In general, I've had a good time on CL.

My craziest experience was a couple of years ago. I had been looking for a bike for my GF, and found a 48cm celeste, italian made Bianchi at a church yard sale for 25$. I thought it might fit her, but it didn't. This left me with a very nice, basically unridden Bianchi, and no bike for my GF.

Aha! I think, in a rare moment of inspiration-- I'll try to trade the cute little Bianchi for something a bit bigger, that'll solve all the problems. So I compose a nice little CL ad, explaining my situation and that I am looking for a trade, not a sale.

I get bombarded. I think the total was around 50+ emails and calls. I get offered a Murray (not a Serotta one, either), a cheap Asian bianchi ( the girl wants both cash and my bike for hers, which is a far lesser bike), several sub 100 offers, and an insistent woman from 150 miles away who asks for a lot more photos (fine) and grouches about how she knows a lot about bike and I know very little.

Eventually, I relist the bike, this time with a 450$ price tag (or offer in trade). A woman drive from Roanoke that day (6 hr drive), and pays the full price, no questions asked.

The time I found a perfectly good Huffy (not a Serotta) in the trash and put it on CL for free was almost as crazy, too. Next time I'm charging five bucks for it, or a donation to Pen Pals (a local organization that has prisoners in the state pen train homeless dogs).