Originally Posted by
FORDSVTPARTS
I'm a little surprised at some of the responses in this thread, I do understand some frustration with overpriced bikes due to the habits of some flippers but not all flippers contribute to the problem.
Here's a typical bike that I did, I won't go into what I paid for it but here's one as found.
And here it is when I finished it, all freshly cleaned and greased, new cables and housings, trued wheels, new tires, tubes and bar wrap.
After all that I sold it for $150.00, did I make a profit? Yes.
Did I make a killing? Heck no but like I said in my first post in this thread, I build them for fun and to pass them along to people that will enjoy them and in speaking to most of the people I sell bikes to it's obvious that most could not perform the work needed on a bike like this and taking it to a bike shop for the same repairs would cost a LOT more than what I sold the bike for.
So am I driving up the market or providing a service?
$150 for a good quality bike that will last for decades to come isn't a bad deal at all. The Varsity is overweight but rugged. A Walmart bike of the same price is most likely disposable crap. And how much is Wally World making off their $150 bike? If you account for the value of your time, your profit is prolly slimmer than theirs.
Sad part about bikes, is that the before & after pictures rarely show 1/10 of the work entailed. The pics posted show new tires, new seat, & re-wrapped bars with a few minor improvements. The uninitiated have not a clue about what was done & how much work it took.