Thinking about taking a hiatus from racing for a couple years and considering selling a couple bikes

That leaves me with a surplus of race bikes if I go that route. I’m considering selling one or two, but I haven’t been paying attention to the market lately. Anyone have any tips or remarks on how the used bike selling market is, and where the best places to try and sell might be? They are all high-end bikes, so no back-alley meet a guy with a van selling :wink:
I’d appreciate any info, preferably from someone who has sold a bike recently! Cheers!

My local bike market facebook group seems pretty busy and always has high end bikes on it. Makes me shake my head when i think about spending 8k on someone elses bike.

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Not sure where you live but in LA I’m seeing used bikes selling for more than or close to new due to bike shortages. Whether you want to go the #CovidTax route is up to you but there’s some serious price gauging going on.

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@AussieRider I’m in Utah in the Salt Lake area, so hopefully that’s a good region. I don’t need price gouging, just reasonable prices :wink:
And @russell.r.sage I kNoW wHaT I gOt BrO!!!1111! :slight_smile:
Edit-and how did you find your local bike FB group? Did you just search for bike groups on FB and it defaulted to your area, or did you need to search your area? I hardly use FB anymore.

Okay, I just found a FB group for Utah and Holy $*** batman, those prices are insane! Junk (relatively speaking) selling for 5k!

:man_facepalming:

But my Enve aero bars have had a price drop on eBay :scream:

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From 20k to 18k, right? Now they’re worth the price of a small Honda, not a small Lexus :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Speaking of prices…anyone have advice for setting a reasonable price for my bikes? I have no idea how to value them lol.

Basically, I do half of MSRP. This seems to be more on the low side but, my equipment gets used pretty hard.

This site can be handy.

But like Landis, half MSRP is a decent start and then adjust based upon age and condition.

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Only if you buy 75 of ‘em.

Check The Pros Closet for comparables.

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I look at FB marketplace, Craigslist, Ebay, Pink Bike Buy&Sell to get an idea of what people are asking for the same or similar bikes. searching EBay ‘completed listings’ can be more beneficial since it shows bikes that are actually selling as some of the other sites have people who overprice their bikes and they sit on there unsold forever.

I take all that info and then price it a under what else is out there so it sells more quickly. I’d rather get things done quickly and make a little bit less than have it sit for a while and keep answering messages asking things like “is it still available?”

The other option is to fill out the form for Pros Closet. It’s the easiest way to do it. But the downside is you would likely make $1000+ less selling to them than you could doing it on your own (at least this was my experience when I looked at selling a bike to them last summer)

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Okay, thanks for all of the suggestions on pricing! I think what I am going to do is list my three race bikes at fairly strong prices, and just see which one sells first and go from there. I don’t plan on getting rid of all of them, but with three up I’m more likely to get a bite on at least one of them.
My new BMC is easy to price because the retail is $8,000 plus I have a $2,000 wheel set on it so I can just use that as a baseline and go under that. My two Scott bikes are a little harder. Specifically my time trial bike. The Blue book value is about 2200, but I have a zipp super 9 tubular disc and a Reynolds 81 front, which is over $3,000 worth of Wheels right there lol. That makes a little harder to figure out what to do :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve sold a couple of bikes. What I did was look at Craigslist and Facebook and see what kind of ridiculous prices were being asked on used bikes. Than I asked myself what would I pay for X bike? Naturally people want to not lose a bunch of money on a bike they overspent on and don’t ride anymore, but that’s not what the value is. I always set my price on what I would pay less $500. Sold my bikes within two weeks on Craigslist.

Maybe I could have made more by holding for months on end but what cost.

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My bikes are the same. My 2021 Scott Addict RC MSRP was $6400. I added $4000 (MSRP) with new bars, wheels, cranks, post, saddle etc…still take half of the total. I figure just because the “upgrades” were worth it for me they might not be for someone else.

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I get it. I’m not a motivated seller by any means, so I will start optimistically!

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Having taken a hiatus from riding starting in my mid 50’s and starting again after 9 years, I can’t encourage you enough to continue working out on the bike. Time off after the age of 40 will bite you hard. I am nowhere near as fit or fast as I was when I stopped and in spite of 3 years of dedicated work, nowhere close. I think you could maintain most of the physiological advantages you currently have with one VO2 and one threshold session a week. There’s nothing like 20-20 hindsight

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Sold a few bikes to pros closet. Take a few pics and get a quote and that at least gets you a decent estimate. I did this today with my large Epic Evo I purchased back in early Feb and mtb is not for me so seeing what I can get there before potentially listing locally in GA.

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You might get lucky, but typically people don’t care about your upgrades.

It’s all about taking good pictures and presenting the bike in a good way. No pictures or bad pictures and people scroll.

Price is always negotiable. When setting a price go for what you want to ideally sell the bike for and take a couple hundred off. Some people will not bite if the price is unrealistically high which your ideal sale price might be.

I’ve always done approximately half of purchase price + $1,000, then subtract a few hundred and set this as my starting price. You can then negotiate from there.

That was before 2020, so all bets are off now with the used bike market.

Are we sure this isn’t a cry for help? Should we be organising an intervention?

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