Oregon Southpaw

Somewhere, Ed Schwinn Jr. cries a little, knowing that thousands of Americans are making a decent living off flipping his ubiquitous bikes. Hope his soup-shop is treating him well

Schwinn World Sports should be everyone's first project bike. They must've made millions of 'em, I turned down a nice $40 WS this summer and have been regretting it ever since - if for just the rehab experience.

noglider 

I just rehab'd a Univega mid-line bike. It was lovely. I felt like it was 1980 and I was working on a Fuji. A pleasant surprise was the cartridge bearing bottom bracket.

The rest of the bike: Chrome-moly frame, Sunshine hubs, SunTour derailleurs, Dia Compe centerpull brakes. The front rim was replaced with an old Weinmann concave, which is just fine.

Bheleu

If you live near a college and know the right people, the bikes that get left behind you can often times get for free and 100% legally. Colleges give away abandoned bikes. Sometimes I wonder if this is why so many show up at thrift stores. Just be prepared to have a bunch of junker bikes. I was told the story of a foreigner who gave his Jag away to his roommate. It was cheaper to give it away and buy a new one when he got home than it was to ship it there. College kids also throw away all kinds of cool items (so glad I do not live too close to the campus).

cycleheimer

Nice hobby, but don't give up your day job too quickly.

Everhandy

Best advise given.

Everhandy

First of all, there are no bike flippers on Wall Street.

I won't disagree, you certainly can make money buying distressed property, be it bikes or whatever, recondition it to some degree (adding value) and then selling for a profit. The demand is always there and currently, there is a burgeoning market in vintage road bikes. However, as with any commodity, the demand is not the issue, it's the supply, the supply of time.

Simple math:

Say you want to make $2,000/month flipping bikes. You average $100.00 profit per bike, that's 20 bikes a month. Let's say you're a driven machine and get a bike turned around in about 8 hours (I would question that but, let's just suppose), that's 160 hours of labor or four 40 hour weeks spent just cleaning, lubing R&R, etc. Now where will you have time to hunt the bikes down, transport them, advertise them, show them to customers, your bookkeeping, taxes, etc. How about storage? Not just the bikes but all the parts you'll have laying around after a while!

The rule of 20's in sales is: You will spend 20% of your time selling and 80% of your time prospecting. So if you spend, on average, two hours per bike actually selling the bike, you will have to spend 8 hours looking for people to actually come look at the thing. That's 8X20 or 160 hours a month just prospecting potential customers. If you think you can beat the rule of 20's, send me your resume and I'll put you to work tomorrow.

And I haven't even covered the cost of insurance to protect yourself from someone that wants to sue you because the front wheel came off that mountain bike you sold some lawyer's kid and he went tumbling down the mountain side like a cheap mannequin in a Starsky and Hutch episode. In order to beat the numbers, which will beat you into submission, I guarantee that. You will have to hire people to work for you, now your costs skyrocket.

Even if you could maintain a production like pace for a month or two, you would soon suffer burn-out and start dressing like a ballerina and peddle your way around the neighborhood on a second hand clown bike you fell in love with and couldn't flip due to the emotional entanglement.

Here's a Craigslist ad I ran on a bike I flipped and made $100 bucks on. I had about $100 wrapped up in it and possibly 20 hours of labor. The buyer got a sweet bike and it left my shop in good working order. I have the joy of knowing I saved a nice Schwinn from the scrap heap. I didn't do it for the profit, I just love restoring vintage road bikes: https://everhandy.com/craigslist/schwinn_world_sport.htm

And, just so you know I'm a pro, here's one of my start-ups: https://ezyachts.com
I do all my own work. Prospecting, listing, photography, web design and development, sales, closings, transportation, etc. I can get you a great deal on a Sea Ray right now.

As an aside, whoever stated that Taiwanese bikes are generally regarded as junk, never owned a Giant built Schwinn World Sport.

soonerbills

Damn me for enjoying a afternoon, and the making a coupla bucks on the deal albeit it took a while while.
Though I am the bad guy because I am the OP

bigbossman 

OK - I agree with everything you said. To do this as a business, to make a living, is out of the question. However.... $100 and 20 hours? You're doing it wrong.

illwafer

for the novice/boredinneedofaproject flipper, i recommend buying bikes in your size (or someone in your family). that's all.

soonerbills

for the novice/boredinneedofaproject flipper, i recommend buying bikes in your size (or someone in your family). that's all.

Well in some markets you take what you can find!

mkeller234

Man, you guys are fast... I usually spend a week or so on most bikes!

Glad you did well on your flip soonerbills, looks like a nice bike.

noglider 

Jim, you're funny! I love all the similes in your writing. I would have guessed you're from Texas. Texans are famous for speaking like that.

mkeller234, I'm getting my "chops" back. I just restored a bike in two or three hours, and I think I might be able to get down to one hour in some cases. I was a shop mechanic many years ago. The bike needed nearly everything, including new brake cables, which I find to be time consuming.

wrk101

I would recommend just the opposite. Focus on the deal's economics. Get a good bike that has been neglected, at a really low price. Don't worry about size. Grab the first great deal, and flip it. That will provide you the funds to pay full market for a bike your size.

My first flip was a Trek 330 with a 19 inch frame (not my size). I picked it up at a Salvation Army for $18. Put $20 of parts into it. Sold it and I was on my way.

Everhandy

Oh sure, I did not do it to make any money, I bought the bike to ship to California with me on a business trip and I was going to ride it and ship it back. Turned out the trip was canceled and I sold the bike instead. Never intended to make a profit on this.

Like I said, I detail bikes for fun, not profit. It's a casual therapy for me and I love the gratification of seeing an end result. There's also a great deal to be said for working with the hands and I learn from it. I would never do it as a business, that would be foolish IMHO.

rccardr 

I’m a very fortunate guy: great job, a company and boss for whom I really enjoy working, mortgage is almost paid off, and my kid’s out of grad school and married. Sadly, there’s no mechanical component to my position- it’s mostly brain work- and as a life-long gear head (motorcycles, cars, R/C cars, etc.) I need that in my life. For me, building and maintaining bicycles is an outlet instead of an avocation. My bike selling efforts are strictly a very enjoyable hobby, there’s no need to make money when a bike is sold, and when you add up the cost of the bike and the parts it’s pretty much break even - labor is free. So, my perspective on this is a little different from some who have posted on this thread.

Not having to make a profit means I can choose to work exclusively on a single brand. The first older Cannondale I ever bought spoke to my soul, and each of its subsequent brethren has continued that wonderful aluminum conversation. Since time is not a factor, there’s no rush in tearing one down to a bare frame and refurbishing it just as if I were going to own and ride it for the next 20 years. If the frame is nasty and the paint is scraped it gets powder coated with a set of new decals, and it’s not unusual to install major components like a freewheel, crank or spindle in addition to the usual tires, tubes, bar tape, brake shoes and cables during the rebuild. Most of them need a new seat, hence my extensive saddle collection. A pleasant evening might consist of rebuilding hubs and polishing rims, getting the bottom bracket just right is pure pleasure, and if it takes a month to do a bike from start to finish, so be it. When it’s done I’ll ride it every day for a couple of weeks not just to make sure it’s properly adjusted and ready for a new owner, but also because so much of my own inner self has been invested in the final product.

I stay away from lower end bikes not because I’m a bike snob (geez, how can you not love anything with two wheels?), but because they’re not worth the effort- there’s no way the parts cost of a rebuild done my way can be recouped on a $200 bike sale in my part of the world unless someone gives me the poor thing to begin with. By sticking with one brand I’ve acquired all of the special tools needed to do the job right, and have also learned the eccentricities of a particular design and manufacturing team.

It’s hard to sell an older high-end bike on CL, simply because so many people are looking for cheap transportation…but it does my heart good to see the right person get on one of my rebuilds and smile like they’ve found an old friend. If I don’t want to keep it, if I wouldn’t get on it tomorrow and ride 100 miles, or if I wouldn’t let a friend ride it, I won’t sell it.

I treasure this forum and the C&V and Bike Mechanics community (both of which are a daily read), and appreciate all of the excellent advice and support given by the members here. You guys (and gals) rock!

Dhorn33

I flip quite a few bikes but I would be real hard pressed to make anything more than spending money from it. I generally waste way too much time collecting the bikes to sell - I get them at garage sales, out of the garbage, at thirft stores, etc- very, very seldom off CL. My philosophy seems to be much different from most on here - it seems like nearly every bike I sell is going to get converted to single speed or left outside on a bike rack at a college so I don't even bother going through the hassle of completely overhauling stuff. I have literally brought bikes home out of a dumpster - wiped them off, made sure the brakes worked and the shifters worked and sold them. Sometimes they are $25 - othertimes they are $200+ - it all depends on the bike and the condition it is in. Obviously some of them I spend more time on - but it doesn't really seem to make the bike sell for any more so I am not convinced it is worth the time and money. Go ahead and flame away - but I make a few bucks, the buyer is happy to get decent bike for little money and I keep a perfectly usable thing out of the landfill. Oh - and the bonus is that I kept people from buying crappy junk from Walmart or Target! ;-)

bigbossman 

Yeah - that's how it started with me, many years ago. Go laid off, and had nothing to do. You're right on the nose - it is great therapy.

I make enough money at it to buy the bikes I want, and all the bits and Pieces. If I had to factor in retail expenses like rent, payroll, etc., it would be a completely different story.

I make a decent buck at my "real" job, so flipping bikes is just a way to get therapy and make enough pin money to keep the bike addiction off the family budget books.

That being said - over the years, I've probably done a couple of hundred bikes. I can strip one clean in about 15-20 minutes, and can tun out a completed overhaul in about 4 hours or less, depending on what it needs. With a clean frame set and a pile of ready to go parts, considerably less time is needed.

Here's one short cut I use to keep the time down: I have all my parts bins sorted by part - road FD's, mtb FD's,, and all are clean and ready to go. When I strip a bike I don't pay attention to originality or "correctness", I pay attention to function. If the part is worn, rusty, or dirty enough I'll toss it in the "clean me" bucket and grab a shiny one out of the appropriate bin.

When the "clean me" bucket gets full (or I run out of parts), I spend a session just cleaning components. Simple Green soak, Oxalic Acid bath for rusty bits, rinse, dry, and sort. Keeps the assembly line moving a lot more efficiently.

ottothecow

It shouldn't take 8 hours to turn around a bike.

If you are doing this at the steady hobby level, you should have a stock of parts and the proper tools for the job (probably financed by your flipping so you would have real tools to work on your personal bikes).

The bikes you are buying should be bikes that have mostly good mechanicals but are in dire need of having everything cleaned and repacked. Maybe things like broken/missing brakes (since every used shop seems to have buckets full of vintage centerpulls and calipers) but everything else should be functional after cleaning and relubing.

Clean everything really well, repack the bearings, replace the cables/housings (chain too if its bad), put on new/lightly used tires if they are an issue, and oil/adjust everything.

Then spend up to an hour making it look pretty. Hit the frame with a polish/wax (some combined "miracle" auto product should do just fine removing some oxidation and making it shine). I would suggest paying a little attention to the parts as well. Cleaning and lubing them should have let you get them pretty clean (even just using the oil as a solvent to rub it clean) but there are often areas that could benefit from a little steel wool to remove oxidation/clean out pitted areas--hit it with a little wax afterwards to protect/seal.

A clean bike with smooth components should be and easy job and a quick sale. Flipping for money is not about restoring completely rusted out, destroyed, frozen, junk; it also isn't about doing a flawless period restore of a vintage treasure--you want a shiny bike with a smooth feel and then its out the door.

RobbieTunes

I'd never be able to flip bikes for a living.
-I haven't got time to steal the supply I'd need.
-I haven't got time to turn enough bikes around.
-I haven't got the outlets to sell the redone stolen bikes.
-I get caught up in doing things half-way right to a bike that likely doesn't deserve it.
-Pretty girls get too much of a discount.
-Yuengling affects the quality of my workmanship too much.
-I'd be sampling the inventory way too often.

But, I do flip a few bikes to feel better about living.

Everhandy

Right On.

BTW, Dean Martin is my hero!

miamijim

I can do a complete rebuild including all bearings and whatever else that needs to be done in 4 hours. I've had few bikes that I've done 2, its all relative to what your starting with.

As far as the 20% rule goes.....not for me. My searching, finding, picking them up and selling is no more than the time it takes me to fix them up. A guy here in Tampa literaly 'flips' them. He'll buy a bike from a pawn store for $50 and sell it on CL the same day for $125. $75 profit....almost zero time invested. He has no 'real job' so time isnt relavent to him. He's also the same guy who advertises that he buys old bikes, he'll do the same, buy them and sell them on CL the same day without touching a thing on them. Once you get into high volume flipping it works against you to fix 'em up.

Can you make a living as a 'flipper'? Yes, but its all relative to what making a living is to you.

bigbossman 

Do the one's you sell to squeal with delight when the see the bike for the first time? It was un-nerving at first, but now I look forward to it. If I were young and single, I'd be flipping a lot more than bikes.

ottothecow

Anyone ever look at parts from DealExtreme?

I have long been an occasional customer for little adapter cables (you know, the kind that cost $20 at the apple store but you can get on DX for $1.50 shipped) and small electronic parts/cases but I only just noticed that they sell some bike stuff when somebody posted the Knog frog knockoffs in the SS forum.

Here is their general bike category:
https://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.823 and they also have a bike section in the lights category (lots of REALLY cheap LEDs)
They have some decent parts deals, especially since everythign ships free and they have bulk discounting...I saw some cables and housings floating around, as well as stuff like this:
https://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.27405

The quality is probably not so great but it probably works fine for flipping (what, new brake levers for under $5 shipped). I wish they sold something like tubes...although I am very close to buying a bike mount umbrella holder because well...it is raining today.

Only caveat (other than the quality being hit or miss) is that shipping often takes a very long time

TL179

I hope you're joking.

The money in flipping is in low cost, quick turn around sales and high end stuff. You don't need to bother repacking a decent BB on a single speed cruiser for some college girl with wasp sunglasses. In much the same way you can often pick up a near mint 5-10 year old tiagra/rsx/sora Trek/giant/whatever for between 150-300. If you make that sort of road bike perfect and sell it for, say, $75 under what it costs to get into a new Sora machine in your area. Given that its almost impossible to get a legit road bike new for under $500 in the spring/summer you can make a decent profit with that sort of flip.

Everhandy

Where do you find your bikes?
Where do you sell your bikes?