randyjawa 

Less than two years ago, I picked this up for cheap. I bought the bike through Kijiji, a website similar to Craigslist. It was the second vintage road bike that I ever saw listed in my area on such a website...


But things have changed - a lot. Just yesterday, all of these and more flood the Kijiji listings in Thunder Bay.

Near mint and little used Cyclops - $1500 CND (six times+ what I paid for the Marinoni)...


Excellent condition Magestic - $200 CND (found similar bikes at the dump)...


Masi, helmet and shoes was listed for $400 CND and then $500 CND the next day...


Peugeot $400 CND (found some just as nice at the dump)...


Raleigh entry level - $125 CND (usually find stuff like this at the dump)...


Tomasso in great shape, again little used - $500 CND...


Entry level Seking - $150 CND (got lots like this at the dump)..


To be up front, there are still deals, now and again. Bought this one a couple of weeks ago for less than a hundred. And, for what it is worth, not one vintage road bike has showed up at the dump (yet) but I did get a very nice almost new road bike saddle there a week ago...

delbiker1 

The price of used and NOS components has gone up dramatically! Just one example, new 4600 STI levers, for a pair, purchased for $76 w/shipping 2 years ago and $99 last year, now the cheapest I found in $195 w/shipping.

thook

there's been an uptick in the ol' survival mechanism in the psyche of the human collective in the last year or so. it tends to drive a bit of desperation in a lot of ways. people are losing income and/or just fearful of the future seeing as how unstable economics are anymore. costs of many things people rely on have gone up while availability of supply is going down. maybe it's just simple greed, or maybe people are simply trying to just make it anyway they can. still....the prices are ridiculous. i've pretty much blown off craigslist and the like for a little while now. thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales seem to be the reasonable sources around here.

nlerner

A couple of years ago I was younger than I am now.

markk900

I continue to be amazed at the bikes (whatever the price) that show up for you locally Randy. I never see anything like that variety of bikes in SW Ontario .

gear64

It still shocks me this stuff sells. I see over priced stuff mostly by the usual suspects sit for months, maybe year or more. Sometimes they disappear and come back. Maybe one goes just often enough to be patient. The problem for me as a buyer is this likely sets the market for someone more or less dumping junk once and just doing a cursory check of what stuff is going for theses days. On the rare occasion something does go for what I see as fair it's nearly impossible to scoop before the full timers. I know they have the right to make money. Just lamenting the loss of a hobby because I won't pay top dollar for a project bike. And the bikes sold by 'businesses' here look nothing like the works of art displayed on forum on occasion. Not to mention the most pervasive ones are clearly in violation of Craigslist policy, but apparently not well policed. As such latest N+1 was first new bike in 20 years.

daverup 

And never see that kind of variety directly across the big lake from Thunder Bay.

BFisher

To be fair, I think the Thunder Bay area dump score situation was an outlier in comparison to most other places.

randyjawa 

Had bikes not been so plentiful and cheap in Thunder Bay, I might have been satisfied with my Giant XTC full suspension mountain bike. I can honestly remember going to lots of yard sales where old Ten Speeds (the generic name we gave to road bikes back in the day) had "Free" signs attached to them. On one days, for $15.00 CND, I managed to drag home five vintage road bikes, including a lovely old Viking (not the Eaton's department store offering but a high end English steed). Fifteen dollars!

These days, I look at the prices locally and on Ebay and cannot help but wonder if it is worth continuing to restore vintage bikes. Lucky for me (or not), five projects still hang from the rafters, under my lake cottage...






And, even luckier, I have all of the components needed to restore them. With exception of consumables such as brake pads, tires, cables and the like. None the less, I will get at the bikes, one at a time, starting with that lovely old Carlton.

Velo Mule

Randy seems to have Radar for interesting vintage bikes.

Road Fan

THAT is truly astounding!

cbrstar

Try buying a vintage BMX on kijiji these days! If the price is $400 by the time you drive out there it will be $800+. The problem with road bikes is how fixed up are they? By the time you buy tires, handle bar tape, new chain, brake shoes, and cables. Well you have spent $200-$300 bucks. So a seller asking $500 if the bike is fully fixed up isn't unreasonable. But the next guy with the same bike but totally unrestored will see the good one sell for $500 and think his is worth the same if not more. . "Cause it's rare".

squirtdad

strange how that happens.....I have decided 1) I am not getting older, I am getting less young and 2) I am getting blonder

panzerwagon 

Sounds like someone else is getting to the dump first

Kabuki12

I was at the harbor a week or so ago and leaned my Colnago against a wall while I sat about fifteen feet away and had coffee. It was amazing how much attention that bike got, and it is not pristine. It has been well used and shows its age , but folks were just really interested in the"vintage ten speed" sitting against the wall. My wife said "I guess you were right , that is a special bike"! A year ago most folks didn't pay attention for the most part , just the occasional comment . I have noticed that some are asking high prices for average vintage bikes now. I don't know how many are selling though. There are still deals here in Southern California but not as many as a few years ago.

mstateglfr 

I dont know what is happening with that Cyclops, is the picture from a fisheye lens?...the bars are comically large. Yeah, that asking price seems high. Its an asking price though and not a sold price.

As for the other 2 bikes...

$400USD for the Masi doesnt seem so outrageous that its worth complaining on a forum. Those look like old 8sp Sora shifters so the bike is entry level and 10 years old or so, but if there isnt much better for less, then its not an egregious price. $400 for something modern thats entry? Sure.

And $400USD for an 853 steel frame, carbon fork, and at least 9sp shifting? Even with the mismatched wheels- if there isnt much better for less than is this really so egregious that its worth posting about?



The Cyclops is really the only one that seems goofy expensive. I wouldnt want to buy the other two at the listed prices, but that doesnt mean they are bad options for others.

randyjawa 

My guess would be that sellers have finally realized that those old road bikes have value. Two years ago, most of those bikes would have been dump fodder. Believe me when I say that and, for what it is worth, I have found two Cyclops road bikes at the dump and one was full Campy Super Record.

randyjawa 

My point is that, until recently, the vintage road bicycle market in Thunder Bay was me. Rarely did anyone post a vintage road bike for sale on-line. I had to actually hunt for bikes, not just sit and click, which is mostly what I do now. Prices are very different in different areas. In Thunder, just a year or two ago, prices were very low. Not anymore!

Darth Lefty 

I'm going to have to go learn more about the Look suspension stem on the Cyclops. I haven't seen that one before.

mstateglfr 

Oh. Based on your multiple comments about bikes you used to find at the dump now being listed for sale, I took your main point to be a complaint about the costs of bikes.

johnnyace 

I'm certainly not seeing anything like the Della Santa I got at Goodwill for $275, or the Giordana I got from a local craigslist seller for $150, these days. And don't get me started about the Portland (Oregon) bike market...

randyjawa 

Well, cost is certainly part of the issue but not my main point which is stated in the thread title - "how things have changed".

Two years ago in Thunder Bay, no vintage bikes were listed on Kijiji - now multiple offerings. The newer bikes are not an issue and I darn near went to look at the Masi and the Tomasso, but they are too new for my liking. Besides, I already have a newer vintage bike, my rider, my Marinoni Piuma. The real issue is the older vintage bikes that are showing up for sale rather than being thrown away at the dump or offered, for next to nothing, at yard sales, which, thanks to the pandemic, appear to be a thing of the past.

And, the prices on Ebay are also soaring also. I hear others about the prices of BMX bikes but it is the road bike stuff that I am mostly familiar with. A few years ago, I was giving Valentino stuff away. Nobody wanted it. Now, the prices on Ebay seem to reflect buyer interests. I actually watched Valentino prices closely (shaking my head at what was being asked) until what I thought to be a good deal surfaced. I bought this set for my next restoration project. I guess that I have changed also...


Actually, there is more to my present interest in the Valentino stuff. I have never restored a bike with that lowly transmission. Now, I am interested to find out how well, or how poorly, the set actually preforms. If the weather ever warms up, I will finally get a chance to see, for myself, how the entry level Campy stuff works. I even want to try out a Gran Tourismo rear derailleur that I purchased recently for a fair price - just to see if all the negative hype holds water...

oneclick 

There are two basic issues with the Valentino/Velox/GT series of mechs - and Huret Svelto, Roto. one version of the Zeus Alfa, maybe ZZR made one...

The first is the placement of the upper jockey wheel at the lower knuckle pivot; any with this design force that jockey wheel upwards when the sprocket teeth it is aiming for are getting lower. A mech with an offset pair of jockey wheels can be arranged so that as the cage rotates to unwrap chain for the larger gears, it moves downward a bit. (The Valentino has this.)

The second is the poor parallelogram pivot design. They are single-sided, and the steel of the knuckles or the arms (or both) is too weak - often it becomes bent, whereupon you get stiff movement - or sloppy, when enough grit gets in the gaps after you oil it trying to loosen it up. The only successful version of this design I know of is the Jubilee, I think it's just that those arms are a thick enough section that they don't bend (and possibly superior manufacturing tolerances). I suspect the Valentino Super other Zeus Alfa might be worth trying, their arms are U-shaped and so those pivots are not side-loaded, and they have offset cages.

Kabuki12

I was given a 1971 Stella years ago that has the matchbox Campagnolo front derailleur and the Velox rear with the Grand Sport shifters and that bike shifts reliably with a wide range FW. It isn't as nice as NR or SR , but very useable and no reason to change the system that is there. The look of the RD with the chrome and red pivot bolts is very nice and fits the vintage of the bike. It isn't as easy to set up as the later Campy derailleurs but not that bad.

gthomson

randyjawa I might have to make a trip up to Thurnderbay and check out your local dump! I agree with markk900 that down south, we do not see finds like that and for fun, you should change you location on Kijiji to the GTA and then your jaw will really drop! if you are on Facebook, check out the group Toronto Road/CX Bike - Classifieds. Some collectors are parting with their stock but their listing at $700 and up for what would have sold for half that price last year. I can't even imagine what they were worth 5 years ago as I wasn't in the market.

To me the market seems saturated as anyone who was hanging on to any kind of bike is now dumping it on social media. I have an alert set for vintage road bike and it used to list actual vintage bikes but now just lists pages and pages of garbage. Since when are Wal-Mart princess bikes vintage?

That Masi road bike with shoes and helmet for $500 is a good deal though!