oldpedalpusher

Just out of curiousity I wanted to know which type of bike was listed the most on Craig's List... and took a couple of pages at random and counted the types. They were all pretty close:

Road: 21
Mountainbike:22
Fixie: 26

CCrew

now ya need to do: Stolen vs Not Stolen

Private owner versus bike flipper

chewybrian 

I'm on CL every day (just in case there's a sweet deal on a huge bike/frame). I think this distribution depnds greatly on the area, urban vs. rural. I can see lots of fixies for sale in Orlando or Miami, and almost never on Space Coast, Treasure Coast, Daytona. The road/mountain mix seems to be more stable.

Bikewer

I sell all my bikes (I guess I'm a "flipper") on Craigslist, and locally it seems to run largely less-expensive mountain bikes, which pretty much mirrors what you see on school campuses.

The disportionate number of fixed-gear bikes would seem to indicate folks who thought they'd be a good idea, then got tired of 'em....

Rainier22

I find a mix of Wal-Mart bikes, little kid's bikes (from Wal-Mart), and some vintage things people have rotting in their basement. I'm still waiting for a deal on a hybrid, but I live in a pretty poor city: Springfield, Missouri.

oldpedalpusher

I can add that the sample taken was from the Los Angeles area. You touched on why I took a count... the disproportional number of fixies. It became so painful to see so many nice old frames stripped of their original components just because it's quick and easy to downgrade it into a fixie bothered me so much, I had to stop clicking those ads.

Looking for a road bike, I never let the fact that it was put up for sale by a flipper deter me from considering it. I bought my old Raleigh from a local flipper and paid top dollar for it... but I'm still happy with finding exactly what I was looking for and in decent condition.

Thank God he didn't make a fixie out of it!


Greg

scooter_dude

As a point of interst, I bought my 1 yr old specialized Roubaix Elite off craigslist for $1000. Guy had big plans, rode it one time and decided he didn't care for it and offered it up on Craigslist. Absolutely flawless condition, and I checked, it was his bike not a stolen.

CCrew

DC area CL is a bit uglier. Because it's close to other metro areas you see a lot of blatent flips occurring. One will show up on Baltimore CL for $300 and next week it's on DC for $900, utilizing the same pictures even.

Not to mention the DC "fixie tax" where they're taking the $25 garage sale bikes and marking them up to $300 after the conversion.. which usually consists of spray bomb and a hacksaw.

There are deals out there, but you best know bikes. "vintage" in DC is frequently a 30 year old Huffy

oldpedalpusher

That's the mechanism of free market competition... for better or for worse. To the swift go the spoils. What's nice is that you can see actual real world bike prices that the market will bear at any point in time by what turns over and what doesn't. It's geuinely fascinating to observe even though I've only bought two bikes in the last 20 years!


Greg

tsl

I suppose it depends on where you live. Around here the mix is generally equal parts ***, hybrid and MTB, with a slight dusting of road and fixie.

Huh. P. O. S. is now a censored word?

Bikewer

I always try to price my bikes fairly. I usually start with a figure around 1/2 of MSRP, and then adjust up or down depending on condition.
Of course, I actually work on the ones I sell; chains, cables, bearings, adjustments, etc. They're ready-to-roll.

oldpedalpusher

The flipper bike I bought was just the opposite of ready to roll... it had cheap steel hub wheels on it and the brakes didn't work but I didn't care because I was just buying it for the frame which was pristine for being 25 years old.