joesch

Subject term hear should have been herd ...

Now is a good time to sell some surplus bikes.
Most of us like to add bike N+1 and I have been in this mode upto 2020.
I had been trying to sell some of my stock that I really did not need and save some storage room for most of 2019 by listing on ebay but sales were not really happening.

As we know, the COVID-19 era has resulted in a bike buying boom and I have recently been able to sell 3 bikes and 2 frames.

Consider this an opportunity and even a good time to do a build to make a sale.
I have done a few of these with my surplus bike parts.
In each sale case for me, it was sad to see the bike go but I was happy that the bike will probably be used more by the buyer.

I do ride all my bikes and the sales were bikes that were inferior to other models I had for the same purpose.
Like selling a TI road bike that has wheels and components not quite as nice as the model I ride more often.

Are others taking advantage of this opportunity?
Would like to hear your success stories of sharing your love and reducing your herd.

BTW, I do need a gravel bike large size and would also be happy with an older classic. N-3 is getting to me

Canker

I sold off my beater franken bike 2008 surly karate monkey two weeks ago. I bought it many years ago used thinking I'd like to try out a rigid and single speed mtn bike but I ended up not riding it very much. The rigid thing was ok but I didn't have as much fun as I do when riding with some suspension and I never got around to trying single speed. I'm getting older and I'm afraid it would kill my knees. I have a full suspension, a hardtail, and my gravel/road bike so if I ever want to do the "rigid" thing I can just slap my gravel wheels on my road bike and take it out in the woods. The guy I sold it to is a n+1 bikeaholic and I believe he is planning to turn it into a backpacking touring setup.

Cougrrcj

Unfortunately, my road bikes have all been outfitted to MY tastes, and that is NOT what most people want these days. ALL of my road bikes are still friction-shift. ALL have SunTour barcon shifters. ALL have six-speed freewheels. Three of the four are still 27" rims/tires. ALL are lugged steel - They range from 22.7 to 28 pounds as ridden. So... I've pretty much limited any sales - IF I wanted to sell any of them - to persons with my tastes.

IF I were to decide to sell any of them, I'd probably have to change (buy) other components, and that ain't gonna happen because they probably STILL wouldn't like my choices... Strip them down and sell the F/F- maybe. But I still lose my ass...

tkamd73 

I tried to do that very recently, found the one bike I hadn’t ridden in 2 years, cleaned it up, got the serial number, and wrote the ad, editing the pics, I kinda fell in love with the bike again. Taking it on a 30 mile ride tomorrow. Guess I’m at N max/min, not getting any more, and not getting rid of any.
Tim



77 Trek TX 900

Oneder

You could even consider it a responsibility or at least good deed. Probably lots of people who want bikes who just can't get them and are now stuck at home!

Lemond1985

Is that a Photoshop effect? Divine Approval? Or did someone open the door to the darkroom while you were developing the shot?

tkamd73 

just pure dumb ass luck when taking the pic, don’t even know how to use photoshop. Maybe divine approval of the Campy hi flange front hub?
Tim

Kabuki12

Beam on my ItalVega
I took this photo on my phone and didn’t look at it until I got home. I was posting on my weekend ride report and saw the beam of light. I immediately got comments on the cool picture. I dunno , I couldn’t tell you how it happened , there was no moisture in the air. It had to be reflective. This bike has Campy High Flange too!

Lemond1985

Wow, call Ripley's Believe It Or Not, I have no explanation for that one.

Thomas15

I'm trying to put together a gravel bike. Bogged down in two areas, the first is getting the brakes installed, this is just me being lazy. The more difficult task is converting friction shifters to brifters. I just cannot get them to work although I'm sure if I spent an afternoon I could finish the bike and get to riding it.

joesch

I would be happy to pick up a bike like a surly karate monkey. Its pretty much a gravel/road bike, atleast for 2008.

PoorInRichfield

Blasphemy! Heretic! You shall repent for suggesting "N - 1" is even a thing!!!!!

Ironically, I made it a goal for myself to get down to 2 bikes this year (from the 7 I had) and I am 1 bike away from that goal. I was hoping to get to just 1 bike which is my 2020 Trek Domane SL7, but after watching a GCN video that showed that a gravel bike is no match for a true mountain bike when riding off-road, I decided to keep my Cannondale mountain bike as well so I have all bases covered!

My decision to get down to 1 bike (plus 1 mountain bike ) is partially due to improvements in bike technology that have made it possible for one bike to do just about everything well. My Domane has disc brakes, electronic shifting, and plenty of tire clearance so I've opted to just get 2 wheelsets for my one bike and that'll cover 90% of the riding I do. The remaining 10% is for the mountain bike... but we won't count that.

To me, the advantages of riding just one bike are pretty big..

• Once you get your bike fit / dialed-in for your body, every ride will be as comfortable as possible. No having to get used to different bikes, different seats, or spend a lot of time and money getting multiple bikes to fit you.
• You can splurge on go-fast parts and know those parts will always be with you. For example, if you have 5 bikes and decide to buy a power meter, which bike does it go on?!?! Buying 5 power meters is crazy-talk. 1 bike = 1 power meter.
• While I like tinkering with bikes, I'd prefer to focus my tinkering on a single bike and not have to fix and maintain a herd of bikes. I'm notoriously lazy about giving my bikes a good cleaning like I should because it seems like a never ending task. With only 1 bike, that task is greatly diminished so I can spend more time riding.
• As mentioned above, multiple wheelsets for a single bike with different tires on each can make it seem like you have more than one bike when you don't. Aero rims with slicks for asphalt, wide rims with knobbies for gravel and trails.
• Should you get tired of your one bike, it's only one bike to sell (Selling bikes is a PITA as far as I'm concerned!)

Hehe... just so happens that the 1 bike I have left to sell is a 58cm Trek Boone 9 It currently has 28mm slicks on it, but can easily handle wider tires for gravel since it's technically a cyclocross frame.

jefnvk

Meh, I've got a Trek 520 and a Univega Superstrada and at least one other BMX bike that need to be gone at some point, but I'm not really up for randos coming to my house right now. Same going for needing to buy a MTB now that I have a sweet trail system within walking distance of my new house, but that'll have to wait for the same reason.

joesch

Much of the boom in sales is happening on the net now. BikeFlights is a really great shipping service. LBS and other all net base bike sellers are swamped. There are also lots of LBS buyers but C19 isolations limits are in effect for personal sales. No need for "randos coming to my house right now".

PoorInRichfield

A little bit of a tangent, but I found that https://www.shipbikes.com/ prices are better than BikeFlights.

joesch

For anybody that does only have one bike and avoiding N+1 then they should follow your advice and have other setups for that bike, like road and gravel wheel sets. I really think everyone needs atleast 2 bikes that are ready for the road, as is. Accidents and thefts do happen so nice to have a backup ride.

joesch

Thats interesting since it reads like shipbikes uses FedEx and BikeFlights went from FedEx to UPS to save shippers $. What are you basing your comparison on?

JayKay3000

I haven't looked, but I imagine bike second hand prices are higher than normal. Just wait till after covid to buy, I think there will be a lot of bike sales as people return to their smog belching cars.

Wanderer

Why not do what I do, and just put more hooks in the garage ceiling?