Originally Posted by
thirdgenbird
You forgot a 3rd market: no selection
The op lives in an area where there may only be one or two available road bikes on Craigslist below $500 that didn't come from a department store. Months can go by before you find something that fits and is in nice shape.
For reference, the entire month of August fits on one Craigslist page.
You definitely have me there. Good point. I overcome no market with a willingness to waste money on gas. Of the last four bikes I picked up, one was 220 miles away and one was 100 miles away (one way distances). The other two were closer, one was 50 miles, one was less than 2 miles (how did that happen??) I don't know whether that means I am really flexible, or stupid, probably a bit of both. But when you are looking for a nice bike, in a smaller market (I live in a smaller market myself), then traveling outside the area is often one solution, just not a cheap one.
You want really crazy, I drove almost 90 miles (again, one way), to pick up a used bike rack. Now that, is truly crazy. But it was the one model rack I wanted, at a price I thought was attractive.
Somewhat interesting, the two bikes that were the farthest away were in markets with about a page worth of bikes total in the last six weeks. So even though in those markets, bikes for sale are quite infrequent, so to were customers for those bikes. (just double checked the town that was 220 miles away, middle of nowhere, small town. Total number of bikes for sale on C/L in the last month? Zero).