Originally Posted by
Darth Lefty
Buying used, you are at the mercy of what's for sale, unless you can afford to wait. Search for the usual suspects on your local CL. Your market seems pretty small (just looking at the bikes section, Columbia has 236 ads and Sacramento has 2016). Maybe you could look at the CL for Charlotte or Atlanta. On top of that, touring bikes are pretty rare compared to the mountain, racing, and cheapie road bikes you'll find dominating any local used market. They're not made in so many flavors and I think people tend to hang onto them.
Hey, here's a cool bike. Not steel though
https://columbia.craigslist.org/bik/4917363028.html
Oh, I have seen that one, and it's pretty sweet. I do believe that is above the threshold I am going to be allowed to spend, though. I am probably looking more around the late 80s-mid 90s. A fixer upper isn't a deal breaker...between my friend and myself we have the knowledge and he has just about every tool out there for bikes.
I mentioned above I am in no big rush - my Bianchi works just fine, but I have decided keeping it vs looking for something more my size is settling. What it comes down to is I want to be able to ride a bike with drop bars vs being forced to use flat bars, and wanting something suitable to actually do a tour on.