Originally Posted by
njkayaker
There's a large and well-reported market for used cars. So, it's easy to get good/real information about what people really pay for them.
The "Kelly Blue Book" is biased towards dealers (so it tends to underreport the real-market value).
The "Bicycle Blue Book" name is trying to get people to think of the "Kelly Blue Book" and to think the used-bicycle market is like the used car market (they aren't the same at all).
COVID demand likely caused the market-price of used bike to rise and it's not likely the Bicycle Blue Book ever reflected that.
Actually, KBB is more favorable to used car sellers, not dealers. My experience from buying and selling a lot of cars and having car dealer clients is that you will rarely if ever get KBB trade value for a car. It's always going to be less and based on either the Black Book (which most dealers use) or Manheim auction reports.
The Bike Blue Book is useful as a rough resource, but it is not backed by sufficient transactions to provide any level of reliability on a local level.