soonerbills

After reading the thread on bike flipping and the comments on making it into a living I decided on trying to see what I could do in one days work.
I found a mid 80's Schwinn World Sport in a local metal scrapyard some time ago.
This bike was in pretty bad shape,left to sit is the elements for a few years.
I spent the morning disassembling the bike and making a list of parts needed. Then started by frame detailing and cleanup.
The afternoon was spent rehabbing the BB, freewheel and headset. Then I did a wheel check, surprisingly they were pretty true. Somewhere along the line someone changed the original rear from a Araya to a French Maillard hub with a alloy Rigida.
Actually the chain was not rusty and in good shape! The derails were not frozen and cleaned up nicely.

By late afternoon I was reassembling the bike. Replaced the tires,tubes and cables. Repacked the BB and headset and adjusted all components.
Finally I recovered the bars with new tape. I had never done it before but I think it came out nice.

In the end it was a pretty full days work. I think that if it sells for $150 -175 I will be happy. I paid $20 for the bike, And spent another $60 on consumables. Plus I had to use a seat from another donor bike and other odds and ends that needed replacing. It came out nice but as test for viability i think it is not really a viable income method....other means of income would be easier I guess?
But it was a enjoyable,relaxing day!

thenomad

The test is only complete once it sells. But it looks nice and I think you'll be fine.

Make sure to write "could make a good fixie" in your add.

SoreFeet

I'd have re-sold the bike for a flat 60$ and saved myself the time and effort .

cb400bill

Most of the semi-pro bike flippers won't touch a bike they can't clear at least $100 on.

Grim

It is a 1988, I have one that was identical and even a 25 inch frame like yours. Not really a bad bike.

https://www.trfindley.com/flschwinn_1...0/1988_13.html
Spec page: https://www.trfindley.com/flschwinn_1...0/1988_16.html
Main page for the catalogs if you don't have it.
https://www.trfindley.com/pg_schwinn_cats.htm

Giant built the frame. listed as 26lb but a lot of that weight was in then wheels and free hub. I swapped the wheels and got it down to about 24lb.

Cleaned up nice. I think you will get $150+ if you market it correctly. Unfortunately with the Box store Schwinns it has tarnished the brand and many younger buyers don't realize that Schwinn put out some very nice bikes.
I would link the catalogs make sure to point out the double butted CrMo frame and the weight. I would also mention that the frame was built by Giant.

I picked mine up in VERY rough condition but complete for $11.00 at a thrift store. I ended up parting it down to the frame to save some 105 parts and Cinelli bars off another bike. Got staring at the parts pile in the garage and threw it back together as this:
Paint was beyond saving so I went satin black and high lighted the lugs with red for a "Rat Rod" look. Wheels are Araya 700's off a Nashbar late 80's sport bike that had a broken frame, drivetrain and bars are off a Trek 950. Brakes are Dura Ace off the bike that I stripped the 105 parts off. Still enjoying it and haven't decided if I will sell it yet. Not loving the straight bar. It may get the Cinelli drops if I keep it.

Johnny Alien

+1. A quick wash and wax and remove the easy oxidation if any and then list cheap.

miamijim

A full days work is too much work. If you flip enough bikes you'll get it down to 3-4 hours which changes your profit to $25/hr which isnt bad. Although you may only make $100 on this bike there will be others that make you $200-300 with less work.





Thats certainly a way of maximizing time. Each bike needs to be looked at as its own entity. Sometimes a quick 30 minute tuneup and lube is the best option.

redxj

A professional or even semi-pro flipper wouldn't have spent $60 on tubes, tires, cables/housing, and bar tape. Did you have to pay full LBS retail prices for that stuff. You need to find some better deals to cut down on the money spent rehabbing a bike. On most of my flips if they needed all of that it would only cost $30 in parts. Hint: buy in bulk!

Grim

You would have cut yourself short to do so if you have a good market. That bike with $10 tires and cleaned up would have fetched an easy $120 in Atlanta in 24 hours. Little patience it will sell for $150-180 in about 2 weeks. It is a 4130 frame with investment cast lugs and was made by Giant.

Where the OP possibly messed up the profit margin was fixing it up with better parts and not reusing inner tubes etc.

I try not to spend more then $15 per tire on a flip bike. REI has the Continentals Ultra sports for $15 on sale this week and the Vittoria Zaffiro II is normal price at $16. Places like Niagra you can get lower priced but you pay shipping and unless you are flipping enough to justify buying extra tires for "stock" it is sort of hard to do. I happen to have a 77 Le Tour and a 88 Traveler I am working on right now and wish I had some of that stock but the $10 or so extra I will spend on tires locally is not going to kill the deal.

wrk101

I average less than $25 in parts per bike, including new tires, tubes (sometimes), cables, bearings and grease. I will reuse good tubes, and occasionally have gotten a bike with decent or better tires. I usually go with the Niagara tires at $5 each plus shipping. I order several at a time. They also sell steel cables at 71 cents each, or stainless at $1.60. A World Sport for me would get steel cables (it's what it came with anyway). Better bikes will get the stainless cables.

The 1984 World Sport I sold earlier this year started with a $12.50 bike (thrift store), $25 in parts, so $37.50 total investment. Sold for $175 (19 inch frame, higher demand, stronger pricing). Larger frame sizes would sell for less around here.

+1 Miamijim estimate, about a four hour job to fully rehab.

Return on this bike is overstated as you have to factor in the time spent looking for project bikes.

griftereck

Yes getting things in bulk is the way to go.
look in the wholesale section on ebay.

I got 20 of 24" MTB tyres for £20.
54 pairs of brake pads for £7
36 inner tubes. 18" size, but does fit in 20" wheels, for £5
10 suspension forks for £20
All prices were with the postage charge.

I fitted a pair of the forks onto this bike. Which I had got for £5. Sold it for £25.

Got 2 pairs of pads and tubes on my folding bike. Sold 2 pairs of pads to some one that was buying a bike from me. Got £1 a set.
And Ive got 2 of the tyres and a set of suspension forks on my Gold bike,

So It makes sense to get big quantities of things that you'll use often.

wrk101

Forget about doing this hobby for a living unless you have a reliable, ready access to low priced project bikes. While it might only take four hours to rehab a bike, I cannot find two a day (or even two a week). So it is really best looked at as a hobby, which should be self sustaining (you cover the cost of your keeper fleet with flips).

treebound 

It's really local market dependant, you'd be hard pressed to sell the OP bike for over $100 here locally, and anything over $70 takes several relistings. I've become relinquished to just working on my own bikes and upgrading my meager collection as better upgrades come along and selling the castoffs for what I can.

Nice job on the fix up.

Flying Merkel

I buy & sell bikes for pocket money. I tend to fall in love with the bikes. Bad for business. My latest project is a Schwinn Jaguar 7 speed beach cruiser bought as a frame. Picked up a cheap MTB for component source. Needed some cables & tires. I'm into the bike for around $90.00. Maybe I can get $140-$130 for it. Not a big money maker, but it's a good looking and decent performing bike. We are going down to Huntington Beach in a few minutes for pictures. Ride report to follow!

jet sanchEz

Yep, if I can't make at least $100 on a bike I don't buy it or I do buy it and give it to a friend. I bought a Raleigh Grand Prix in March for $10 and lent it to a friend while he was looking for a nice bike of his own. He gave it back to me yesterday and I am going to loan it to another friend tomorrow until he finds a bike of his own. Then I guess I will sell it

I paid $15 for these two bikes (the purple one had no seat or bars but I had some in my parts bin that worked well) and sold them each for $120 after some fine tunin' and greasin'

dit

I have bought a few bikes to fix and resell. I always clean and re-grease all bearings and clean and polish. I only replace the bad stuff. Some get new tires or bb or cables, or brake pads, or seats. I normally clear about $100 but that is for 4 to 6 hours work not including finding the bikes. I am lucky if I can find 2 a month to flip. Deals are few and far between around here and they go fast. I don't mess with Roadmaster, Huffy, or Magna mtbs.

roccobike

If I insisted on clearing $100 a bike, I would have to give up flipping. Higher end bikes that allow you to clear $100 are hard to come by or a real gamble. The sure thing is a $20-$25 yard sale find that flips for $100 after repairing, lubing whatever needs attention. I'm guessing I put around $10 in parts on average. Selling a bike for around $70 over $$ spent is about right for me.

soonerbills

Thanks for the input...And you all are right on the money about the $ spent on consumables! I need to stock up on them when I find s deals. I find the most time I spend is because I have a habit of treating each bike as if it's going to be mine. I just can't bring my self to cheap out once I get going on a project. Also the market here is crappy.
I find there are three kinds of buyers out there.
The first are the ones who are to cheap to buy a good bike and are looking for something for nothing.
Then you have those who are looking for nice high end newer bikes,they have money and know what they are looking for and generally it ain't a Schwinn.
Finally there is the people who want quality but don't have a ton of money. They go to Walmart and see what looks like nice bikes but don't want to spend that much. When they look on CL for a deal mostly here locally they find crap or bikes way out of their budget.
These are the people that most generally buy my bikes. But they are far and few apart so a sell takes patience and a bit of work. Mostly I take pride in my craftwork. I'm not a a pro but for all intents and puposes this is a hobby and more than likely will remain so. That being said I really would like to make good money on my bikes but would much rather see a happy face as the buys knows they got a really nice bike for not a ton of money.
Besides...I am seeming to be getting more repeats as time goes on!

svgeek

Not judging here...

But that's why I never ride a bike that I'm looking at on CL ads. Most sellers on CL are flippers and I don't trust what they don't do to the bike. My life is not worth their $100 profit.

The first road bike I ever bought was from CL. It was an '86 Schwinn World that used a derailleur claw. The moron had screwed the claw onto the rack eyelet! Obviously, being naive etc then, I didn't realize that until I was in the process of upgrading the bike to modern parts. As they say, one rotten apple...

Now that I'm a pro (at fixing my own bikes), I sell my surplus on CL. They all come with brand new parts (housing, cables, pads, tubes, tires), at prices higher than the average flip. I make $0 profit, but then I don't make my living from flipping bikes either... The fun's in the fixing up.

wrk101

Interesting rant, but many people trust their life to some kid working the back room at Walmart putting together bikes as fast as possible.

Most sellers around here on C/L are not flippers, in fact, there are very few flipper sellers. Most are people clearing out their garage. Unfortunately, most of them have Huffy/Next/Roadmaster junk that they think is valuable.

Take a garage sale bike to a shop sometime and tell them to tear it down, regrease everything, replace cables, tires, and tubes, and try not to spend $250 doing it.

A good flipper works really cheap. Many/most of my sales are to repeat customers.

Buy right and there is no reason you should not come out ahead (as long as your time is free).

r0ckh0und 

If I find a lugged frame with steel wheels or badly bent alloys I see no reason not to strip it down, leave the seatpost, bb and headset and sell it to a hipster for a $50 profit, more if it's got forged drops and better frame material. I can strip and clean a frame in about 20 minutes. Can't find frames fast enough.

awc380

On the whole, I prefer not to turn something that I enjoy (fixing things - especially bikes) into something that I don't.

Other people can scour the trash and spend hours flipping bikes and smile about their sales against their costs....leaving out the hours of labour spent, of course, as usually seems to be the case.

I choose to dedicate my work time to a different job, and one for which I am considerably better paid.

Grim

Quite a few flippers in Atlanta. You watch the vintage stuff enough and you start to notice the same backgrounds in photo's.

There are about 3 guys specializing in single speeds around here. One does an ok job on the conversion but charges a premium, I think he is ebaying the parts he removes. One is hit or miss on if he does a decent or half ass job. It may be shear luck when one looks done correctly. One takes any old *** throws away the derailleur shortens the chain and calls it single speed. Still wears a full set of gears on the freehub and cranks. He tries to price them the same point as the better guy.

There are a few higher end flipers that sell some decent bikes. One of them in on here and we toss e-mails back and forth from time to time.

I missed a $45 Fuji Saratoga tonight. It was a rider already with nearly new tires according to the ad. No picture so I couldn't tell what year it was. It will show back up this week for $175 and I will cry if it was my size and a 91.

I have a 23 inch 85 Traveler and a 25 inch 77 Super Le Tour I picked up last week that I got the pair for $90. The Le Tour mechanically is in good shape. The Traveler is really rough. I was Dry so I spent more then normal on this pair but both are within my riding range and I will keep the one that rides the best for a while till I get board with it or something better comes along. I am counting on the Le tour being the better rider and putting a new better quality tires on it (Conti Ultra Sports I got on sale for $15 each today) and will have about $90 in it and about 5 hours labor. The Traveler is getting the old tires off my Fuji Touring III that I plan to keep so it will have about $65 in the Traveler but a LOT more time because of the clean up.

The $8 Fuji will get a set of nearly perfect gum wall Michelin Touring tires I held onto from a different flip. and since getting the tires off it will force me to work on it It will probably be put together by the end of the week. Everything gets reused around here.

That will have 9 or 10 riders for just me stashed around the house 2 riders and one project for the wife and 3 for the kid with only 3 definitely for sale.

soonerbills

Well this one finally sold. i was able to make about a $100 on the deal but it took a month on CL before it went.
The size was the killer! I had quite a few lookers but most had no clue as to sizing and being honest I actually had to talk a couple of buyers out of wanting it. But it did bring sales on a couple of other bikes I had so it actually helped in the long run. And I learned a little more in the process.

KonAaron Snake 

I guess I'm very picky about my flips because I know a lot less than many of you and also tend to take longer to do repairs. I also have never gotten the knack of trueing wheels down. I only flip maybe 3-4 bikes a year, but the ones I buy are very good deals that i KNOW I can make at least 200 on. Example...I lucked out today...am getting a trek 660 with campy SR and some Japanese parts for 150. I'm CERTAIN I can make 300 from this in parts and frame.