Here's my techniques. I hope you wont use them if you live in my area:
- Go to the dump/landfill often. The scrap pile will provide you with hordes of frames and sometimes wheels
- Think about where you live. I live in the mountains, Everybody and their brother has or wants a mountain bike. I get free or sub $40 mountain bike and flip them ready to ride for $150.
- Go dumpster diving. Behind the LBS, you can regularly find tires, tubes, chain, wheels, bike boxes, and sometimes even shifters! Beware, some shops are extremely protective of their trash and will do things like DESTROY takeoffs and partially non-working parts. Don't be surprised if the employees soon hate you.
- I harvest Wal-Mart bikes for their cables/housing, ferrules, derailleurs (if they are Shimano), seat posts, saddles, grips, and sometimes: shifters, wheels, bars, v-brakes, stems... If the bike CAN be 100% I will sell it after making adjustments so it can be ridden.
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Any working road bike is worth $120+ if it's ready to ride.
- Schwinn is still a respected brand name by the average consumer (read: worth more)!
- If you get a road bike that doesn't get a lot of respect, but has nice components, part it out.
- Do you go to church? If so ask ministers/missionaries if they can keep an eye out for bikes. I have gotten gobs of parts and bikes from LDS missionaries who often wear out small parts on their bikes and trade bikes and parts often. It's not uncommon for missionaries (who all live in an apartment together), to have 20+ parts bikes available. I offer to fix their bikes for free, they give me everything they don't need. The bikes they don't use often get taken to the tip. So they usually consider my removal to be a nice service!
- Ask your friends.
- When I sell a bike, it falls in one of two categories: rebuilt or tuned-up. If a bike is nice enough, (Schwinn World Sport and up), I will completely rebuild and overhaul the bike and then tune it to race bike precision. When they go for a test ride and it looks a feel like new, they will usually pay a
lot more. If it can feel that way without overhaul, then just clean/adjust
- Finally, when parting out: don't be afraid to clean/rebuild components I have ad a lot of luck selling things for top dollar on Ebay, "precision rebuilt" and "functioning flawlessly". I will even buy low priced Buy It Now dirty parts, rebuild and flip.