Twozaskars
Retro Guru
'Mounting bike' is another one that makes me chuckle.
Worst/Funniest experiences buying used bikes?
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Twozaskars
Retro Guru
I rang my bell to pass someone last weekend on the canal whilst riding my Karakoram - my go-to that I've had for 3+ years and fine tuned the fit to perfection - just to get 3 yards past him and him shout to me that I need to raise my seat as it's too low. Thanks for that.
fearfactoryüberalles
Senior Retro Guru
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Worst: I mainly buy bikes or parts via mail/ courier. Too lazy/cheap to crank the old V8 up to pick them up and much more eco-friendlier this way. Rarely, if any problems occured during hundreds of transactions, carefully try to avoid dodgy deals anyway.
In Hungary old Schwinn MTBs are rare and I was after one (the steel PDG series) for a rather long time then for my collection. So I meet up with the seller, who is willing to sell me a PDG50 with DX, in a rather dilapidated state. No worries, seen worse, short babble, no examination, just chucked it in the car & off I went. In the shed it turned out: one size too small, alloy seatpost is stuck, and the BB threads are FUBAR
, wasn't that cheap even, doh. Anyway, slowly I've rescued it, removed the sp., had it resprayed, even managed to a fit a BB into it.
Still too smal...
as rebuilt:
Funniest: couple of years ago I was selling a '92 Scott Pro Racing, with M735/Ritchey stuff (titan saddle & QRs), in nice condition. I bought it previously only for the OEM XTR set, and seemed too small, so I built it up with the next best ' XT group and advertised it in Hungary. Was asking a fair price, but noone seemed interested, retro biking wasn't a thing back then around here, a bit better now.
Anyway, after a long while a guy calls and arranges a pick-up at my place for the same weekday afternoon. Big black BMW comes, a huge, mean looking guy asks for the bike. I hand it over, he pays and asks for papers! I start making excuses that I don't have any of it about the bike, as it's an old-old bike, over 25 years old, so c'mon... He's asking only for some CARDBOARD PAPERS so his fancy beemer's interior would be safe... Turns out he's only a chance courier for his boss, who's a younger IT big-wig guy in the capital and collects top MTB models from the era, no cost spared and restores them to their former glory as hobby. A bit like me, apart from the budget...Good fellow, had some chats about retrobikes/buying stuff later.
This bike:
In Hungary old Schwinn MTBs are rare and I was after one (the steel PDG series) for a rather long time then for my collection. So I meet up with the seller, who is willing to sell me a PDG50 with DX, in a rather dilapidated state. No worries, seen worse, short babble, no examination, just chucked it in the car & off I went. In the shed it turned out: one size too small, alloy seatpost is stuck, and the BB threads are FUBAR
, wasn't that cheap even, doh. Anyway, slowly I've rescued it, removed the sp., had it resprayed, even managed to a fit a BB into it.Still too smal...
as rebuilt:
Funniest: couple of years ago I was selling a '92 Scott Pro Racing, with M735/Ritchey stuff (titan saddle & QRs), in nice condition. I bought it previously only for the OEM XTR set, and seemed too small, so I built it up with the next best ' XT group and advertised it in Hungary. Was asking a fair price, but noone seemed interested, retro biking wasn't a thing back then around here, a bit better now.
Anyway, after a long while a guy calls and arranges a pick-up at my place for the same weekday afternoon. Big black BMW comes, a huge, mean looking guy asks for the bike. I hand it over, he pays and asks for papers! I start making excuses that I don't have any of it about the bike, as it's an old-old bike, over 25 years old, so c'mon... He's asking only for some CARDBOARD PAPERS so his fancy beemer's interior would be safe... Turns out he's only a chance courier for his boss, who's a younger IT big-wig guy in the capital and collects top MTB models from the era, no cost spared and restores them to their former glory as hobby. A bit like me, apart from the budget...Good fellow, had some chats about retrobikes/buying stuff later.
This bike:
Gtpulse
Dyna-Tech Fan
“Mountian and moutian bike” used to be one of my eBay searches as well as the old favourite mounting. Found a surprising amount of decent stuff with those!
