Originally Posted by
urbanknight
I spent years as a shop mechanic and also flip bikes on occasion. So while your little anecdote is nice and all, you’re missing a lot of details.
Some people (like you) take good care of their bikes. Others leave them outside in the backyard to collect rust, which makes components stop working or at least work less. Low end bike owners are more likely to be the latter type.
Low end bikes are harder to adjust, even when brand new. That gives less room for wear and tweaks to make them become unserviceable.
But none of what you said disagrees with me. If the bike has been taken care of, it’s worth a good amount. If it has been neglected, it could be junk by now. This is not to say the components are junk from the factory, but they are lower quality and generally owned by less dedicated riders. I have owned such bikes and they ran fine, albeit with more careful maintenance.
I worked as a mechanic in bike shops and managed service departments for many years, too. The components of the bikes in question would not have been particularly difficult to adjust. You should have worked in shops in the '70s and '80s, as I did. Modern hybrids are far easier to assemble and maintain than a Peugeot UO-8, a Motobecane Nomade, or a Gitane Interclub. The difference in the quality of wheels alone is staggering, especially in the uniformity of spoke tension compared to the old days.
You and I, therefore, are both experienced enough to know at a glance that those two bikes look very little used and likely need only minimal attention---maybe only adjustment of the seat height and airing of the tires---to be fine riders. They may need more, of course, but hybrids rarely get the kind of use that would require large outlays of money.
veganbikes, with his quote of $20 each, is clearly still in the throes of the kind of baseless bike snobbery that I suffered from for an embarrassing number of years.