Green tags were $1, it had a green tag so I just had to get it, 1983 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe...

Better jump into the klunker challenge!

Good bargain there.

Nice!

Nice score!

Headbadge number makes it a 1982 Le Tour. Good score!

My local GW would have put $40 on it and it would have sold in a couple days. The local GW's suck. Waay overpriced.

I did get a Trek 1400 for $5 once.

I used to average one good bike a year from Goodwill. In the past I have gotten a Basso Gap for $15 and a Trek 520 for $20. One time I got a Trek 330, Trek Navigator 200 and Ross Signature 292S all for $60.

Bike for a buck! Can't beat that!

Geez, only one bike? At that price I would have searched around for more green tagged bikes and brought home five or six

This is what I use to do. Except it was about every couple months. Not anymore. I did get lucky on the Trek 660 a couple months ago. And the manager that sold me the bike who had worked at this store for about six months was just fired. Just not getting it done. Goodwill is a slave outfit.
All of these came from Goodwill. Only one did not come from my local GW. Place was a goldmine once upon a time. For everything. The goose has stopped laying the golden eggs.

Trek $40


Gitane $50


Centurion $22


Scott $50


Bianchi $25 (Road this bike for 4 years)


Cannondale $50


Peugeot $20


Cannondale $21 (Still have this one)


Trek 660 (Riding this now, my last good find)


And a myriad of other bike finds........(Only ten pics? I had fourteen )

Nice!

My local thrift shops have taken to scouring CL and eBay for something similar, and pricing their goods around that. Sometimes they will even print off the listing and hang it on the item as a sort of "compare at" price.

They all do this. Throw s*** at the wall and see if it will stick.

You should see this beat Gary Fisher bike one place is trying to get $150. It's a very salvageable bike, but in it's current state that price is a joke. Aquila model.
It's upper management pooping on the lowers. I have gotten the boot from a few sites for my views on GW. It's a love hate relationship with them. I love to find deals (Very rare now) but think the way they run their shops, at least in this area, and how they treat their employees is nonsense.

When I bought this bike (for $30, for last year's clunker challenge), it had a Goodwill $40 sticker on the bars, but the seller assured me he didn't pay that much.



I hate to think what they'd ask for a good bike.

So I have a question (Since I like to tinker) I bought the Schwinn Traveller pictured below at another goodwill a couple months ago but it's too big, but has better components (wheels, drive train, brakes) and they are in better shape, I would like to swap them to the Le Tour. Two questions, is there any way to convert to STI shifters (or other brand brifters) with the 6 speed Shimano cassette? And is the biopace crankset worth using? Other than that all should swap pretty painlessly.

a few things could move over. Lots of work to modify things. Just clean and de junk the Le Tour and you would have a good rider as is.

Its a nonprofit which exiats to help provide job training, employment placement, and assistanceto those in a community who cant find work for various reasons.
The organization's efforts are funded by the retail outlets.

Why amyone wpuld complain that they cant get wildly discounted deals from such an organization is tough for me to understand.
Sure, the GF bike you mwntion may be overpriced, but all the bikes you proudly display were way underpriced and would have sold for more in basically any other setting- retail or private sale.

I cant fault an organizatin which depends on sales to price its products competitively both in comparison to alternatives as well as in an effort to realistically maximize revenue.
This means the screaming deals may not exist, but it also means a nonprofit is able to help serve its mission more effectively by reaching more people who need help.

Selling trek 520s for $40 and Centurion Ironmans for $22 isnt effectively utilizing the company's potwntial revenue stream. The fact that they seem to have corrected this is a good thing for all those who receive assistance from goodwill.

But yup, you then cant get blazingly cheap deals.


As for how tuey treat employees...thatrs a tough one. The organization claims that if they didnt employ some of their employees, the alternatives are worse. There is validity to that, though it is tough to hear. As for the longstanding issue of paying under minwage, again, if people aren't capable of producing work that justifies minwage, then the alternative is to not employ them and that may not be best for any of the involved parties.
If ypu dont like goodwill's practices or mission, then dont financially support them. Pretty simple.

Stores vary. I don't think I've ever seen a "dollar sale" around here. St. Vincent's has a 3 week rotation, Full Price, 25% off, 50% off. Goodwill puts stuff half off by color code once a month.

Most of the bikes I find are pretty junky, or cheap department store bikes. And the few good road bikes are often over-priced.

I did snag an older Japanese Trek 400 a month or so ago, marked at $200, but hidden away in the back of the store, so it got to half off at $100. It needs a complete overhaul, but otherwise may be a bit less than Craigslist.

As far as prices... yes, some of the money goes to a "jobs program", or other charity programs. But, a lot of it is trying to charge whatever the market will bear. They'd prefer to throw stuff away (at cost) than to give it away for free. In some cases, the CEO and CFO get very much overpaid. Goodwill seems to be regionally organized, so there are more managers, and policies vary from one location to another.

Any work done by a human being justifies minimum wage. That's why it's called minimum wage, it's the minimum that wage labour costs to buy, what we tie to the idea that if someone is paid less then they'll starve, and starved people can't come in to work. Any weaselly "well do you justify it?" talk is undermining the whole concept.

As it is minimum wage is so damn low that it's basically a subsidy for businesses. Don't pay the full cost of running the humans that run your workplace, and then the government picks up the difference with food stamps, section 8 housing and god knows what else. Have to be a double scrooge to loophole your way out of paying such a meagre amount when the state is already having to keep your inadequately paid employees alive.

What a load of nonsense.

There isn't one CEO. There is a CEO for every regional Goodwill. There is one board of directors though.

Another idea [MENTION=372820]Alleytom[/MENTION] you could fix up both bikes and then sell for a nice profit. Then you could go hunting for another great bike which fits and has a better selection of parts.

I have been reselling bikes for 11 years. And that's how I got every bike I have had. Have.
I just wish I understood the bike market a decade ago. Of course a lot has changed in the last ten years as far as value.

Ill speak in generalities here, but lets give it a try.

Those who are mentally too limited to be paid minimum wage will be on SSi. Not SSDi, but SSi as they havemt paid i to the system due to not being able to. With those SSi benefits comes healthcare and housing assistance(group home with 24hr caretaker setup).
Over $120 or so in earnings per month(dpnt qupte that, but its close), the person has their SSi reduced for work performed. If they earn too much, they no longer qualify for the assistance beyond monetary conpensation.
I wpuld say that the situation would in fact be worse if they were paid too much to qualify and therefore didnt have the housing and medical assistance.

To the employer's side- if 3 people with mental limitations do the work of 1 fully capable minimum wage earner, then to pay each of them minimum wage wouldnt happen. Instead, 1 fully capable person wpuld work. This doesnt benefit those 3 partially capable people as there are numerous studies which clearly tie worth of self and life satisfaction to being a contributong member of society.

This can completely be seen as a company(or nonprofit) taking advantage of the disabled, or it can be seen as the best of a less than ideal situation. The alternative os no better for those low wage earners.

I wont comment on the section8 claim, food stamps, or any of the pther hot button phrases you mentioned.

Anything in particular?...or its all just nonsense?

It sure doesnt seem like the idea that goodwill maximize their potential sales is nonsense, but thats part of what i posted and if everything in that post is nonsense, then that comment is nonsense...and it sure seems smart and logical to me for goodwill to maximize thrir sales in order to best find their cause.
So...