I've helped at least a dozen friends buy bikes over the past few years, by finding them deals on Craigslist and helping them pick out models and such. I just helped my roommate find herself a nice, practically-brand-new 55cm road bike a few days ago off Craigslist. While searching for bikes for her, I found an ad for an "aluminum 60cm frame w/carbon fork" with no price. Hey, I thought,
I would love to have a new, properly-fitting frame and a carbon fork! I emailed, asked a couple questions and how much it would cost me.
Well, it turns out the gentleman posting it insisted on
giving it away free... he has too many bikes and just wanted to find this one a good home. Imagine my delight when we met bright and early this morning, and I received...
- A 60cm Nashbar road frame in perfect condition.
- A Profile Design SC carbon fork
- A Cane Creek threadless headset
- A brand new Ritchey stem
- Two (!!) sets of Shimano 105 octalink/hollowtech cranks and chainrings, in 172.5mm and 175mm lengths.
- A complete set of Shimano 105 brakes
- A random Campy 56T chainring
- A Cateye Astrale computer with cadence.
- To top it off, we met in the parking lot of a nearby bike shop, and they sold me a NOS Octalink bottom bracket in the correct size for only $35.
So wow, this is gonna be a great upgrade for me
!!! Karma simply demands that I give away my current frameset (57cm Trek 1100 aluminum frame with CrMo fork), so I hope to post it on Pay It Forward at some point when I manage to swap all the components over to the new frame.