I flip bikes. What sweet tricks will YOU do after reading this?
It’s always been my dream to flip real estate, but I also want a long and happy marriage, while being able to afford some sort of education for my children. So house-flipping fantasies might have to be grounded for a few years. Real estate has too many factors that are beyond my control…like interest rates, crumbling foundations, crumbling housing markets and rodentia. In the meantime, I’ve applied my passion and knowledge of cycling into a wintertime investment opportunity.
No matter what your passion, there’s usually a high season and a low season for activities you love that involve stuff. Right now we’re in a high season for bicycles, and a low season for, say, alpine skiing equipment and space heaters (for all you space heater collectors). During the winter, I will frequent Craigslist to seek out deals on bikes. Lucky for me, I know enough about bikes to gauge the resale value of both the brand equity placed on frame names, and the components on the bikes. I also know how to search.
Frames aren’t all that valuable, as most of a bicycle’s value is riding in the components—or the drive train, wheel set, brakes/levers, stem, bars and seat. So I search for keywords that will give me results for bikes with a good group set, or gruppo (Italian). Keywords like 105, Ultegra or Dura Ace will fetch me bikes with higher-end Shimano components. Veloce, Record or Centaur will let me see what bikes come with Campagnolo components. And then I compare the prices of the complete bikes featuring those parts.
During the off season, many people don’t hope to fetch a competitive price for their stuff, because there’s little competition. Quite often, they’re moving, or need money for holidays or vacation, or recently exited the high season for their “thing” and are depressed at how little they used it…and just throw in the towel. And then I buy it. If I can’t find anything of value, I’ll place a wanted ad on Craigslist for what I want. And then I’m in the driver’s seat to review the offers that only show up on my inbox. That totally eliminates the competition.
My best flip started when a friend was over for dinner one night in February and I was showing him how I search for bikes on Craigslist. The second ad was for a Bianchi Veloce for just 250 bucks. The Campagnolo gruppo on it was well worth $500 by itself, so I instantly abandoned my dinner guests and called the guy with an offer of 300 bucks ($50 over asking), to give me a fighting chance versus all the calls I knew he was about to get hit with. I picked it up the next morning (he had to turn his phone off that night due to all the calls), took it home and cleaned it. Then I took the brand new tires off it, and swapped them with an old pair I had kickin’ around, mostly because they looked cooler on it (marketing rules). When the weather warmed up, and the cycling season was in full swing, I took some sexy photos of the bike, posted them on Photobucket, and copied the html text they provided and pasted it into my ad on CL, so the pics show up really huge in the ad (and you’re not limited to 4 pics). I sold the bike for 800 bucks, netting a $500 profit. The best part about waiting for a few months is that you don’t get caught. Nobody likes a flipper. I’ve seen the Craigslist community “out” other flippers when it’s done the following day. Do I feel that I took advantage of the person who purchased the Bianchi? No, because I know they still got a pretty fair deal. That bike, new in a bike shop, would have been double what they paid me. It was a win/win situation.
Hopefully you have a hobby that requires stuff. Flex that niche muscle of yours and help fund your addiction like I do with cycling. And remember, it’s a hobby. Don’t expect to tack on 10k to your annual income. Bike building to me is like knitting is to someone who wants to sit for 10 hours to make something a Shaoxing factory can kick out in 20 seconds. There are better uses of your time to make a buck. But if you’re having fun, go for it.
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