Psimet2001 

Yeah - I hate selling things to random people. People are immensely flakey. Anymore I decide before I list something how much I am really willing to take. Any offer that comes in within the acceptable range receives the same response, "That's an acceptable offer but there are others also making acceptable offers. First one that shows up with money in hand gets it."

I don't know about care sales but for everything else it seems to filter people out.

My favorite are the ones that say, "Will you take $xx?" and then I respond with "Yes. you can pick it up any time" and that's the last you hear from them. Almost like for them it's a game to "negotiate" online about prices without ever having the intention of buying anything. From what I understand these people exist in all sort of "industries" that sell services online.....the tire kickers.

big john

I've sold cars and bikes and had weird experiences, too. Years ago I bought and old truck which had a camper shell on it. I didn't want the shell and I decided to list it in the "free" ads and give it to somebody who wanted it. OMG the grilling I got from people about it. "What's wrong with it? Why are you giving it away? Do you have a key for it? Does the lock work? Are you sure the lock works?". Unreal. Most of them refused to even come look at it. I talked to more people about it than anything I ever sold. Finally after a few days someone came and got it.

himespau 

I found that when I under-priced big items (like cars) because I wanted to get rid of them quickly or gave things away free, I often had more people try to beg me or flake out than when I priced things a bit higher.

furiousferret

Last time I sold a bike on Craigslist I had to unlock my pistol and watch through the window for a few days. I was selling my Felt about 12 years ago and someone called asking for all the details of the bike. I gave them my address and they said they'd be over the next day.

20 minutes later, I get a call from another person telling me they're going to give me $100 dollars for it, they're coming over now, and I'm going to have to accept it, in a very threatening manner. I told them if they showed up I'd call the police, they hung up and never showed. I got the impression they probably did that all day to people, and resold whatever they could get.

hubcyclist

My wife set me up to get a Pfizer shot on Tuesday so I’m on my way. She did it at like 4am because stuff like that keeps her up. Of course right after she did that I got notified a slot opened at Gillette stadium on sat for a moderna shot. I guess I’ll just go Tuesday.

topflightpro

I've found FB groups to be the best place to sell things - much better than Craigslist. With CL, I'm guaranteed at least a couple offers at 50% of asking. But really, I've reached the point that unless it's a fairly valuable item, it's really not worth the hassle to try to sell.

And I always overprice things with the intention of negotiating down to what I want for it.

(Rob, this reminded me I had not replied to your email yet. Sorry.)

gsteinb

We opened an eBay store before we moved to the adirondacks. Basically we went from two houses to one, and had a lot of stuff we could sell. Basically we do about $1500 a month in sales on things we'd have thrown out.

kensuf

Round two was Tuesday. I felt great until 25 hours later, then chills, aches, and fever. It cleared up by the next morning and it beat a ventilator.

The woman that injected me had worked a covid ward in Philly over the summer. She was crying while thanking me for coming in and getting vaccinated.

big john

That's nuts. The 2 bikes I sold last year were handled by my LBS. I gave him the bikes, later he gives me money. I never had to even meet the buyers.

The last bike I sold before that was to a friend's brother. No problems, he came to my job and saw it, gave me the cash and left with it. While it was sitting in my work area 2 coworkers asked about it. It was a 63cm CAAD5 and both of these guys were under 5'9". They both insisted they could ride it by lowering the saddle but when I told them I wanted $300 that stopped them in their tracks. I told them it was cheap because it was banged up and needed work.

They said they knew expensive bikes were around $300 new but they would not pay more than $50 for a used bike.

Flatballer

I've gotten a lot of interest through Facebook, calls from locals since I put it by the road with a sign (or three), and a little on CarGurus (including the flake). I've gotten a single email from Craigslist, for 20% of my asking price, within about 5 minutes of listing. He must have a bot I assume. Waste of $5 listing fee.

hubcyclist

For some random reason I started thinking about replacing my allez’s handlebars with aero handlebars (like cheap ones lol) but like with most marginal gains I really don’t know if it’s worth the effort for something like 5w savings, based on what I’ve read. Stuff like this is why I need to stay off segments and stick to the trainer for hard rides!

gsteinb

I can't really wrap my head around 10K+ bicycles.

big john

You're probably not ordering one of the new Enve bikes, then?
Introducing the ENVE Custom Road Bike - ENVE

himespau 

I entered a contest where one of the new $12000 specialized SL whatever whatevers was the prize and my thinking was, if I won it (spoiler, I didn't), I'd sell it, buy a $3k bike and put the rest into the new windows fund.

big john

We were riding and a new dual-sport motorcycle pulled next to us at a light. I told my friend I was considering a motorcycle like that (probably never do it) and he responded "aren't they expensive?" I told him they are $2K less than an S-Works Tarmac.

Still feels weird to even write that.

ridethecliche

Buyer I had lined up flaked like I kinda thought he might. I went down on price for this guy who was going to buy it with his son as a track car. Then he actually checked directions and realized it was 8.5 hrs each way vs 5 hrs each way and he was going to trailer it himself. Looked up shipping the car and it was only 200 bucks more than it would have cost him to come get it himself (without a missed work day)... He was balking and asked if we could come down to compensate for that free and I told him he should make his son pay the difference because he sucked at geography. Then he came back saying he was surprised with a divorce the last day and I was like good luck dude.

I took the listing down. Going to spend a bit of time cleaning the car up and enjoying it myself for a month or so before listing it. I might take off the front bumper, sand it down, and paint it myself or have it painted to match the rest of the car. I think that'll make things look much better. I think I have an orbital sander somewhere so I'll polish up the car with that sucker as well if I can find it. Some wax and polishing should get rid of a lot of the superficial scratches that make it look way worse than it is.

Then list back up for 12k and see what happens... I was hoping to get 9-10k and the seller that bailed had offered 8.5k. I figured I'd take it if it meant a quick sale. Literally talked to the guy on the phone about it too. Oh well.

OTOH, i found a 2012 v6 rav4 with like 85k miles for about 14k 2.5 hrs away. A little bit more than I wanted to pay, but I've been wanting that exact car since I started even thinking about wanting a compact SUV. Figure it'll be fun to own for a few years if things work out. I bet I'll get offered less than 1500 bucks for my daily lol. It's an 06 TL with rust in the wheel wells and scratches everywhere. Once the rust started I stopped caring about taking care of the appearance since that pretty much tanks any semblance of value. It's got 166k on it and the motor runs strong. It would have been awesome to swap the engine into a miata to keep it going!

Or you could just get the vaccine and get the windows upgrade for free!

gsteinb

Old guy content. Read at your own peril.

[TMI]

I have a pretty bad case of nocturia. That is, when I lay down to sleep I need to get up to pee every 5 or 10 minutes for at least an hour. As it progresses I get frustrated, which doesn't really aid in getting to sleep. It's grown worse over time. The possible solution is medication, but the medication jacks up my HR and my cursory evaluation of that situation is that it'll be a death nail for racing. I lasted two days on one medication, told my wife to divorce me if she couldn't live with it, and went back to life (meaning I get up every ten minutes to pee). I got another medication from the doc, but the literature on the side effects read about the same so I kicked it down the road. But at this point I'm kind of at my wits end. We're going camping in a few weeks and the idea of having to get out of the trailer 6 times an hour is harshing on the inner peace brought on by going on vacation. Dear diary, not sure what to do. How important is racing or training to the outter edges of one's ability? Will the side effects abate? Do we really need sleep anyway? Why can't I be happy doing an hour or two of vigorous exercise a day just for its own sake? And why if I'm not racing couldn't i eat a diet that included something other than cookies and pizza?

[/TMI]

big john

Sorry, that really sucks. I've dealt with prostate problems before and it seems to be under control now but sometimes I get that thing of having to get up soon after going to bed. Sometimes I'll even let myself get dehydrated before bed. One doctor told me to soak in a hot bath for 15 minute every day which helped a lot. Also, stress makes everything worse but being retired helped that. I'm 67 in a couple weeks.

edited to add: The doc also recommended staying off the bike when symptoms were their worst. Also, no caffeine, no spices, and take Ibuprofen twice a day. Now that it's mostly under control I am back to coffee and an occasional Coke.

cmh

Really sucks gsteinb. I'd say try the 2nd med and see if the side effects are bad. You can always ditch it, so no hurt giving it a shot.

TMonk

Bummer gsteinb . Hope you can find some workarounds or otherwise let it subside. Is taking the medication intermittently an option?

Enthalpic

Any discussion of using a catheter at night? They can be self-inserted.

gsteinb

guachi

I can't either and yet here I am ordering a bike that will come in almost on at $10,000.

topflightpro

Built up my first set of wheels this weekend. A good friend walked me through the process. I'm pretty excited about it. I've got the first layer of glue on the rims and tires, and I am optimistic I'll be riding them this weekend.

hubcyclist

that's awesome, I kind of want to build my own. I still have the original wheelset of first raleigh roadbike, which came with 105 hubs (8 speed, but I still ride 8 speed on my allez) and sun m13II rims which could serve as a learning platform, but I don't even have a truing stand so at the moment it's kind of moot.