Just need to vent and get some feedback on a frustrating bike buying experience

Yesterday... guy calls me say he has about 20 bikes 8 being road bikes he wants to sell. I go take a look make him a fair offer to take six of them... then he started hemming and hawing about how he didn't know what they were worth but thought they were worth more. I told him they would be worth more once cleaned, tuned, and fixed but that would take time and money. He has no experience fixing or riding bikes and has no clue about value...

He showed me a NOS Tommasso frame and told me it was a carbon fiber frame that sold for over 2,000... It was clearly a steel frame... very nice but if you can't tell carbon from steel... what are you doing selling bikes... and he though I was trying to rip him offer on the frame. I almost wanted to have him get a magnet.


In the end he wanted me to come back later after he did some research and check how he was doing selling off the barn load of bike he bought from a farmer. He's got more bikes to pickup from the barn plus load of parts and tools... so I want to stay in his good graces but it was 30 min drive to go look at some bikes that in the end he didn't want to sell?

He reluctantly sold me two bikes and a frame for a fair price but in the end I think I pissed him off by telling him the truth and giving him my honest opinion on value.


70% of what he had was junk. He wants someone to buy the good bikes along with the crap bikes but still pay $50 to $80 for the crap.

Here is what I got

Miyata Triton... 8/10 condition with owners manual $100
Panasonic Sport LX with suntour 8/10... $100
Nishiki Prestige frame 7/10 has small dent on top tupe $20

What I didn't get but what I offered

Fuji Touring IV... 8/10 ... $100
Raleigh Sprite 70s... 6/10... $75
Centurion Accordo 8/10... $100
Trek 1000 Aluminum... 7/10 $150 to $200 same model as this one on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/Trek-1000-61-Cm-...item1e62cbb42f

Diamond Back - Centurion Made? exage components heavey steel road bike $100

Monarch Cruiser $100... he told me this one was worth $1000... I told him I don't know much about cruisers. I'm going to check into that one more.

Were my offers out of line?

I'll post picture of the two I bought.

Half of me wants to do business with this guy again if he has more road bikes an parts but half of me does want to deal with him.