himespau 

Looks as though overnight e-bay changed how they size bikes (do it small-xl rather than in cm now) in their categories, so my saved search no longer works. Now I need to figure out a new way to do my searching. Bummer.

rootboy 

Really? Phooey. After 30 years of trying to get Americans to understand the metric system, folks just can't be called upon to learn it.
S to XL is for T-shirts.

himespau 

Yeah, I had it set up to show me all frames in a certain price range between 61 and 64 cm by newly listed using category searches and then I'd just check my saved search once a day or so to see if anything interesting and new had been listed. Now they do them by your t-shirt sizes and most of them aren't picked up by categories. I guess I need to learn to game their search algorithm to do it manually.

KonAaron Snake 

Y'know...I'm not one for mindlessly embracing Euro culture, but not using the metric system is stupid. The metric system is smart, our system is stupid.

miamijim

I dont think its that they changed the way they size bikes, ebay doesnt size bikes, sure they have sizes to pick from when writing an ad but as a seller I can still type in 54 or 21 as a frame size.

From what I've read ebay is changing saved searched formats. Something about too many people with too many saved searches bogging the system down.

himespau 

Yeah, you can still type in the size you want, but the way it used to work if you did a search for say "bicycles" on the side for search options you could select, frame or complete bike, condition (new or used), type of auction, price, and frame size to refine your search. You still have those options, but instead of check boxes for each of the sizes in cm from 46-66 it's now xs, s, m, l, xl for sizes which are things most people don't list so the whole frame size thing is useless. I can now save searches where I manually put in each of the sizes I'm interested in separately, but can't get them all in a single search to see what's been added since yesterday. Not big earthshattering deal, but just annoying.

himespau 

And now they've added some sizes back. But only to 59. Maybe it was a bug in the system that's being rectified.

auchencrow

Most people don't know how to measure anyway.

Of course, xs, s, m, l, xl is not going to help. (On my local CL, virtually every bike larger than 48cm is "intended for a very tall man".)

wrk101

+1 most sellers can't measure anyway.

And the best deals often are the worst ads: wrong category, wrong size or no size, etc

Zorba

Nuts. Ever since eBay crippled their search engine by eliminating wildcards (*), I've been there a lot less...

himespau 

well, the search seems to be back to more or less normal for me. Wild cards would be nice. or if I could get it to use OR, but right now it's working.

whatwolf

You can do "OR." Just put terms in parentheses separated by commas.

"(fuji, lotus, peugeot) bike" would be an example. Or is that not what you meant?

bici_mania

+1 I couldn't agree more and I have started using it at home and at work. It has started a lively, ongoing conversation.

That has been my experience. Especially wth misspelled items. I am often outbid on Camagnolo components but often the only bidder on campaigmolo components.

frantik

"0 results found for campaigmolo, so we searched for campagnolo. "

himespau 

no, that's what I meant, just never did it like that before. Unless I'm being a ****, which I could be because I have insomnia and am posting at 4 am.

Italuminium

Funny, everything below 58 is advertized as "ladies, boys or the smaller guy". That's what happens here in the land of the tall folk I guess. (for the record, at a mere 178 cm, I'm a pigmy Dutch)

auchencrow

Hi Italuminium - You say you're 178cm, but in the absence of my metric converter, that means you are somewhere between 36 inches and 8 feet tall. - That's probably what most of us here are thinking.
(I firmly believe metrication is a conspiracy by the supermarkets to cheat consumers on weight and liquid measure.)

frantik

just type "178cm in feet" into google,

or.. remember that 30cm is about 1 foot, and 178 is close to 180, and 180 / 30 = 6 so he's little less than 6 feet tall

himespau 

That's why I'm a fan of people posting pictures of the BB to show the serial number. Lots of times I've seen them also write what they thought was the serial number and it turned out to be the size. Usually in CTT, but at least that gives me some confirmation that they're on the right track with their measurements.

bici_mania

It varies over time but regularly searching for any mutilation of any key word other than the most basic English words can turn up real treasure for pennies on the dollar.