I've found a pretty reasonable deal on a bike, but I have never even contemplated spending this much on something off Craigslist (its about $2500, a good deal on something that was worth about 5k new not that long ago). Anyone have any advice on how to handle this transaction, or any red flags I should be looking for before I agree to meet some random guy in crack-needle park right behind the abandoned sheds with a whole bunch of $100's in my hand? Thanks to the wonders of photobucket, I can see that the seller appears to have owned/sold a relatively large number of pretty high end bikes (about 8 that I can see, all in the $2k and above range), which may be worrying or reassuring, depending upon your point of view.

Anyone have any good advice for this kind of transaction?

Dave