abarth

Let see the best, hummm......so many, here are a few:

$10 for a Schwinn Voyageur SP frameset

Got a Grand Jubile with Jubile deraillures as part of the deal for the Voyageur above.

$80 for a Trek 1500

$100 for a Novara Randonnee with STI

$180 for a Miyata 1000

The bad:

$180 for a beater PX10, took a lot of work to make it looks decent.

$180 for a Specialized Epic Carbon and spent about the same amount to make it below 20lbs.

Happy New York to everyone!!!

robtown

Best buy (of two similar bikes) at $100: TREK 2100 Composite with new 9 speed wheelset, Look pedals, handlebar bag, portable tool kit, and Specialized Body Geometry saddle
Worst sale (again difficult) at $120: Terry Symetry WSD pink road bike in very good shape on Ebay
Best sale: Complete group of Campy Nuovo Record for $175 and 2 pizzas parted on Ebay for over $700

bikamper

Best buy:1977 womens Raleigh Sports in excellent condition for $6.

Worst:I didn't have a worst buy but I gave away a couple of bikes that I had more than a few bucks into. The receivers were quite pleased, tho.

Doug64

1993 Trek 820, brand new still in the box--$190 plus shipping. Downside: It is purple aqnd white.

redxj

Best Buys (flippers):
Auction of 20+ stems on Ebay: total shipped $61
early 70's Gitane Track bike off CL for $120
02' Ridley Crossbow for $30 from a police auction
and the recent Lotus Supreme with almost full Campagnolo SR group

Best Buys (personal bikes):
Surly LHT complete (through shop I work at) Can't tell price
De Salvo Track frameset (serotta forums) $650
De Rosa Primato frameset with Campy Centaur 10 speed group $1000 shipped (far away CL)

Worst:
Two bikes off of Ebay that were going to be for me: Univega Viva Touring and a Voodoo Wazoo cross bike. Both were damaged in shipping, but I was able to fix both of them myself. Neither seller could actually measure a bike so they both ended up being too small and were sold eventually. I made a little money on the Univega and lost some on the Wazoo.

Best flips:
Ridley from above after downgrading parts and selling the complete bike for $650. I got 9 speed Dura Ace shifters and front and rear derailleurs for my own bike plus over $600 profit
Gitane track ended up parting it out for a profit of $400
Ebay stem auction=$120 profit with still a few stems left

DavidW56

I got more than a few bikes for free in 2009, either given to me or found by me in the trash. The best of the lot was a rarely ridden 1980's Ross Carrera mixte from CL -- the nice lady would take no money; she only wanted someone to pick it up right away, as she was moving out of state.



The best buy I actually paid for would be a Taiwan Schwinn Le Tour from the Salvation Army for around $30.

The worst buy was not a bike, but a seat for $35 plus shipping from eBay's Bicycle Heaven, advertised in a manner that led me to believe it was an original Schwinn seat, when in fact it is a plastic copy.

Hydrated

My best isn't a single transaction, but more of a 48 hour period of time this summer:

A Friday afternoon errand took me through a neighborhood that I don't normally frequent. As I drove along, I spied a handlebar sticking out of a trash pile. I nearly kept driving, but the itch made me turn around. What I found was a 1995 Trek 950 mountain bike... absolutely pristine except that it was missing its wheels. The thing was so clean that the brakes, derailleurs, etc. were still shiny as if they were never ridden.

It was such a find that I was afraid to take it... but soon an old man tottered out from around the house. I asked him if he wanted the bike, to which he replied "Sure... it's just trash to me."

I grabbed it and ran.

The next morning, I found a nice mid-90's Trek hybrid during my weekly flea market run. It was like new so I gave the guy $80 for it... about four times more than I normally pay for a flipper bike. I put it on C-list that same Saturday afternoon for $175. Within 4 hours I had set up a meeting with a buyer for 8 a.m. Sunday morning at a local grocery store parking lot.

When I got up Sunday, I scanned C-list quickly to check for irresistible deals. During the night, someone had posted a set of 26" wheels for $75. I called and set up a meeting with the guy in the same parking lot for 30 minutes later than my other meeting.

I went to the parking lot... sold my flipper for my asking price. Then as my buyer was driving away, my other guy showed up. Turns out that this guy was a young rider who had bought a nice mountain bike, but wanted the lightest bestest wheels for his bike, so he was selling the stock wheels off of the bike. They were far nicer than I'd expected. Mavic rims with new Shimano XT hubs... and he threw in the Maxxis lightweight racing knobbies that were on them. And I talked him down to $55 for the whole shebang.

So for the weekend, I ended up with a great like-new Trek 950 and cash in my pocket without ever turning a wrench.

BobHufford

So few bikes come and go that it leaves little margin between the best and worst. The best was probably this early post-War Schwinn New World for $50. "AS&Co" chainring, stainless Superior rims, etc.



The worst was one that was advertised as a Specialized racing bike for $15 -- the seller didn't know much about it other than a friend of hers had ridden it in a few triathlons. She lived about 40 miles away and offered to bring the bike to me to look at. It turned out to be a very ratty '90s Specialized Crossroads. I went ahead and bought it so they could recoup some gas money. They also brought along her husband's 2006(?) Specialized Rock Hopper Sport that, other than a rusty chain, was unridden. Gave $50 for it.

Bob

gomango

Best buy - 1994 Tommasini Sintesi - $400 for entire bike w/mostly eight speed Dura Ace. Pulled the Dura Ace off bike, and gave DA goodies to a riding buddy for Christmas. He returned with tickets to three Gopher basketball games for my family. Bike will be very slowly built with 10 speed Campy in the spring.



Worst buy - A DeRosa long sleeved riding jersey in Italy. Seam was not stitched properly and split when I put it on my chubby bod. Euro sizing, bad quality. Clearly some sort of a message in there, although I am not clear what that may be. My wife said something about getting on the treadmill.

sykerocker 

Best bike buy of the year? Easy. It's that Nishiki Riviera GT I picked up for free at the transfer station and in good enough condition that it only cost me $11.00 to put back into mint riding (aka saleable) condition.

Worst? Nothing comes to mind that I was really unhappy with this year. My closest disappointment was a vintage Diamondback mountain bike I also found at the transfer station. Complete except for a rear wheel and cassette. Planned on finishing is also for a ride-for-awhile-then-flip, but figured it'd cost me more to complete than would be profitable. The frameset will be sold at Westminster, the rest of the parts are in the inventory.

roccobike

The best and worst are both Nishiki road bikes. The best was finding a rare Nishiki Medalist at a yard sale for $100. It's not the money, it's the rarity of it and it's a frame size I can ride.
The worst was my addiction to Nishiki bikes. I picked up a Peugeot MTB that I thought was really rare. All I bought was a $30 beater that needs a bunch of parts. Not a terrible deal, but not what I thought it was.

Kobe 

Best- Schwinn Prelude that I saw at a yard sale. Somebody was already buying it for $25. Just in case I came back later and appearently the guy backed out and it was out on the street with the trash. Sold it for $175.



Worst- was a Raleigh Sports, I paid $60 for it. Sold the brooks B72 for $50 and the bike for $100. So I made money right ! Wrong, when I was pulling the stuck headset out , it let go all at once. Chipped a tooth that cost $150 to fix, and cost me a bit of pride.



My teeth hurt every time I see a Raleigh Sports.

Rammer

Local craigslist has gone south compared to previous years. Too many flippers including a few rogues that crazilly critique others posts and even flag legitimate posts to control the market.

Only 3 purchases in 2009:
Best: complete 1984 Trek 520 with lights, frame pump, rack, and pannier for $100. Craigslist find. Called within 30 minutes of post time and collected it about 30 minutes later. Tiny - 54 cm.
In-between: mid-80s Lotus Odyssey touring frame set in my size that had some rust. Brought to my attention by another forum member. Had it shipped from NH. Powder coated it and transferred parts from above to it, but have yet to add cables and housing to make it ride-able. Slowest build ever!
Worst: eBay purchase of a misadvertised Schwinn Paramount. It wasn't and I knew it, but it was still a decent, mystery frame with some good parts for the price, so I thought. The Shimano RSX brifters were not engaging despite the listing and the WD-40 trick has not revived these. It has 650C wheels and because of the lack of shifting it has been hanging in my garage since mid-summer.

No sales for 2009, but did biycle commute over 5000 miles this year. Would like to sell both the Trek frame set and the steel tri-bike to end up with a finished Lotus touring bike at a low price.

3373jones

best (for myself): Very good condition Miyata nine sixteen on CL for $35. It was missing one 105 brifter and the other was "broken" - but i fixed it with the WD-40 trick and sold it on ebay for $90. Bought a good pair of working 105 brifters on CL for $40 to get the bike running.

Worst: rusty peugeot P8 for $10. turned out to be too much work (needed new everything), so got rid of it cheap.

cudak888 

2009 "Best:"

1972 Schwinn Paramount P13-9, all-chrome.
Purchased from the son of the original owner. Nearly complete, and it went together flawlessly. If I recall correctly, the whole job took only 3 months, including all required parts scavenging.

A beautiful bike, a beautiful ride, and an almost completely stress-free build.

The '72 is in the foreground, '70 in the background.


2009 "Most Difficult:"

1973 Raleigh Competition.
This wasn't a bad find, but I had to build a wheel on the spot - for trade with the seller - to cinch the deal. I sweated for two hours over getting everything together for wheel building, the wheelbuilding itself, respacing the rear hub, pulling different hoops out, hoping I had the right spoke lengths, et cetera.

While I'm happy with the result, I've occasionally asked myself whether stressing myself that evening - after an already hectic afternoon - was worth it for a typically poorly-brazed Raleigh frameset (which, to top everything off, had a bent fork and rear seat stays which needed to be cold-set back into place).



2009 "Worst:"

1975 Raleigh Twenty.
Having fallen in love with my 1970 Twenty, my next-door neighbor asked me to keep an eye out for another. One popped up on Craigslist; naturally, I mentioned it to her. I didn't expect the seller to have two, which he did. She ended up purchasing both, the second w/o the rear wheel. It wasn't after I had built the rear wheel that I noticed that the fork was out of alignment from a side impact. It wouldn't have been an issue to straighten, but the blades weren't bent - the steerer tube was.

The cost of a replacement fork on eBay was $70 - more then she wished to spend on the bike - so I bought both the fork and the Twenty, in an effort to salvage it. At this point, the cost of the bike paralleled what a better example would have cost me online, but I felt that it was worth the cost to save it.

I mounted the replacement fork, took a ride, and the handling felt very, very wrong. I eyeballed the fork from the bars, and noticed that the fork blades were offset left, and the handlebar stem offset right. After bringing it into the stand and eyeballing it, it became apparent that the headtube had been bent out of alignment from the same impact that took out the fork.

I gave up, and listed both fork and rear half of the frame on eBay. No takers.

I don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place, but I had entirely forgotten that Mike Terraferma (local frambuilder extraordinaire - see his latest randonneur) has a frame coldsetting jig. My 245 pounds and the proper tools (Henry James, I think) cold-set the headtube back into position.

Don't get me wrong, I love Twentys - all of them - but the time and effort required to build it combined with the space it took up and the heartache ruined the fun of building it. Thankfully, riding it provides a relief.

I'm still short a chainstay gear cable stop for it and a chainguard. I haven't OA'ed the handlebars either; lots of the brightwork remains in very poor shape as well.



-Kurt

Oldpeddaller

2009 Best - A job loy of old bolts and parts I picked up for £5 on e-bay. Many useful parts including a seemingly unused aluminium Campagnolo 7-speed freewheel.

2009 Worst - Potentially the Campagnolo freewheel referred to above! I'd already fitted it and was using it when I read on this Forum that you need a special hard-to find tool to remove it! (It looked like the Suntour 2-peg tool I fitted it with was the right tool, but apparently not). I foresee trouble when it wears out...........

Amani576

Best and worst buy all in one -

Best cause it was $175...
Worst cause it has a stuck seatpost (granted I've only worked on that problem once)
-Gene-

noglider 

Hard to say. I have done a bad job at keeping track, and I suppose it's good that I can't necessarily remember all the bikes.

I got a lot of satisfaction from the Varsity I got at the dump and fixed up. It looked fine at first, but it gave me a huge amount of headaches, but when it was done, I sold it with pride, because it was in perfect running order except for some dings in the rims. I ended up doing everything to the bike, including repacking both hubs, the crank, and the headset; rebuilding the rear wheel by removing all the nipples and lubricating them; and straightening the fork! The selling experience was weird, too. The buyer called me on the phone and said he'd be sending me a check. Of course, I wouldn't believe it until I saw it, but darned if the check didn't clear. He couldn't come to pick it up because he was busy, which was fine with me, since I had the money. I eventually took it with me on the train into NYC and I handed it to him at Penn Station. He didn't know what he had, but I sure gave him a square deal.

nlerner

I had a very good year in terms of finding some interesting bikes, a couple of which I had long been seeking.

#1 is a 1974 Raleigh Super Tourer. This was an eBay find. It had been listed a couple of times and didn't meet reserve, so I contacted the seller to find out what reserve he had in mind. He ended up letting me know that he'd list it on a 48-hour auction and what the reserve would be. I managed to win over one other bidder and was very pleased to see it remarkably original and well-preserved when I pulled it out of the box.



#2 is a 1950/51 Raleigh Lenton Tourist, which I bought on eBay as a frameset (I might have been the only bidder on that auction) and built up with 700c wheels, rear Sturmey Archer AW hub. It's only about 26 lbs and has a great stealth look in that to most it would seem like an ordinary Raleigh three speed w/ a green-painted frame that's fairly tired.



Back up to 1974. I received this 1974 Norman Fay as a frameset in trade for an early 70s Paramount P-15 frameset that I bought for a song on CL. Norman Fay was a UK builder for a short time, and I'm lucky also to have a '74 Norman Fay touring bike, so this one is a twin of sorts, but built for a very different use. It's actually now my one just about full Campy bike (except for brake levers). I've even since replaced the TA crankset shown in the pic with a Campy NR.



Most recent find is a 1972 Raleigh International, a poorly listed eBay auction in which I was the highest of only two bidders. It came just about all original except for the saddle, and I've built it up in rando mode:



I really haven't had any notable lousy purchases this year. There's a recent Ideale saddle from France that's missing its nose piece and has a rail that's come loose from the base, but it didn't cost much and hopefully I'll make use of the leather top. I paid more than I should have for a Dawes touring frame from the UK, but I hope to get most of that back when I sell it off in the spring. There's a Trek frameset I sold on eBay, which came back when a whining buyer had remorse and lame stories about damage, but I built that one back up, did some excellent riding on it, and then sold it as a complete bike in the fall (probably didn't make much on that one if anything, but at least I moved it along). I'll be very happy if I do as well in 2010.

Neal

noglider 

Darn, Neal, you do such admirable work. I'm in Brookline from time to time, and I'd love to visit.

A friend of mine keeps his Super Tourer in his mother's house in Brookline. I've ridden it. Very nice.

nlerner

Drop me a line the next time you're in town and have the time, Tom. I'd be glad to give you a tour of the bike cave.

Neal

cycleheimer

About $30 as shown, and I love this bike. Do "20 out and 20 back" rides on it. Nice, steady and solid bike for this purpose.

KonAaron Snake 

My best buy was my Merlin Titanium with almost all dura-ace (a pepper of ultegra) 9 speed at $675. It's my main rider and the best feeling, smoothest bike I've ever had the pleasure of riding. I got some bikes this year that were maybe a bit cooler, or more unique, but every time I look at the Merlin, I just smile like a kid at Christmas. Merlin was also the bike I grew up dreaming about as a child.

My worst buy was a Grandis given to my GF/Finacee. I put a lot of time and energy into it...as well as resources...and she's decided she doesn't like road bikes. It's an awesome bike, it just ended up a lot of wasted effort.

funrover 

WOW!!! Nice finds with this group!

corkscrew

Best finds:

1984 Motobecane Mirage Sport, $100. Paint, decals, tires and other mechanical bits in nearly perfect condition. Changed the saddle and adjusted the brakes before commuting on it all summer.
1993 Cannondale T700 - $175. Also in good shape, shifts perfectly, just needs new bar tape. Even came with a Blackburn rear rack. Hoping to start my touring career this summer with it.
1980 Centurion Super Le Mans frameset - free. A bit large for me, but am gathering parts for it anyway.

Finds I'm iffy on...

1973 Schwinn World Voyageur - $200. Got caught up and impulse bought this bike due to its rarity. However its way to small for me to use it as tourer, needs a complete overhaul and a new wheelset. Hoping I can still make some $$ flipping it.

1986 Nishiki Blazer - Thrift store find for $20 - needed the hubs rebuilt and new cables. Changed the canti-s to v's, added a rack and fenders and used it as the winter commuter. Traded it for $100 and a Xtracycle snap deck. If anything I broke even after all the new parts, and lost my winter commuter, although it was heavy as sin.