Thoughts on this buy...
 

...just wondering if this is a decent value. I'm looking for a VERY inexpensive road bike for a friend.

http://sarasota.craigslist.org/bik/1045205021.html

If it fits, id say go for it. From the pics it looks pretty nice. Just look everything over and make sure nothing seems out of whack and that it stops and pedals well.

These ads kill me . . . wtf does "fully reconditioned" mean? :lol:

You need to know your friend's fitting size. How tall is he? With that you could probably get a rough estimate. I'm 5' 8" and ride a 54.

He's a bit shorter than that, maybe 5'6" or 5'4", so it's likely it will fit him. I just didn't know if there were any older road bikes that people more or less agreed weren't worth buying, no matter what the condition.

If your freind is new to biking, find out if it's a friction shifter or index shifter. Newbs tend to struggle more with friction shifting than with index. From the looks of the decals, I would guess its an index bike. That vintage LeTour is going to be a double butted, chromoly, fully lugged frame, probably TruTemper. The rims are alloy rims, probably 700C. That's a really good price for that bike. I'd grab it quickly.

If its an honest bike flipper it means the bearing surfaces have been relubed, the cables are moving freely or have been replaced with new, the chain is cleaned and relubed (and in spec) and the brake pads are replaced or at least have the surface scraped to expose a fresh surface. The tires should have no small cracks, preferably they were replaced.

fully reconditioned, new rear tire,


duh it means new rear tire. :)

For $110, assuming it's indeed in pretty good shape (no way to really tell from the ad), that's a nice bike. As roccobike says, it's lugged chromoly steel with double butted tubes. It appears to be a late '80's le tour, which means it was built in Greenville, Mississippi.

Thanks for all the helpful information, everyone. I'll call about it in the morning.

It's a fancy way of saying, USED.