I was recently in a accident in which my fairly new Gary Fisher Marlin (2004, maybe? I can't find the info from when it was purchased) was crushed by an SUV. The frame snapped in several places. I know very little about bikes, but I understand that this was a pretty good one, at least for my purposes. I was commuting to school, frequently taking it on and off trains. I loved how light it was. I liked it a lot, so I was excited find and purchase an older looking Marlin frame on ebay. It cost me about $61.00 including the shipping. I'm waiting for it to arrive. Here's the bid:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/220891661214...84.m1439.l2649
Anyway, now I have a number of questions. I'll just list them.
(1) Looking at the pictures from the ebay bid, can anyone tell how old it is or if there are any obvious problems?
(2) Was this a stupid purchase? I'm won't lie, it was sort of an impulse buy.
(3) When the frame arrives, how do I know if its "good"? Are their obvious signs to tell if there are problems or its been repaired in the past?
(4) Will it be easy to find the rest of the parts for a complete bike?
(5) What are the rest of the parts I need to buy? What sort of cost am I looking at?
(6) Is it likely that I'll be able to use parts off my destroyed (probably much newer) Marlin and use them on this frame?
(7) Using this frame is there potential to make this bike comparable to my destroyed one?
I'll probably add more questions as I think of them. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me out.
- Brad