Is the price of parts putting you off?

Well. If everyone is upset about the increase in prices of retro kit, you all know what to do.

Get on here first thing in the morning and dump your entire stockpiles of parts and bikes.

Excess of supply causes prices to crash.

And I give you all very good price for your Kleins, Ultimates, Merlins, Kahunas, Cooks, Grafton etc. Extra special price for you my friends.
 
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Ive been priced out and im pissed about it.
Fair enough, but are you going about it the right way ?

I've done a lot of buying and selling and amassed a huge collection since joining and if you want something, the very best way to get it is to spend time waiting.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.... But the way i've found to get the bargains, because remember not everyone selling out there on ebay is a clued up collector.
So how i did it was to spend pretty much every day, at the main times people list(early morning, after work/dinner evenings), filtered to buy it now, with a page refresh every few seconds.
I have bought many items within seconds of listing, and learned to scan pictures and descriptions very quickly, because I'm not alone is buying and have found that they do go in seconds and you can be mid read of a description to refresh and find its sold in under a minute.

So you need to know your onions, and be able to make a lightening fast decision.*

*Accompanying music
 
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Agree with many posts above. As the saying goes, ‘you can always make more money but you cant buy time’. When you get to your 50s you start to realise how precious time spent doing what you enjoy eg tinkering with bikes/parts and riding with others is. I have paid well over the odds on here and ebay for years but I have NO regrets. I cant understand the mentality of spending months or even years hunting on various websites to find a rare part you really want in the hope prices are 30% cheaper.

Life is unpredictable, brutal, unfair and the years fly by. Enjoy what makes you happy while you still can. I met an 88yr old golfer in the car park last week. He said he’d been in Insurance for years but had always bunked off to play lots of golf and had never made as much money or got the big house his wife wanted. He had an old bronze Rover, looked happy and seemed in great shape for his age and said with a smile….I have NO regrets.

Made me think anyways.
 
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Sometimes…..

It really depends on the circumstances and how badly you want something and how quickly. For me that can vary.

I’ve had great luck over the years spotting cheap buys at in person auctions as well as buy it nows on eBay. A garage full of bikes and boxes of parts is testament to that - bare in mind I’m tight and I don’t spend what I can’t afford which is quite limiting. I don’t have particularly exotic taste as those sort of bikes weren’t around my area when I was of the age. Generally I don’t get involved in eBay auction purchases, I either surf my buy it now searches every morning with a coffee and see what pops up or I put in my best price using a sniper and leave it alone. Some you win, some you lose but I don’t get involved with a bidding war. With physical auctions it’s the same, I leave bids online and hope for the best.

That said, even with luck and patience sometimes you have to have certain parts to complete a build and that’s when the price of stuff you can search, click and buy becomes an issue. My Dyna-Tech Voyager was a bargain £112 collected relatively local a year or so ago, great condition, full Campagnolo Olympus hardly used, could make a fortune if I stripped and flipped. It was missing 3 dust caps, one off the pedals and the two crank dust caps. That’s when I started to gripe about prices! After a while I managed to find the crank caps but I’m still refusing to pay £36 plus post for the pedal ones and that search is still on my eBay!

I’ve been fortunate on the forum a few times with requests and responses to wanted ads. This I really appreciate and follow the rule that if it’s bought on the forum it stays on the forum. None of that will ever go on eBay.
 
It's the thrill of the chase! Hunting down that elusive part at a great price!

That is the hobby.

I don't actually ride these things much if at all!
Im the exact polar opposite..?...my " modern bike" (2008??? Ish) saw about 1000 miles last year....out with the dorris on the roads......my " normal" daily driver 1992 retro bikes did all the hard work.

Ive never even considered looking for parts as the hobby or part of the joy.....for me im just trying to carry on riding the same bike for 32 years and trying to improve / age-modify a better daily driver, finding parts is an occupational hazzard that I dont really need the headache of!

But then i dont have a massive fleet of bikes......imho, i can't see the point.....only one arse for the saddle....... probably got too many now at 4!

But that's ^ a very interesting philosophy........hummmm.
 
Some stuff has defo gone up in price since the old days but it's mainly the desirable, high end stuff. 10 years ago M900 could be picked up for reasonable money, as could a Yo Eddy or Bollox but they've increased so much that they are way out of my reach. I let a personal Unicorn go (mk1 GT RTS1) due to the fact I realised I was never going to be able to do the build justice, where as I've had quite a few M900 based bikes in the past.

Saying that, I don't think much outside the top stuff has gone silly. Yeah, some full, restored bikes are twice what they used to be but you can still find M730/2/5 equipped bikes for sub £200 and a decent Deore DX groupset doesn't seem to be that much more these days? There are still plenty of bargains out there and you don't even have to look too hard.
 
Im the exact polar opposite..?...my " modern bike" (2008??? Ish) saw about 1000 miles last year....out with the dorris on the roads......my " normal" daily driver 1992 retro bikes did all the hard work.

Ive never even considered looking for parts as the hobby or part of the joy.....for me im just trying to carry on riding the same bike for 32 years and trying to improve / age-modify a better daily driver, finding parts is an occupational hazzard that I dont really need the headache of!

But then i dont have a massive fleet of bikes......imho, i can't see the point.....only one arse for the saddle....... probably got too many now at 4!

But that's ^ a very interesting philosophy........hummmm.


I'm sure the same debate has raged in Austin mini forums and land rover forums
 

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