Writenride 

Hi, well, I'm reluctantly selling the bulk of my bicycle and bike part collection, but much to my dismay, I'm really having a hard time parting ways with all the parts, frames, wheels, and other components I invested my time/money/effort in. I suppose that's common right? People have been after me for a very long time to sell these parts.

But I'm afraid I've:
1. Ran out of room.
2. Don't ride as much as I used to (but plan on changing that this season [fingers crossed].
3. Time to move on and do something else.

Personally, I want to sell all I got and invest in a new frame set, and I know which one. Still, I'm only one guy. Why do I have so many bicycles {self talking and others, too}?
Because of this, I have a question, how do you usually cope with this and not let your emotions keep you from holding on to your possessions?

Thanks for your help.

r0ckh0und 

I buy and sell at swap meets just about every winter and I always have people come up and tell me that they bought a frame or bike or whatever from me and sometimes they show me pics of their build and tell me they ride that build everyday. It helps to know that people appreciate this stuff as much as you do.

Bad Lag

This is NEVER true. Downsize if you want or need but NEVER give up, NEVER give up.

Riding is life!

downtube42

Things I say to myself

Experiences over things.
Don't leave my kids to deal with all my crap.
Possessions weigh me down.

Next time I move, I'm moving with one suitcase. That's the dream, anyway.

nesteel 

When you get this figured out, let me know. I'm in the same situation.
Every hobby I've ever had has turned into an obsession/hoarding issue and it's quite tiring.

merziac

My kid will be warned, prepped, instructed, whatever, etc.

It may very well be even more ridiculous by the time we get there, likely way more.

I have no delusions, he will be advised to do what ever he wants, keep, sell, give away, throw away, donate, recycle, any, all, whatever.

He is like minded and he gets it minus most of the passion, he has a pretty good idea what the pile is worth, to me, him and everybody else.

I will at some point inventory the bulk of it and give him some idea of the potential, then it will be up to him.

squirtdad

I don't have a huge collection, each bike meets a function (Best bike, Backup bike that is eroical/cino ready, bike to jump on and do errands. but I would be hard pressed to reduce more....but I am getting bike built that could be the one bike for all if wanted/needed to

Keep a bike or three that make you smile.and ride

try other things, but keep riding

and remember even after n - more than 1 you can always n+1 with something special

mhespenheide 

I try to remind myself that riding is more important than collecting.

Sometimes it works.

Andrew_G

I'm not a collector (or hoarder), so I don't get the grief associated with letting go.


But... in my 20s, I had a few more bikes than I needed. I thus learned early on to keep what I could use, and sell what I couldn't use. I simply didn't have the room to store extra stuff, nor the time to use or maintain the extra stuff. I couldn't afford to rent storage space, either.


In my 30s, I had fully restored my 1979 Pinarello, but I then needed to sell it to fund the purchase of a modern, made to measure frameset. I couldn't afford the new frameset unless I sold off my wall hangar bike. So, I sold off the beautiful Pinarello, and I then bought a newer and better frameset.


Since I don't fit production bikes, it's somewhat "easier" for me to limit my collection to bikes I have made for me (i.e., full custom). I only own what I actually have time to ride and meticulously maintain. So, I own three bicycles, total. All framesets were made to measure for me. Two bikes have modern steel frames with oversized tubes and Ergo shifting, and the third bike is a new build vintage spec bike with SLX tubes and mostly Campy NR. I find that I'm quite busy enough thru the year maintaining those bikes, yet I can still get some good riding done.


If you have customers ready to buy off your stuff, be happy that your goodies will be appreciated. Then, look forward to good riding in the future, on a bike which fits you better and suits your needs of today.

merziac

I take a different view, I know its hoarding and obsessive but don't think of it that way, it is what it is.

It seems that many try to justify the value ($$$) of it because it can be expensive and it is but what is the point if you can't enjoy the expenditure.

I drag raced motorcycles like a fiend for about 30 years, twice a week for 25 come h**l or high water, spent a fortune, had a ton of fun, was pretty good at it, delivered and received 1000's of azz whoopins, it was a great experience.

Finally got to where I wasn't having enough fun (success) anymore and migrated back to bikes.

Still have the pile of motorcycles from all those years, may part them out, may sell off or scrap them, who knows, yes I spent plenty of money on them but got a lot of use out of them, they don't owe me a dime.

The substantial pile of bikes now is a drop in the bucket compared to the racing, they won't owe me a dime either, in the end.

Caliwild

I guess I get in moods... sometimes it feels good to sell and offload a bunch of stuff. Other times, I feel like I'm on a buying spree. No rhyme or reason to it, for me at least...

Writenride 

Well, yes. I have a friend who still rides and he’s 88 years old. That gives hope to keep pedaling.

P!N20

Writenride 

Sometimes? I don’t think anyone tries to start collecting. I know someone who collects telephones, and another who collects typewriters. But they don’t correspond to me.

You know, it really started with just one bike, then two, and then three, and then twenty. That’s when I knew I had an addiction.

Bad Lag

It does not matter how far. It does not matter how fast. What matters is the doing.

reroll

I understand your situation, BTDT. Yet bikes have become part of your life and lifestyle and it would be fair to assume they will to some extent remain so. Rather than see all of what you have accumulated as being one big collection, try separating what you have into two groups, 1) those bikes and their components which you realistically could return to and enjoy having at some time in the future, and 2) all else. Some thoughtfulness could significantly reduce your entire collection into 1) a smaller and more manageable group of things for your future use and 2) a group of things you really could get along without. In other words, if you do not realistically need an item then dispose of it, keeping only what you really could have a future need or use for, and then congratulate yourself for selling, giving, or throwing away everything else. But do not trade away anything because you would then be accumulating more "things". Get rid of what you do not realistically anticipate needing.

There are charitable bike fix-it and give away organizations which could give you a tax deduction receipt for your donations.

nlerner

I’ve bought and sold many, many bikes over the last 20 years or so, lots of which would be on some grail lists, and I can’t say I have regrets about any of them. That’s mostly been a process of figuring out what I like to ride the most and realizing that what I want to keep are those that give me a riding experience I really enjoy. That said, I still have too many bikes and plan to sell off or give away at least 10 this spring. Some of those will be difficult because they’re rare or their acquisition was memorable, but I won’t look back—plus I’ll still have more than enough bikes to choose from for any kind of riding I want to do.

TugaDude

There's all sorts of things you can tell yourself to justify ridding yourself of stuff. Whatever that stuff may be. For example, if I die tomorrow would I want my spouse and/or family to have to deal with my collection or my junk? I had an older brother who died last week and although he wasn't in good health, he passed rather abruptly. He was a hoarder. Now we are faced with dealing with the aftermath as a family. There are some valuables in the mix but they won't benefit him now.

Not to sound maudlin but at some point we all go and last time I checked all we take with us is what God blessed us with when we were born. Along with some titanium screws perhaps, if we weren't so lucky. But you really can't take it with you and you really shouldn't leave it for somebody else to deal with. They have enough problems.

Another thing is the fact you want another frame and selling off the bits and bobs will fund it. That's a win/win, downsizing is good. Going from multiple bikes down to one really cool one is a good trade.

What could you do with the space that results from eliminating some bikes and parts? Make room for something else that is more useful to you at this point in your life?

Lots of reasons, you just have to look for them.

cb400bill

I have the opinion that we are just the current caretakers of our bikes. They don't really beling to us and that we must do our best to take care of them so they can be passed on to the next owner.

AdventureManCO 

As long as it is bicycle sized. Don't forget the guitar case as well!

Deal4Fuji

I'm crossing this same bridge right now with a previous interest in collecting old weight plates & bars. I'm just now emptying & selling some storage houses were I've had a literal ton of iron stored, along with housing items like vinyl siding, doors, windows, wood trim, appliances etc (I have rental properties). Whereas in weight collecting I had more interesting in collecting and refurbishing old iron than lifting it - in cycling I have more interest in riding than wrenching. One day I'll come to this crossroad in bikes where I need to get rid of some things, but so far I've only sold off or given away the occasional BSO I've come across ... nothing with character.

I think I'm going to have to take the "late to the party" plunge and join Facebook just so I've have their marketplace as an avenue to reach potential buyers.


^^^ some of the "smalls" as the Pickers would say

rustystrings61 

THAT is a big part of it for me. The issue sometimes is finding the next caretaker ...

In the '90s I collected vintage military rifles, because they were cheap and I liked them. I spent a lot of time out at the local range puttering with all of these assorted bolt-actions, poking holes in paper and then cleaning and polishing them. There were several that required haunting gun shows ot find original stocks and handguards and bands to restore them to original condition. Shortly before I got married, I had a closet packed with assorted Lee Enfields, Mausers in all the standard service calibers from around the world, Mosin Nagants with the Czarist double-headed eagle crest that had been rebuilt by the Finns after the Winter War, assorted bayonets and bandoliers, etc. I wound up selling the lot to a vintage arms dealer for enough money to remove the need for mortgage insurance on our first house. I at least knew they were going to someone who would sell them responsibly to people who would treat them as historical artifacts. The only arms remaining now are a .22 target pistol and a basic 9mm carry piece, both low maintenance and modern and utterly functional with zero collectibility factor. They're tools and nothing more.

My foray into the great vintage guitar catch-and-release program started even earlier, in the early '80s. Through the years I had a couple of hundred guitars and amps flow through my hands, sometimes for pure wheeler-dealer purposes, other times as part of the quest for Excalibur. Many of those instruments and amps came to me in basket-case condition and I had them restored to functionality, along the way resuscitating otherwised junked stuff to grail status. I had guitars from 1930-1975, and a few of them, if I had them today, I could buy a house with. They came and they went, and the largest cases of when they went were when I sold multiple guitars at once to an associate who collected so that I could purchase what I thought would be a new "lifetime" guitar, and the remaining stuff (vintage archtops and a '30 National Duolian steel guitar) to fund the purchase of my Rivendell. The money in vintage guitars got too crazy for me, and today I have ONE guitar that I bought new - it has all the elements of the vintage ones but it's mine, and every time I play it I smile and I always feel sad when it's time to return it to its case.

But the BIKES. That is a challenge for me. I get attached to them, because I always wind up taking them down to the frame and rebuilding them. Worse yet, where would they go if I sold them? Pre-pandemic, it was feasible to sell them via this forum, but shipping costs have pretty much done for that. So I have to figure something else out. As it stands, I have been paying for a storage unit for almost a year to house bikes I am not riding - but that stash includes my Mercian Colorado, which was the first bike I rode after my heart attack. There's an old Cannondale ST that I keep thinking I want to reconfigure for loaded cycle camping. There's a Lighthouse built by Tim Neenan that I have never built up that would likely make a great all-roads derailleur bike. I guess the others there could go, but then there are six more in my apartment, and what to do about those? My Mercian fixed-gear is my most-ridden bike; the ratty Gitane TdF fixed-conversion is my favorite grab-n-go bike ever; the Raleigh Competition with the funky Dingle Drive is my dirt-roads bike; my '76 Puch was bought for me new in '78, sold in '87 and relocated in '19, and it stays. The '88 Specialized Sirrus is its own delight, and the '88 Centurion LeMans just feels so natural, punching way above its weight for a rat bike purchased for $35.

If I could wait and take my time, I would probably hit that point of naturally choosing to send some on, but the sensation that I MUST move to do something is the hitch for me.

RB1-luvr

I've been reducing my bike inventory the last couple years. It's not easy. For me it's getting over the fact that it cost a greater amount to build the bike than I get when I sell it. I try to tell myself that's the cost of a hobby.

SirMike1983 

You'll be fine. I've sold some bikes I could not replace. In terms of regret, it ranges from "none" to "maybe a tiny bit". It's nothing heartbreaking or where I feel later I have to get it back.

Just do not sell family heirlooms (your granddad's bike, the bike you've owned 30 years and that you rode to school on, etc.). But otherwise, the worry is worse than the actual pain of selling.

Mr. Spadoni 

And riding, for me, is more fun than repairing. Fewer bikes mean that you can keep the ones that you have in a functional and well maintained state.