Bearonabike

A "local" pawn shop has a Nishiki Sebring in good + condition and a Ross Gran Tour II in good condition for $125.00. The Nishiki has a Suntour AR RD and it looks like the Ross also has a Suntour group. Both are 27" X 1.25" wheels.

If I just wanted to put them on the street, all I would need to do is tune-up, lube and maybe replace cables and bar tape.

I am rather familiar with vintage Fuji and Trek but not so much on Nishiki and Ross. Were these entry level bikes or pretty decent models? Is $125.00 for both a decent price?

HSean

Where I live a good clean road bike that looks new and is a good name brand can go for around 200$, then it can go higher depending on quality, I'd buy em possibly if I needed one and wanted to sell the other.

Bearonabike

That's the problem, I don't NEED either. I have 2 Fuji S-10-S bikes, a '74 that I rebuilt as close as I could to period correct and a '77 that I am rebuilding now to 100% period correct Subtour Superbe group. I also have a Trek 1200 and a Giant Cypress. If either bike represents a jump in quality etc. then I may consider it. Otherwise, space in my garage is getting kind of short.

bikemeister

Sounds to me like you need a bigger garage.

Bearonabike

I have the wife considering a 10'X24' shed for the back yard to be my "bike shop." Got to love that woman.

mastershake916

27 x 1 1/4
Sorry, but I had to say it.

tolfan

for the pair 125$ ya thats not bad. In the market here anything decent quolity in fair condition would go for 150$ each.

tolfan

oh and yes yo do need them , you do have the room for them, buy them buy them now , now buy them

roccobike

Nishiki is a good quality brand comparable to Fuji. IMHO Ross is more of an entry level specialist road bike manufacturer with a few nice mid-level bikes thrown in. I'm not sure which year Sebring you're referring to, but the one I'm familiar with was manufactured in 83/84 and has a Chromoly maintube frame. It, like the Gran Tour is an entry level bike. The Gran Tour's that I've seen have Hi-Tensile frames so the Nishiki has the nicer frame. But the Ross probably has alloy bars and dual QRs. The Sebring has chrome bars and one (front) QR. You might want to do a little parts swapping to improve the nicer frame of the Nishiki, then sell off the Ross to recover some of your costs.
BTW, $125 for the two bikes is not a bad price. Cleaned up with good tires, chain etc they probably would sell for over $100 each. It's your call.

bikerosity57

Well made bikes as I recall, but better than entry level. Not high end, but good quality. Not exacly collector models, but the price isn't too bad IF you were looking for a bike.

froze

The Ross was not a well made bike, it was a very inexpensive low end general store type of bike similar to Sears Freespirit, in fact Ross made a lot of Sears and Montgomery Ward stuff. Ross did make in 84 an odd bike for them called the Signature Road Criterium using Ishiwata 024 CroMo tubes, CroMo was something that none of their other bikes ever used that cost $2100 back then! But they only made 5 or 7 of these and were special order only. The bike your looking at though is worth no more than $50.

Nishiki went from very low end to very high end, what your looking at was their lower end stuff, this is evident also by knowing about Suntour; assuming the derailleurs are stock because the Suntour AR was their low end derailleur and they wouldn't put a low end derailleur on even a mid end bike. This bike used is worth no more than $20.

Both used heavy hiTen frames with low end components, most even used steel wheels!

Of the two the Ross is a tad better.

bct555

Location is everything. I live in a college town and flip a ton of bikes, I'd gladly pay $125 each for those bikes in good condition, service them, new tires and brake pads and still damn near double my money.
I imagine some places they would be worth a lot less.

jamesl

I briefly had a Ross Gran Tour from the mid 80s. It had alloy wheels and a Cro-Mo main tubes. I would consider it a nice mid-level bike but a tad small for me. I bought it for $20 in need of bearing grease and truing of the back wheel. Sold it for $125 within six hours of posting on Craigslist. Kinda kicked myself for letting it go so cheap....

bcoppola

Incorrect for the Nishiki. An '83 Sebring I flipped a little over a year ago for, IIRC, $80 had 4130 CrMo straight gauge tubes. But yes, it was near the bottom of the product line. Here's a pic of the sticker:

froze

Your right about the CroMo vs HiTen; but as your pic shows it's 4130 with no indication of any butted tubing, this tubeset is just straight gauge steel that was very heavy compared to others; also there is no wording on the sticker about the stays which means the triangle is HiTen which made this the lowest costing CroMo tubeset you could buy; note: your sticker says main tubes, this just means the top, seat, head (which may or may not be 4130 just depended on the manufacture, some said just the 3 main tubes some included the head tube)and down tube. I still stand by my price estimates for these two bikes. I would not pay the kind of money that the pawnshop is asking for either of those two bikes...but that's just me.

jcsulser

you can flip em for a profit almost for sure, might not be immediate though. the sebring is a low level bike in as far as nishiki's line up went but its still a pretty decent bike (i own a sebring) and Ross made some decent mid-level bikes with shimano 600 components and stuff but thats probably a hi-ten heavy frame etc etc.

bikerosity57

The Ross was not junk. Not high end, but not junk.

nateintokyo

I don't think either of those would be a jump in quality.
If you are looking to flip and you live in an expensive market, have at it, but in my opinion even then the margin isn't fantastic. Better stuff turns up often enough that I personally wouldn't go for either.

Bearonabike

Given the posts that I have received (and am grateful for - thanks), I have decided to let these pass.