auchencrow

Anyone who has scoured their local Craigslist and garage sales lately has to have noticed that there are far fewer
good C&V bikes to be had than there was just a few years ago.
When one pops, it's rare that it's not a rough, rusty old project priced like a pristine road-ready rehab - but that's just another indication of supply and demand in action: Short supply drives demand - and price.

- So what has happened to all the decent C&V bikes?
There were literally millions of bikes built during the boom, but where are they now?
The numbers appearing for sale on eBay surely don't account for them all. (Even the numbers all you hoarders have in your garages can't do that.)

I know that there were far more low-end boom bikes made than Raleigh Pro's, Moto Team Champions and Colnago SC's, but these days I am happy just to find a couple of steel-wheeled Raleigh-Record flippers at a fair price. The bikes just aren't there in the numbers we might reasonably expect.

-Are they still under wraps, waiting in some evil speculator's warehouse, waiting for the day when their values will peak and he will unload them all?
-Did the junk man get them already?
-Did Drew tire of his "creations", and scrap them?
-Is there a conspiracy on the part of the crabon industry to gather up and destroy every C&V bike, thus forcing us to buy their wares?

What's your take?

3speedslow

"junk men " theory holds water with me. Might not be the only reason but certainly the biggest culprit,IMO. Todays push for recycling everything especially metal is another factor to the disappearance of our beloved C/V finds.

BUT, they are still out there.... and I know I will continue to look.

23skidoo

Some of them are in my garage and they're not telling where the rest of the vast herds have gone.

Chrome Molly

The finds these days seem to be at estate and grandma to the home sorts of sales. The owner based garage cleaning that brought out the bikes for the last 10-15 years seems to have been done by almost everyone that cared to do so. I also think in between, many bikes have just been tossed in the first scenario if they didn't sell.

I've had better luck lately at small town thrifts and small town garage sales. There you will probably not find gems, but things of interest. The high end got so thin, that the retro/modern market is slowly capturing my interest (not to mention customs).

AZORCH

Twice each year our town holds a week-long "spring cleaning" event. Anything and everything that is unwanted or cluttering up garage, attic, and basement is put out to the curb for collection. The evening before scheduled pickup, neighborhoods are teaming with trucks and flatbeds circling like vultures, snagging anything of interest as soon as it reaches curbside. I won't walk or ride during those weeks because the desperate pickers are actually very competitive and dangerous drivers when they attempt to swoop in on new swag. I have, quite literally, placed items at the end of the driveway, returned to the forty feet to the garage for another armload, and by the time I got back the stuff I'd left behind 60 seconds earlier was gone. In our community, I'm certain that many bikes - both low and high end, and everything in between - have met this fate. I have to believe that similar scenarios are playing out in communities everywhere. I know it doesn't explain the dearth of bikes, but it's certainly one of the contributing factors. Oh well - just so long as the pickers stay away from the ceiling in my studio!

ftwelder

I think it's a combo. I think you would see more being ridden around if they sold tubulars at walmart.

Trends always start in the city so may be it will get worse out here. I am still tripping over them.

other places they might go

Rust and die

DWI bikes

ship to far away place in large containers

ship to far away places in small containers

dismantled or "made unusable" in the name of art.

auchencrow

Certainly - any bike worth anything if put curbside will scarfed up in a New York minute. But where do they go from there? Are the scavengers EATING them? I am only slightly exaggerating when I say that a few years ago a cursive review of my local CL would have turned half as many bikes as I see on eBay nation-wide today.

jimmuller 

I ain't tellin'.

But I'll drop this hint. Ebay and Craigslist have made everyone think their bikes are valuable.

rootboy 

There must be a few pearls still out there, collecting dust in garages and basements. But I think it's like many things old and "vintage". The supply has drastically dwindled over the last 10 to fifteen years. I used to find all kinds of cool old stuff at yard and estate sales. No more. I rarely go looking anymore.

cb400bill

"Rusty Gold"

KonAaron Snake 

I've noticed a drop off too...let me add another potential factor into the gumbo; 10 years ago little Larry went to college with his hot rod and daddy sold his bike from the garage. Now Larry takes his bike, it's cool and who can afford a hot rod?

After Larry graduates, he doesn't have a job and keeps his bike. It's hip and affordable.

People who were garage selling them, or taking them to the thrift store, now drop them off at the bike co-op...where they disappear with fantasy pricing and go to young kids who ride them.

auchencrow

Careful Jim! -There's likely some lurking flippers listening here, who would try to beat it out of you!

(You can PM the whereabouts to me though. )

Poguemahone

I'm not sure why we obsess over this. This is a market, and markets shift and change, in ways that are not always (or even consistently) rational. 15 years or so ago, the local thrifts had an ample supply of road bikes, and 5$ was pretty much the price. No one wanted them. There was a long period where I passed on anything Japanese made (seriously). I wouldn't pick up a Varsity if you held a gun to my head. I'd look at 30-40 road bikes a week and pass on most all of them. Today, I'd buy them to flip.

Yep, supply has dried up. The advent of CL (making local sale easier) was a huge factor. The proliferation of smart phones (don't know a thing about bikes? Look it up on Google!) is another. The depressed economy has meant there are more flippers. Junk pickers are more common-- I recall a trio of Fujis back around 2000 that just sat by the trash for weeks-- now they would be gone in five minutes. I'd find 4-5 bikes a year just walking my dogs.

However, I've found that I have been finding less and less, but the quality has gone way up. I'm quite satisfied with the trade off.

You can either move with the market, or let it roll over you. In five years it likely won't resemble what it is today.

AZORCH

It pains me to say it, but I think a lot are getting recycled: immediate (if inadequately tiny) return on investment - a bike frame is just one more piece of scrap metal in the minds of many. I reach this conclusion because, like you, I'm not seeing them reappear. Other than the "usual suspects" on CL, there aren't a lot of vintage bike sellers... so unless the scavengers are hoarding and have acres in which to do so, I really fear the scrap yard is their destination. Nothing new really, but my sense it's on a grander scale these past couple years than it's ever previously been. I don't know how else to explain it.

Italuminium

Noticed the same here, plus all my hipster friends now got a C&V. Bad for hoarding, but good for riding!

mrt2you

i agree with this.
i used to buy old name brand bikes at the thrifts for $25 or less even a year ago.
now they sell beat up rusty wally world bikes for $75. if it's a name brand they want $150+ for them.

Poguemahone

Yes, this too. 10-15 years ago, we were just seeing the cusp of this; it's turned into a wave.

Weirdly, I used to get the occasional VCU student asking me to help them build a bike. I don't get them anymore; there's an entire support system in town for them; via a couple of shops, a co-op, and university involvement. RVA has gone from three or four bike shops to at least twenty, most of the new ones serving a younger urban crowd.

KonAaron Snake 

I'm glad that I already have all of the bikes I want!


Until the next one anyway....

auchencrow

Therein lies the rub, Aaron - We ALL always need one more.

Bianchigirll 

I also blame Mike and Frank and the 'if it is old it must be gold' mentality. I see lots of OK bikes (not Colnagos or Wizards) but decent Japanese steel that should sell for $100 that people want $300 or more for.

wrk101

2012 was my best year for finding bikes by far.

Some notable finds in 2012 (all at attractive prices) include a Masi, an Eddy Merckx, a Tommasini, a Pinarello, a Paramount Series 7, a 1986 Schwinn Peloton, a Batavus Professional, Schwinn Cimmaron LE, Bianchi Limited, a pair of 1984 Trek 620s, a nice Burley tandem, and many more. I really don't recall a year half this good.


My favorite C/L pickup ad this year was four words long (OK, five if you include the price): "race bike bad paint $50." It lasted two days (I was out of town, or I would have grabbed it immediately).

Fortunately, buyers still have no imagination. If the brand name and size is not listed, or its a more obscure brand, they tend to last.

+1 There really aren't many vintage bikes for sale around here. There never have been, so that's not something new.

+1 Thrift store finds have pretty much dried up. I did find three this year, but that's in a LOT of visits to thrift stores.

One thing I have learned is you have to keep changing up where and how you look. So if I was still using the methods I used five years ago, I would not be finding anything.


In the years to come, I probably will be looking back at 2012 wishing for another year that good.

Gravity Aided

I saw a large herd on the prairie, moving North. Should be in your vicinity with the Springtime .

WMcCready

Found 4 last year, put out on curb, Was on bike at the time, and had some luck rolling them home while riding. On one I locked to sign till I went home and, brought car back to scene. Kept the Le Tour, and Miyata ( gave to neighbor's daughter, to be used in 17 yrs.), took parts for build on another, donated Ward's to Working Bikes, in Chicago. Junk men get most, but i dont always see them at local yard. Think junk men, supply local flippers.

browngw 

The ratio of "high-end" "classic" etc. to plain old bicycles was probably never that high in the first place and they are just getting scarce. Does anyone one have an idea of the ratio of high end/low end?

Farmers around here collect bikes for the migrant workers to ride. I have one rescued from a farm. At the local Wally World in the summer you can always spot a C&V from the farm.

fender1

This website & google have contributed a great deal to the drop off. You (everyone here, myself included) have created the current situation. That and "american picker" type shows which completely over value old crap for entertainments sake.