I'm going to throw something out there....JMC Content!

[M-Power]

Re:

I think only a National multi cycling mag and online campaign of awareness will acquire this bike. Try as we might, I don't get the feeling there is the appetite to chip in enough on here, it's not a HLF Klein

If the mags do a review and promote one central fund, lots of fans/cyclists could chip in a few quid, excess to a charity to raise awareness for cycle safety ? and the bike could be given a permanent home on display. Contact could be made with the producers of DIRT or Specialized to see if they could produce a tribute video to go viral as part of the campaign.

 

[jonboy]

Re: Re:

Reckon it's worth getting it touch with the winning bidder and offering £100 more than he paid?

There's also the chance that the winning bidder might not pay, and mine was the next highest bid, although why it didn't put my maximum bid on is annoying. It's happened to me before with Gixen.

If your bid had won were you going to buy the bike personally and honour the bid you made?

Or was this bid "on behalf of a Retrobike collective" that doesn't exist? Given the number of posts you have, I'm quite surprised you think you could get 90 people on here to stump up £50 each!

Just seems you pushed the price up, and I think that's poor form if I'm being honest.

 

[Barneyballbags]

Re: Re:

If your bid had won were you going to buy the bike personally and honour the bid you made?

Or was this bid "on behalf of a Retrobike collective" that doesn't exist? Given the number of posts you have, I'm quite surprised you think you could get 90 people on here to stump up £50 each!

Just seems you pushed the price up, and I think that's poor form if I'm being honest.

I'm not going to get into an argument on this forum about what constitutes poor form and what doesn't. However, before you make a judgment, here are a few facts:

- The bid was placed using a snipe. Yes, I realise that sniping is frowned upon by some people, but the chances are that there would be others sniping also (especially given that the price didn't really move until the final reaches of the auction).

- I was communicating with the seller prior to placing the bid, and I explained exactly who I was, and what we were planning to do. I gave the seller my RB username and a link to the thread.

- I explained to the seller that, if my bid was successful, then we would need time to raise the money.

- I suggested to the seller that, if we were unable to raise the money within the agreed time, then our bid would be withdrawn, and we would pay the seller's relisting fees. The seller was happy with this and agreed that no negative feedback would be left.

- The seller was completely happy with this arrangement, otherwise I would NEVER have placed the snipe in the first place. The seller even told me that he hoped we would win, as he would have liked for the bike to have gone to us as a collective where it would be appreciated.


Now, as for pushing the price up. Well, that's what sniping does. As I explained before, other bidders were also sniping, and were obviously prepared to pay similar money for the bike. Bear in mind that the bike sold for over £5,000 the first time around, so whoever won it this time got themselves a relative bargain.

Our snipe didn't win. Someone else's did. It's as simple as that. Ideally we would have tried to find a better way to purchase the bike, but given the time constraints this was the best we could come up with.

Personally I don't think that constitutes poor form, but you're as entitled to your opinion as I am. I just wanted to set the facts straight.