun as it requires maintenance and skill from the rider.

I would never begrudge anyone their shot at slalom fun and skidding to a stop and whipping the bike around.

I would never begrudge a poor kid, one who has no bike and almost no money, a shot at having a bike and everything that goes with that.

If they don't sell, perhaps donating them can be done.

t_e_r_r_y

dang, right off the bat first bike listed is a super nice gt terra tequesta for $75.

Ex Pres 

Seems like a lot of sellers of non-BSOs in my area have moved to FB Marketplace,
[or one of the bike-specific selling groups, but they won't necessarily be local]

Dave Mayer

Craigslist blues in 2019? It is going to get a lot worse.

From the late 80s for a period of 10 years, road bikes were dead dead dead. During that period the industry was pushing mountain bikes - hard, for all forms of riding. By the early 90's most decent mountain bikes had suspension forks, and later in the decade, full suspension was common. You could not give a road bike away during the 90s.

So this vast wave of 'mountain' bikes now is ubiquitous in the second-hand market, compete with blown irreplacable suspension forks, wobbly, worn out suspension pivots, and slow heavy knobby tires on 26" rims which nobody wants any more. Basically these bikes are terrible all-round bikes for general riding; always were, but they were marketed hard.

We see this at our local bike Co-op: 3/4 of the recent donations are useless old MTBs, in which replacing the suspension fork will cost more than the ultimate value of the bike.

At least the 80's era MTB's were of a somewhat decent quality. If you retrofit a cost-effective rigid fork, and install slick tires, these bikes are great all-rounders.

The next phase of C&V will get even worse, as the cheap department store MTBs that followed the initial phase of the MTB domination will flood the second-hand market. These bikes are even worse, as they feature the cheapest possible components, as manufacturers struggled to crank out $200 bikes complete, but now had to factor in the extra cost of suspension forks and rear ends.

t_e_r_r_y

same here, fb marketplace has outdone cl in my area in every aspect. i'm in a rural coastal town in oregon and cl is almost like a wasteland compared to marketplace. it's basically the only reason i even still have a facebook account.

sdn40

How many do you want ? A ton of GT hybrids and mountains have come up this summer. They don't sell.

canklecat

I've seen better bikes out on the curb as gimmes than most of the BSOs on craigslist.

On the plus side, there's so much junk on craigslist it tends to hide the good stuff. With a little persistence and search terms I can still ferret out some appealing values in rideworthy bikes. It's pretty easy to find functional, if not rare, bikes for $200 or less here.

t_e_r_r_y

i would have loved to have gotten my hands on one when i was looking for a frame to build up. my area's just so saturated in BLOs that anything old and steel with butted tubing piques my interest

ryansu

That's why I filter my searches -kids,-girls,-boys usually takes out half the listed bikes and then I have less "stuff" to shift through. YMMV

squirtdad

soon to hit will be all the abandoned fixies

cudak888 

All the retired ofo dockless bikes are currently hitting the market, but nobody's noticing. A shame too - they're heavy, but they're IGH and better than any bicycle shaped object from Wal-Mart.

The community around these has already figured out the seatpost height issue too.

-Kurt

MoulTommy

I'm finding the opposite to be true. So many great bikes available for cheap. Colnago Master for $200 (bought it), Santana tandem for $100 (passed), Ironmans for under $100, a Fuji Pro languishing for $90, a cool little Moulton 4 speed for $200. Deals are everywhere in NC. I wish I had the time to grab a dozen more and send them back out restored or better.

madpogue 

But that misses out on the people who have no clue what they're selling. We got a FREE GT Outpost that someone posted as a "free kid's bike", when clearly it's for a small adult. Seller was about 6', so anything too small for him looked like a "kid's" bike.

Plus, a lot of people who still haven't gotten it through their skulls that adults use bicycles refer to men's bikes as "boy's" and women's bikes as "girl's". Because, y'know, bikes are for kids... Granted, the majority of them are selling cr@p. But now and then someone comes into a "real" bike (left in the basement when junior went off to college, for example) they know nothing about, takes one look at, say, the downward slope of the mixte stays, and lists it as a "girl's bike".

ryansu

Fair point but its a risk I am willing to take I still shift through allot of Chaff to find decent vintage stuff its just a bit less chaff

chainwhip

...of the Backwards Forks.

A very quick scroll thru the CL links in this thread turned up the three bike pictures here.

Sad to think some child got a rough start with geometry like this.