The covid used bicycle market..

JTK

Joined
Aug 14, 2003
Messages
15,690
Location
Buffalo, NY
I was doing some garage cleaning recently and knowing how difficult it is to get a decent adult sized bicycle I decided to try and list my daughter's basically unused 26" Schwinn ranger women's mountain bike online. My wife had bought this bike for her 7yrs ago or so from Target for around $170. She's 19 now and couldn't care less. That sucker wasn't listed for a day and I had it sold for $120. I gave her most of the proceeds.

This got me to thinking.. My youngest son and I got into cruising around on our bicycles quite a bit over the past year. Pretty much every nice day for a ~3 mile ride. Sometimes a little more. The roads we ride are rural-ish, where the surface is tared and covered with fine gravel, so mountain bike style tires are helpful. I'm not an avid bicyclist, but at the onset of the 'rona, I had mail ordered myself a Mongoose Dolomite 26" fat bike that I was lucky enough to find through wally online at the time for $270 shipped. You can't find them today and when you can, they're $500-600. This bike was fine for my light cruising, but getting into this without really knowing or understanding bikes, the fame size of the Mongoose wasn't really comfortable for me, even with the seat adjusted out to nearly max.

I had my eye on a Schwinn Axum 29er, again through Wally and was 'lucky' enough to find them available online for $398 after doing a little test ride on one that was actually available at the local Walrmart a few weeks ago. (They had one axum and about 4-5 of some type of $600 carbon fiber 29er MB) The frame size and configuration of the Axum is much more comfortable for me and wow what a difference it is to ride vs the mongoose dolomite for me. It's just awesome. Yes I know I'm slummin' it big time with a cheap walmart bike, but even for what I use it for it's overkill.

After a few rides with the new axum, I listed up my dolomite online. Just sold it an hour ago for $280!
 
Yup, the 'Rona economy. If you have a bike, rv, car, or almost anything recreational to sell, you are golden. If you're on the other end and are looking to buy....good luck, bring your wallet and hold on.
 
Da*n, just da*n. When my brother passed away I got a brand new Giant bike, still had the tits on the tires,. He paid ~500 for it. Nobody wanted it just about a year ago.
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I normally build custom bikes and wheels but there are just about zero frames available. I've been making a killing doing tuneups on people's older bikes. It's a shame, actually. People have really nice quality bikes sitting around unused. They come to me, ask about a new build, I say nothing is available. Then I suggest getting their old bike rideable until a new bike can be built. Sometimes, it's just tubes and shift cables. Sometimes tires and a complete cleaning.
Tires and tubes are getting harder to find at decent prices.
 
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I normally build custom bikes and wheels but there are just about zero frames available. I've been making a killing doing tuneups on people's older bikes. It's a shame, actually. People have really nice quality bikes sitting around unused. They come to me, ask about a new build, I say nothing is available. Then I suggest getting their old bike rideable until a new bike can be built. Sometimes, it's just tubes and shift cables. Sometimes tires and a complete cleaning.
Tires and tubes are getting harder to find at decent prices.

I could imagine and I've seen what you describe just trying to keep my kid's bikes rolling. In fact, most of what I've learned about bike mechanicals the last year and how to maintain them has been from asking questions to guys like yourself on this forum.

I've cleaned and re-greased bottom brackets, steerer tubes, wheel hubs, etc. Still struggling with truing up wheels with my spoke tools, but I can definitely get them better than where they started LOL.
 
Wheels take practice and patience. You'd be best off getting one of the entry level truing stands and a spoke tensioner so you have a good starting point.

This is an excellent read. Even if you're only truing.
 

Like this.
NYE, thanks, I've been thinking about a truing stand, on and off, for ages, but got paralyzed into indecision by all the options. If you recommend that particular Park Tool one, that's good enough for me!
 
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I am a big fat old guy.. what do you think about the big tire bikes ?? The pugsly surly seems nice. I tried riding one and liked it.. but its a lot of money
 
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