Crazier Dave

I just joined this forum, so I thought I run my plans by you guys/gals to see what you think. I'm in my early 60's but have been athletic all my life, so I'm in very good shape. I used to ride pretty seriously but got out of it decades age, but some thrift store bikes purchased over the years, nice trails by my house and lots of time, due to the coronavirus, has drawn my back into wanting to ride. I have this Trek 410 that I think I paid $35 for from a thrift store. The frame is 25.5", which is way to big for me, but at that price, with the Campy parts, I figured I could do something with it. First I tried to flip it at a LBS that I had sold a bike to before at a reasonable price. The owner gave me a song and dance about the frame being too big and it was lower line Campagnolo parts and offered me $25 for it. I decided for that money forget it. I would try to find a smaller frame to transfer the parts. I never did find a smaller frame, but I did find a Puch Minstrel Leader in excellent shape, which is what I'm getting together now. The Quattro set on the Puch seems to work very well, so I don't see a reason to switch the Campy stuff on to it. I have already taken the Selle Laser San Marco Concord seat off to the Trek and put it on the Puch. Very comfortable. Since the Trek seems to be a white elephant because of its size, my plan is to pull parts as I need them. The Punch frame is the right hight, but a bit short. I was was goin pull the goose neck from the Trek. If figure it beats shelling out $65 for a new Nitto Dynamic stem, even though they are very nice. So if anybody thinks this is a bad idea, I'd like to hear. I figure with the big frame I probably couldn't get more that $150 for the Trek, even thought the condition is like new. I am sure I can scavenge more than $150 worth of parts! My mechanicals skill are quite high and i still have tools from when I used to ride, just not much money. I hope I haven't been too long winded!

Dave

wrk101

Depending on condition, yes, I would part it out. Assume frame is worth zero. Whatever you might get for it later will be a bonus.


Campy Triomphe is low end, but pretty much anything Campy in good condition has value. Look at completed auctions that SOLD on ebay as a guide. Surely the crankset and derailleurs all have good value. I see the 410 did not have a Campy seat post, pedals, brakes, hubs, or headset. Too bad as otherwise those parts have good value too. So its really more of a splash of Campy.

Basically its a road bike with 27 inch wheels. That caps the value. Add XL size, and I have a lot of trouble selling.

If you can use some of the parts (so those provide value to you), then sell the Campy bits, you should come out ahead. If you weren't going to use some of the leftovers, then I would be tempted to sell in the $150 to $200 price range. On part outs, one of the BIG savings is if the bike needs a refresh: tires, cables, housings, brake pads, and so forth. Parting it out you avoid the extra expense on consumables.

I can find a deal on a bike, put 4 to 6 hours into it, add $75 in consumables, and break even. Or I can avoid the $75 expense, and save 3 to 5 hours, and make $150. Its the dilemma I often face.

Crazier Dave

Very cool! You confirmed what I was thinking. One of the reasons I joined this forum because I don't know anyone who rides bikes, and I need to confirm I'm on the right track. I have other bikes with 27" wheels so it is always nice to have spare rims in the event I bend one or two.

Thanks!

vintagebicycle

I agree, parting the thing out will yield the most profit, but I don't see why a 25.5" frame would be an issue. I've always tried to stick to only larger frames, the small stuff don't sell. Anything under 23" is dead in the water here, the larger frames are the only bikes I'll fix and sell whole because they bring a premium. I could put $20 on a small frame bike and it won't get a single email.
In the last week, I sold a 25.5" Raleigh Super Course, two 24" Schwinn Varsities, a 25" Peugeot U-08, a 26" Panasonic DX2000, a 29" Raleigh Marathon, an early 25" Trek 412, two 24" Schwinn Travelers, and four 24" Panasonic ATB mountain bikes of various years. All while two 23" Peugeot PL10's, three Schwinn Continentals, in 19, 21, and 23" all went unsold, and a pair of mint clean Nishiki Custom Sports in 21" frame size all got zero attention. I can get more for a 27" wheelset than I can for a small frame bike or frame here. Big frame, lower to mid range bikes seem to get the most attention. Pretty much any big frame that can be sold under $250 sells fast. I had a small frame new old stock Raleigh International sit for a year unsold at $500 cash, I finally found a suitable larger frame to swap everything over too. and it sold the same day. The small frame stayed listed for $100 on CL for four months before someone finally drove down from Boston to get it.

I just picked up another Trek 412 in dark blue with Ishiwatta 022, and a pair of '77 Raleigh Super Course's and a Grand Prix all in 25.5" The one SC and the Trek are aleady spoken for. The Trek 412 has Rigida 13-20 rims, Sunshine hubs, Suntour VX derailleurs with stem shifters, Silstar cranks, a Selle Royale saddle, SR Laprade seat post, and two Michelin Dynamic 27x1 1/8" blackwall tires. I have to go through it and give it a full service to be picked up next Sat. The guy is traveling two hours each way to get it. The bike basically just needs a good cleaning and relube, I'll touch up the wheels on the stand, remove and soak the chain clean, clean the freewheel and hubs real well and go through the BB and headset. I'll also likely give it a fresh set of brake pads and some shiny new cables. I don't worry about putting a few dollars into the larger bikes because they always sell, but small frames are best parted out or thought of as donor bikes for larger frames.

Crazier Dave

Thanks for the alternative opinion. What do you think an 85 Trek 410 would go for with that sized frame? The Campagnolo Triomphe stuff seems to be going for decent, but not unreal money. The wheels seem nice, but there is not much love for the brakes. Of course it is much more of a pain to sell something in pieces. It also concerns me about dismantling a classic, but I don't think this is that sought after a bike. It is a nice ride though. I was actually thinking of dismantling it for future projects for me and selling the frame. I like the looks of the Campy stuff and it works well enough for my purposes. Sounds like I might be able to find a decent small frame for cheap. (i'm 5'8" with short legs and a long trunk.) What you say does explain why I was able to get the small frame Puch for $44.00.

P.S. I just adjusted the index derailleurs on the Puch. First time adjusting an derailleur that wasn't friction. Had to be more exact, but it was similar.

Dave

jlaw

fyi - I paid $175 for the same bike - a 1985 Trek 410 - in good running condition in 2018 - 22.5" size.

I was looking for a 650b conversion candidate and it was a very good choice for this purpose. I only re-used the frame, fork, headset (with the nice roller bearings), and seatpost - still have the other components that I removed.

Your 25.5" frame may have a smaller buyer pool.

Crazier Dave

Even more interesting! You bought the bike for everything that I don't want and got rid if the stuff I like about it. Actually, I like the frame, but even a 22.5 is too big for me. I would keep it whole if the frame fit. I just do touring and it is more than good enough. Sounds like I should be able to sell the frame when I'm done.

Thanks!

TugaDude

How tall are you and what size frame generally fits you?

TugaDude

You must live next to a basketball court. My experience is the exact opposite. And there's a guy in my town that lists big bikes that sit on Craigslist forever.
m

jlaw

The Tru Temper frame with sport/tour geometry on '85 410 is kind of a sleeper - very comfortable ride that still has some zippy-ness,

Everybody wants Reynolds 531, but most people probably couldn't tell the diff. - me included!

Crazier Dave

I'm 5'8'" with short legs and a long center section. Generally the smallest adult frames are the only ones I can stand over and not get racked. The Puch is a perfect size for me. I will measure it the it today. My guess is 21" is about as tall as I'd want to go. Got a new Schwinn Suburban when I was a kid, and bought a Performance trail bike in the 90's. All my other bikes have been used so I would just stand over them to see if they were right. Never saw the specs.

Dave

vintagebicycle

Bikes in general are a tough sell around here, they always have been but its the tall frames that sell the fastest. I had a Raleigh Grand Prix that looked like brand new, which someone had added a set of alloy rims and alloy cranks to in a 19" mens frame, I had it listed for $75 for a year, then I dropped it to $50, then $25, not a single email off FB or CL. I even put it up at $10 and got no replies. I finally parted it out and scrapped the frame. The same thing with a couple of small frame Schwinn Varsity and Continental bikes, they just sit, all while the larger bikes keep selling.
The funny thing is most who buy the big frame bikes don't need a tall frame, they just want to ride a 'BIG' bike. I've had guys who needed a box to stand on to get on the bike and they still bought it. I don't think I've sold one yet to someone who was tall enough to ride one. I just sold a late 80's Raleigh USA Pursuit in a 26" frame to a guy who was no more than 5ft 2in tall. I had a Marathon in his size in much better shape for a few bucks more but he wanted the big frame. He could barely reach the pedals.

TugaDude

When I was a kid I didn't have enough money to buy a road bike. I rode a hand-me-down cruiser. It was probably a Western Auto model. But I knew people that owned Schwinns and Raleighs. The style back then was to ride a big frame and slam the seat post down to nothing. So it looked like they were sitting on the top tube. Depending upon the geometry, the fit was probably decent. I ride a 58cm but can easily ride a 60cm. The stand over sucks, but once I'm going it is fine.

Crazier Dave

My guess was pretty close. The Puch is 20"/51 cm (measured from the center of the crank to the top of the frame where the seat post installs. I can get away with a little taller, but I like a little space for the family jewels.

Took the Puch out today. The index derailleur needs some adjustment and the seat is too low. Back to the bike stand!

Funny, I do have a small frame Raleigh Grand Prix. I paid $10 for it and it looks like hell. The plan is to leave it looking like hell and use it to ride to the subway. Hopefully, nobody would want to steal it! I'd probably have to put a lot of time and money into it to get $25, but there is something cool to me about its ugliness. Mechanically. It seems fine. I did have to put a new derailleur and chain on it and it needs new tires. The derailleur was some very cheap stamped Chinese friction derailleur that works surprisingly well for what it is.

Dave

ramzilla

Funny thing about really big frames. They're not worth anything until somebody really needs one. I had a freakin huge early 80's Shogun Tange 900 bike that I bought for practically nothing several years ago. I think it was something crazy like a 62cm frame or something. I stripped off all the parts and hung the frame in the corner of the shop & forgot about it. A couple years later I get a call from my friend down at the vintage bike shop on the Atlanta Beltline. He needs a big steel frame for a young male 6-1/2' tall, 285lb customer. The customer was a fan of lugged steel bikes and he broke the frame on his daily rider. Anyhow, I traded my bare Shogun frame for this complete Fuji Club. I was happy. The customer was happy. Everybody was happy. Be good. Have fun.

jlaw

I was thinking the other day about the bikes we rode as kids - whatever was available - which many times meant frames way bigger than ideal. It was somebody's big brother's bike - or parents would (sensibly) buy a bike that their kid could grow into.

We simply learned to mount and dismount on the fly - one foot on the pedal and one pushing off until you got a little momentum and could swing your leg over.

There was no way we could touch the ground while straddling the frame. We learned good balance and had surprisingly few accidents.

The balance skill came in handy when I started riding with cleats and toe clips as an adult.

vintagebicycle

As I get older, for me, the stand over thing is a lot more important.

I had a regular customer bring me a 69cm Raleigh Super Grand Prix to go over a few weeks ago,it belonged to someone he worked with. When I got done I took it for a ride to make sure everything was just right.
I needed to start out in low gear using my equipment trailer as a starting point. Once up and riding the bike rode just fine with great leg extension, even though I'm only just under 6ft 3in tall. I can stand over a bike roughly 37" tall, and this was WAY taller. I didn't measure it but the thing was huge. When the guy came to pick it up, he brought the owner of the bike. He was no more than 5ft 4in tall.
He couldn't get on the saddle to pedal even with it all the way down, he would run with the bike, put his left foot on the left pedal and swing his right leg over the saddle and pedal by putting his weight on each pedal only in the down stroke leaning far to each side each time. To dismount he sort of coasted to a stop after already having swung his right leg back over the bike riding it to a stop standing on foot on the left pedal and running to a stop with the bike.

He then asked if they made a bike any bigger, if I came across one, he wants it. He had no problem paying to get that one completely gone through, new tires, cables, bearings, new spokes in the rear wheel, and a new old stock saddle, something that's rare around here these days. Usually they only want what's completely broken fixed.
The guy went on to tell me he rode all his life on a 64" frame not knowing they made anything larger, now he's on a hunt for big bikes. He probably would fit best on a 49cm frame at best.

I've got a woman who brings me bikes she finds all the time who is well over 6ft tall, she continuously finds large frame bikes to fix up. The largest she's brought me was a 72cm Akai branded road bike, it was a low end sort of bike with steel everything, the headtube was something like 13 1/2" long. The bike was likely from the mid mid to late 70's, with steel rims, stamped steel hubs, steel bars, cast steel stem, and cottered alloy cranks with steel chain rings. It had to weigh over 60 lbs. She paid me to completely disassemble that bike down to every last spoke and rebuild it. New spokes, bearings, tires, tubes, bar tape, chain, saddle, etc. She even paid me to polish the chrome bits and paint. It was even too tall for a proper fit for her but she chases big bikes. When it was done, she used the tailgate of her truck to get on the bike and took it up the road and back, when she got back she nearly fell over getting off it.
Every time I see a frame that size I wonder what the biggest frame they made really was. That one was by far the largest, with a few mid 80's Raleigh models being a close second at 69cm.
I had an all chrome bike here with no markings on it once that measured 72cm tall, but I never did figure out who built it. It belonged to a regular who flips bikes on CL. The only tell tale traits were that it had no seat post clamp, and the seat post had to be the wedge type tightened with a top bolt like a stem.
The bike had Campy dropouts and was standard British threaded throughout and was nearly all Zeuss equipped. It also ran two 48 spoke 27" Rigida 13-20 rims with Zeus hubs and 1" wide tires. The one thing that got me about that bike was that it had downtube shifters, which meant the rider likely needed arms just as long as their legs to reach them. I sat on that bike after needing a step ladder to get on it, with my chin on the top tube, I could barely reach the shift levers. I didn't attempt to ride it not wanting to chance a forced dismount without something to step off onto, like a loading dock or something.

I had a 64cm Trek 410 here last week, my intention was to go through it and list it but it sold as is before that ever happened. Someone drove from MA to come get it. A guy who was here picking up a Schwinn Traveler I just finished knew someone, called them to tell them I had it and they showed up the next morning to buy it. If it were a small frame, it would hang on the wall in the garage listed for sale for a year around here. I rarely rebuild anything smaller than 547cm in a road bike, and strongly prefer to only buy 62cm or larger for resale.

Crazier Dave

Amazing! I never would have guesses. I have ridden the Trek, but it was not easy. I never would have thought that people would have wanted bike that were way too big for them. Penny farthing bike syndrome?

oldlugs

I get the same thing here, I sell a ton of big bikes, only a few smaller bikes. The guy who shows up for the 63cm or larger bike is almost always too small to even get on it without a step stool. Personally, I value the family jewels too much to even think about that.
As I get older, I lean more towards a small frame with a tall seat post and stem, it just makes getting on and off so much easier without the prospect of possible pain.
I can straddle a 64cm frame or about 37 1/2" or so stand over height but strongly prefer to have 5+ inches of clearance these days.

I listed and sold a half dozen 62cm or larger road bikes and frames over the last month, and could sell a dozen more today if I had them.
I sold a Trek 410 bare frame, no fork back in March for $150, and a 560 for $200. Both buyers came more than four hours saying they can't find tall bikes in the city.

I've had a couple of those huge Raleigh Marathon's here as well, everyone I've ever seen was 64cm or larger. I had one at 69cm and two at 65cm.
Neither one lasted more than a week on CL here. Small, or really small bikes never sell, they sit for years with no takers. I had a Raleigh Rampar R-4 in a 19 1/2" frame that looked like it just came off the showroom floor listed for two years for $40 and didn't get a single taker. I finally parted it out on eBay bit by bit. The frame sold for $10 on CL 5 years later, but the sum of its parts sold for over $350 on eBay. I realize it was a cheap entry level bike but it was minty clean and I hated to break it down for parts. There was no reason why it couldn't have made someone a good boardwalk ride down the shore or weekend rider.

The hottest selling bikes are those that people remember or have heard of. If the brand or model is obscure or was too expensive to be common, they don't recognized it as a 'good' bike now. I can sell 50 Schwinn Varsity 10 speeds to every Trek, and probably 20 Varsity models to every Continental, Caliente, or other variation of the same bike because they remember the name Varsity from all the TV ads. I can't count how many times I've listed a good upper mid range bike or better and gotten emails asking if I ever come across a Huffy or similar low end brand bike. Its simply what they remember or what they had as a kid so its all they know. Where I grew up we had a Schwinn dealer, a Columbia dealer, and a Rollfast dealer, and then it was between Pep Boys, Sears, Two Guys, or Kress if you wanted a bike. Kress sold odd imported bikes, usually bikes from Germany or Poland that they got cheap, Excecutive and Hercules are two that come to mind off hand, Two Guys had Huffy and Murray bikes, Pep Boys had Cordovan bikes and later Roadmaster bikes. To this day those brands sell faster than most quality shop brand bikes because of brand recognition.

Miele Man

Sometimes you see those for sale where the slammed to its lowest point seatpost is fused to the seat tube because the seatpost was never moved.

Cheers

Crazier Dave

OK, you've now completely changed my estimate off the value of my bike collection!

Dave

SurferRosa

​​​​​​This is very confusing, because it was designed to take the place of Nuovo Record, which isn't considered by anyone besides bloated Suntour fawners as being "low end."

I mounted Triomphe bbs and cranksets on two of my nicer bikes. "Low end" spindles aren't hollow. "Low end" cranksets aren't forged, one-piece designs.

Yes, the Triomphe rear derailleur is ugly. So don't use it. Use Victory or Chorus instead. The rest of the Triomphe group is pretty f'n rad.

​​​​​​​

TugaDude

This is from a thread in another sub-forum.

The Triomphe Gruppo was introduced in the 1986
catalogue.
There were 2 version the leisure and
corsa groups. I believe the leisure was a long
cage design.

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) the groups offered
in 1986 were:

Super Record - top of line
Nuovo Record
C Record
Victory
Triomphe
980 Budget group
960

Definately not what came standard on your bike.

Nice ride by the way.
Marty


Triomphe was clearly was towards the lower end of their offerings. That doesn't mean it lacks appeal.

SurferRosa

I wouldn't rank them like that. Nuovo and Super were legacy designs, on their way out to make room for more '80s designs. Some components within Victory or Triomphe were nicer than others. If you must rank them, I'd put C-Record at or near the top.

It's not clear if you look at it by component or in relation to some of the heavy crap Shimano offered as "mid-level," which is basically what Campagnolo considered its Triomphe group.

TugaDude

Nobody is saying Triomphe sucks, but it was second from the bottom in their offerings. Just stating facts. If you dig the grouppo, that's cool!