Originally Posted by
oddjob2
If you can afford to live in the San Francisco area, then I would hope you have a few more bucks available to you than the average Wallyworld patron. In any event, while there are good buys on craigslist available for those who know what they are looking for or are willing to fix up a bike with deferred maintenance, the bay area market is very competitive and the great deals are scooped up immediately.
I suggest you check out REI. They've been closing out the bike buying season since September, but there are still some VG values. Also, Publicbikes.com has had some killer sales of late and is right in SOMA.
I find this interesting that people think that because you live in San Francisco or New York City etc they can afford anything, actually that's not true. Sure they live in a high rent district but that's the problem, a huge percentage of their income goes towards the cost of renting or buying and leaves them with very little extra income to play with.