Another FB 'crime against bicycles' special for only £900

[greencat]

If I were to guess the method to the madness, I would think they've got the frameset from someone (a family member or something? They surely can't have actually bought it?) and built it up with nearly all new (but cheap) parts with the idea that this somehow makes it more valuable. They've managed to build the thing at no small effort, but with such awful choices. Just the shifters alone are bafflingly stupid.

I wondered if they'd taken the frame/other parts to a bike shop and asked them to get it going again.

 

[greencat]

According to the listing it's a 'touring bicycle'. Obviously. I guess I should be thankful that he didn't try to add mudguards and racks.

I was this close to messaging the seller and as reasonably as possible saying he's best off taking it back to the frame and fork, and at least hinting at the fact that this will never in a million years sell for £900, but given he's claimed that he's put £1000 worth of parts on it, and the listing says 'Collection only, no you can’t try it out, £900 Ono' I decided that would not go down well.

I could almost understand building a bike like this in the pre-internet era where someone might have no way of finding out what they have and how best to go about these things, but this just baffles me. I guess I should never underestimate people's ability to make baffling decisions...

Yes, these conversations never go well, especially if you have no interest in buying. It's possible the person did spend £1K on it. But telling them it's not worth that is pointless. Either someone will buy it at the price, or they'll reduce it or it won't sell.

 

[sjcprojects]

I hope they didn't get charged £1K by a bike shop for building that! That does almost make more sense, though. Some bike shops are sadly pretty clueless when it comes to vintage bikes, but even so, this would be on another level of shitiness given how cheap some of those parts are, and the way it's been done. It would mean they had no scruples about just taking someone's money to build a monstrosity. I'm actually tempted to try and find out if they built it themselves or not...

 

[greencat]

I hope they didn't get charged £1K by a bike shop for building that! That does almost make more sense, though. Some bike shops are sadly pretty clueless when it comes to vintage bikes, but even so, this would be on another level of shitiness given how cheap some of those parts are, and the way it's been done. It would mean they had no scruples about just taking someone's money to build a monstrosity. I'm actually tempted to try and find out if they built it themselves or not...

The thing that made me wonder if it was a shop build was the cable end caps. An irregular amateur builder botching together a bunch of parts is unlikely to bother with them.

 

[LondonClassic]

Even if you gave him £200 all he would do is buy more crack.

 

[sjcprojects]

I contacted the seller to ask if they built it themself, and they said they did partly, but also "a mate that has worked on bikes for years helped put it together, he's currently touring Europe on his bike." So there you go, he had an accomplice in this crime. I don't want to know what the bike his friend is touring with looks like...

And he's definitely telling a porky about £1K's worth of parts unless his mate ripped him off!

Anyway, I said "thanks for the info" and left it as that. As this will never sell for £900 I wonder what will happen with it. The frame is (or was) worth about £300, maybe, and the parts are pretty much adding nothing of value so he'd need to reduce the price by 2/3rds which seems unlikely. Oh well.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Never trust a fool with a Spanner

 

[fiveSixteenths]

I contacted the seller to ask if they built it themself, and they said they did partly, but also "a mate that has worked on bikes for years helped put it together, he's currently touring Europe on his bike." So there you go, he had an accomplice in this crime. I don't want to know what the bike his friend is touring with looks like...

And he's definitely telling a porky about £1K's worth of parts unless his mate ripped him off!

Anyway, I said "thanks for the info" and left it as that. As this will never sell for £900 I wonder what will happen with it. The frame is (or was) worth about £300, maybe, and the parts are pretty much adding nothing of value so he'd need to reduce the price by 2/3rds which seems unlikely. Oh well.

“currently touring Europe on his bike”
Currently waiting for the broom-wagon possibly…

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

“currently touring Europe on his bike”
Currently waiting for the broom-wagon possibly…

Avoiding the crimes against bicycles death squad.

 

[Ren Rawbor]

I have to wonder, maybe it's an elaborate scam? Picture this, fella has an old Ciocc which has unfortunately suffered a crack to the downtube, so he removes all the parts to transfer to a different frame (Perhaps a gas-pipe Raleigh?) and then has the bright idea to build it back up with whatever crap is lying around/in the LBS clearance bin, mounting the band on shifter bosses strategically to hide the crack.
Then put it on FB pretending to be a know-nothing narcotic enthusiast & hope that someone like one of us comes along, sees it's a Ciocc frameset & offers him a lowball price compared to his big-ask, but perhaps somewhere around the 350-400 in hopes of rescuing the frameset and recouping some dough on the rubbish parts. He "begrudgingly" accepts said offer as he "just needs the space" et voila, he's flogged a broken frame and some steaming turds for the better part of a monkey.



Orrr, could just be a crackhead with an adjustable...