Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Of course, it isn't easy, and you have to have a good head for value, and be a decent, efficient mechanic to do it successfully. But I know of at least one "shop" that makes a decent full time living flipping bikes. They've built their reconditioned bike business up enough that they have to hire mechanics to do keep up.
What you're describing is a bike shop that sells used bikes.... which is basically flipping but there's more to it, including some legitimacy and commitment. I don't tend to patronize these spots, but the better ones are places I can respect. (VIA in Phila comes to mind.)
OTOH, there are the clowns who snipe cheap bikes on craigs just so they can mess them up with their ham-fisted "tune-ups" and "upgrades", from which they hope to make a profit. As I see it, if you love bikes, you wouldn't want to be a greedy parasite, making weird profits by inflating prices and taking advantage of unsuspecting original owners and prospective buyers-- especially considering that, once you factor in the cost of tubes, cables, brake pads, bearings, grease etc.... PLUS the labor spent wrenching... PLUS the time spent responding to gibberish about Nigerian princes and "would you take $5 for it?" and tire-kickers--- Plus, you probably ought to be declaring the "income" on your taxes, unless you're into breaking the law for chump-change, so there's the tax factor, too....Well, I bet flipping doesn't even make minimum wage, on the hour....
Here's an idea: let's leave the profiteering to legitimate businesses, and only buy bikes that we'd actually like to own. How's that sound?