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...there are a lot of people who advertise bikes for sale here in the Bay Area on CL who won't fiddle around with remote purchases any more. I am one of them. There are too many possibilities for things to go awry. I would feel uncomfortable taking your money as a local shop as well. Too much chance that the bike will end up sold already, before I get there to get it and then mail it to you.
I facilitated on a local Legnano CL sale once, and there were all sorts of weird things that came up. Not the least of them was that the seller wanted his bicycle sold back to him after a couple of months.
I need to sell a significant number of my own bicycles (larger than this one) over the next couple of years. Some will go onto the local CL, some probably will go on e-bay. I look forward to this with a mixture of fear and loathing.
Which is too bad, because I'd enjoy seeing them go to people who would use and appreciate them. As in other aspects of life, we suffer for the sins of our less ethical brethren.