Accessories	Bicycles	Parts	Specials	Tools

sheldonbrown.com sheldonbrown.net sheldonbrown.org WWW

Selling Your Used Bicycle

by Sheldon "For Sale" Brown

Where to Advertise	How Much to Ask	Writing your Advertisement	Photographs

Got an old bike you aren't using anymore? Want to sell it? We can help!

Thanks to the Internet, you can connect with potential purchasers all over the world! If you make effective use of the Internet you can find a buyer for almost anything.

Note: I am not professionally involved in buying and selling used bikes, though I do a bit on the side. Please do not email or phone me to ask how much your old bike is worth!

Where to Advertise

How Much to Ask

This is a tough one. Looking up prices of similar used bikes on the Internet may give you a general idea of value, but don't get your hopes up too high.

What is a choice collectible to one person may be just some old bike to somebody else, so actual selling prices can vary over a tremendous range.

Nice old bikes can sometimes be picked up very cheaply at yard sales, or can sell for very high prices between collectors. This makes it very hard to set a value.

Bikes at yard sales and the like may go for a tenth or less of what some serious collector might be willing to pay, just because the seller wants to clean out the garage.

A used bike is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. If there's one person in the world who just has to have what you're selling, and is willing to pay a high price for it, you can do well. On the other hand, if that person just bought one from somebody else, doesn't need two of them, and nobody else wants one, an item that recently sold for a very high price may prove impossible to sell even at a fraction of what the first one brought.

• Check the Articles About Older Bikes on this site for general information.

• Used road bikes with drop handlebars are only desirable if they were originally very high end models--Reynolds 531 or Columbus frame tubing, aluminum wheel rims, etc.

• For older racing bikes, the Vintage Bicycle Price Guide may be helpful, but be aware that the actual price info in this is several years out of date.

• Generally, lady's-style bikes are much less salable than standard diamond-frame models.

• Generally, used children's bikes have little or no value.

• Department-store brands, such as Huffy, Murray, Magna are virtually worthless.

• Bicycles with bent frames are only worth a tiny fraction of what intact ones are.

Do NOT advertise a bike without a price, nobody wants to be bothered making an offer if they have no idea how much you want for the bike. (Obviously this doesn't apply to auction sites.)

If you knew what it was, there is a "perfect" price that you could ask. With the "perfect" price, the bike would sell promptly, and you'd get top dollar for it.

Unfortunately, there's no way to know what that "perfect" price is, so you will either be too high or too low. My advice is to start out high, and be prepared to come down. If you are too high, it won't sell right away, and then you can always lower the price. If you start out too low, some bargain hunter will snap it up and you'll wind up kicking yourself.

Everybody knows that prices on used merchandise are negotiable. Don't undercut yourself by using phrases like "...or best offer."

Please do not email or phone me to ask how much your old bike is worth!

Writing Your Advertisement

If you want to get what your bike is worth, you need to give a good description, preferably accompanied by good photographs.

Honesty

It is important that you list any flaws, dents, nicks, scratches, worn-out parts as well as mentioning the positive features. If you don't, you may get stuck having to take the bike back and pay for shipment both ways! Honesty is the only policy! Wishful thinking doesn't work.

Avoid commonly misused terms like "Mint" "NOS" & "Perfect" unless they actually apply.

• "Mint" means exactly as it would have been on the showroom floor when it was for sale. It means NO wear, NO scratches, NO parts that weren't on the bike when it was originally sold, NO blemishes of any sort.

• "NOS" means "New, Old Stock" and applies to items that have never been sold at retail and/or have never actually been used. NOS merchandise might be shopworn, might have minor cosmetic blemishes (but they should be noted if present) but would never have been actually used.

• "Perfect" doesn't exist for anything made by the hand of humanity, don't claim it.

Size

By far the most important information to supply is the size of the bicycle. If you don't know the size, don't waste your time advertising it, because the size is the most important thing to know about a bike. The only way you'll sell a bike where the size is not speficied is if the price is ridiculously low.

When we speak about the size of an adult bike, we're generally speaking about the length of the seat tube. This is measured from the center of the bottom bracket (pedal crank bearing) to somewhere at the upper end of the seat tube. Exactly where to take the measurement at the top is a bit confusing, because different manufacturers do it differently.

• Some frames, particularly Italian ones, are measured "Center-to-Center" (C-C). This is measured to the point where the centerline of the top tube crosses the centerline of the seat tube.

• Other frames are measured to the actual top of the seat tube, where the seatpost fits in. This system is called "Center-to-Top" (C-T).

• Still other frames, where the seat tube protrudes above the top of the top tube, have a measurement to the level of the top of the top tube. This is also called "Center-to-Top" (C-T), leading to no small amount of confusion.

Measure from the center of the bottom bracket	to the upper top of the seat tube, in inches or centimeters

(Click on thumbnail images to see larger images)

In addition to the seat tube size, many potential buyers will want to know the top tube length. Top tube length is measured from the centerline of the seat tube too the centerline of the head tube.

It is important to measure the top tube along with a ruler held level, even if the actual top tube runs at a slant.

These measurements may be in either inches or centimeters. Better yet, use both systems.

Believe it or not, even on the Internet, there are some people out there who are so poorly educated that they can't handle such simple arithmetic as converting between these units!

The above applies to adult bikes. Bikes intended for children are generally referred to by the wheel size: 12 inch, 16 inch, 20 inch, etc.

Detail

You should give as much detail as possible, including brands and models of such parts as hubs, wheel rims, crank sets, derailers, pedals, handlebar and stem, saddle.

Always mention the wheel/tire size in your ad. This will be moulded into the sidewalls of the tires.

Photographs

Photographs are a big help in selling a used bike, but many sellers don't do a good job. You don't need fancy photos, but try to make sure that at least they are sharp and not too dark. The examples shown here were done in a crowded basement with the built-in flash. I got in nice and close so that the parts were much closer to the flash than the background was. This makes for a dark, non distracting background.

You should have one photo of pretty much the whole bike as an overview, taken from the right side, completely perpendicular. Get in fairly close...it's OK to cut off the front of the front tire and the back of the back tire, those are not informative, and coming in closer will give you more detail on the parts of the bike that matter. Try to find a background that is not too "busy" so as not to be too confusing.

You only need ONE shot of the whole bike, but you should also include close-ups of key features of the bike's construction, as with these:

If you have basic skills in HTML, and have some Web space available to use, you can make a page on your own site with lots of photos and text, then place a link to that page in your ad. Here is an example of one I did for an old French touring bike I recently sold:

http://sheldonbrown.org/rochet

I sold this on eBay, and simply pasted a modified version of that page's HTML into the eBay form, so I wasn't dependent on any limitations for how many photos I could put up.