turtlemilk

I went to the Thrift store to look for bicycles, as i road into the parking lot, i smelled BEER, BUMS was watching that place like a hawk...waiting for people to turn in bicycles...

I did find a 1989 VF 750 motorcycle for 1900$ with 10K miles..... if i had 1000$ i would be all over it...

rnorris

I frequent a couple of local thrift stores, but the bikes there are almost always cheap department store bikes in poor condition, and they aren't priced particularly low either. Have always gotten better deals on Craigslist.

Jude

Yeah, I've never seen anything remotely resembling a halfway decent bike at a thrift store.

Even if one DOES show up, I'm pretty sure these forums (C&V to be exact) are full of the kind of people who snap all the good stuff up instantly and either flip it or add it to their collection of 538 rescued bikes.

thetick1959

I donated a walmart next mtb that I bought brand new 2 years ago for $75.00. Later I went back and they had a $99.99 price tag on it.

JanMM

Found a very nice Hercules 3-speed at a Goodwill in Atlanta. My wife rode it to work and around for a year or two before it was stolen. This was 25+ years ago - finding a nice Hercules in a thrift store these days would be quite unexpected.

Artkansas 

I bought this little Magna at the Salvation Army in downtown Santa Cruz when I was on a business trip, so I could go from the corporate apartment to the beach. Great fun.

I chose it because it was the only completely operational bike in the store. I got a lot of compliments on it, surprisingly. At the end of the trip, I dropped it off at the Bike Church almost across the street from the Salvation Army.



I was surprise to notice how well I fit in, I saw quite a few other guys my age riding around on bikes like that. Only in Santa Cruz.

adacas

Fresno thrift stores used to be full of sweet oldschool road bikes that could be had on the cheap. I'm talking a clean Bianchi for 40 bucks. Then came the HIPSTERS. Now if a thrift store even happens to have a bike in their inventory they want at least a benjamin. Damn fashion trends keep ruining my life. First parachute pants now this.

corkscrew

I've found a few good deals @ LTS's. Seen a lot of crap though too, and outrageous prices on anything resembling a road bike. Most of the bikes are in various states of disrepair, in dire need of a tune up! I saw a Schwinn the other day that was missing its shifter cables!

IndianaRecRider

I found my current bike, a Giant Sedona, at a Salvation Army thrift store a few summers ago. There was no price on it, so I wheeled it up to the front and asked one of the check-out ladies how much they were selling it for. She had to ask someone else, who didn't know either, so they finally settled on thirty dollars. Talk about a steal. The only thing I had to do, besides putting a more comfortable saddle on it, was to adjust the real derailleur a little bit so it wouldn't skip gears. I've put about 2000 miles on it since and haven't had any problems with it at all.

Esteban32696

No good deals at Thrift Stores around here. I recently saw 2 well used Roadmaster Mt. Fury bikes for $89.95 each at one !!!!!!!

griftereck

I donated a dozen or so bikes and some electronic stuff to a second hand store recently.
One thing was a Welltech DVD player that I bought out of the Lidl supermarket for £8. I gave them all the box and accesories.
I looked in the shop window and there was my old DVD player. Had a ticket on it, down from £30 to £15.
Most shops will charge about that for a new DVD player. So they were way too pricey for a second hand one

tatfiend 

It is all a matter of luck. I picked up a about 1990 Trek 950 at a local thrift for $60 last spring. The tires were rotten with one tube unrepairable and the BB shot plus the drivetrain was filthy but with minimal work I got a good lugged chrome moly double butted steel MTB to play with. Even my size! It now has a NuVinci CVT drivetrain installed and Big Apple tires.

This thrift tries to move stuff so prices are lowered on things like bikes weekly until they sell. The original store price was in the $100 range IIRC. New it was a close to $800 bike in 1990 per a web search.

TFS Jake

Yeah they are usually stupidly overpriced. The one near me sells bikes for about 75% of what they were worth new, no matter the age.