Buying old bikes, doing them up, and then selling them?

[Monkspeed]

I've been thinking recently about buying old road bikes and frames from the bay of e and fixing them up and re-selling them.

I noticed last night, planet-x are selling their carbon road frames for a good price of £200, but by the time I factored in the cost of everything it was nearly the same price as they sell the bikes for anyway.

So my question is it possible to make some money doing this, if I buy an old reasonable bike around the ~£100 mark, can I turn it in to a good spec bike to sell and make some profit?

Or would I have to be able to buy the parts as a business at cost price to be able to make any kind of profit?

Cheers.

 

[mickle]

Very hard to do indeed. Do it as a hobby by all means but you'll not make any money doing it. Folks like Bike Rescue in York barely scrape a living in spite of getting all their bikes for free, charging way too much when the sell them, not doing a very good job of fixing them up and receiving free premises from the council into the bargain.

 

[Monkspeed]

Very hard to do indeed. Do it as a hobby by all means but you'll not make any money doing it. Folks like Bike Rescue in York barely scrape a living in spite of getting all their bikes for free, charging way too much when the sell them, not doing a very good job of fixing them up and receiving free premises from the council into the bargain.

It will be very much hobby based as I quite enjoy taking my current bike apart, cleaning it up, and sticking it back together again. I'm just wondering if I can make some money out of it at the same time.

For argument sake, if I buy an old bike for £50-£100, spend ~£300 fixing it up, I now obviously would want to sell it for about ~£450 to make a small profit but I'm thinking who would want to buy an old bike for £450 when they can get a brand new one for similar cash anyway...

 

[tyred]

I would love to but I don't think it's possible tbh. If you could get parts at trade prices, then maybe.

 

[Scilly Suffolk]

At the end of the Summer, I bought an early-Eighties Peugeot locally for £60.

I refurbed it as a Winter bike, spending around £100 on tyres, cables, pedals etc. I bought decent quality parts, so could have done it a little cheaper.

So that's £160 without a respray: no way I could sell it for that.

 

[Monkspeed]

At the end of the Summer, I bought an early-Eighties Peugeot locally for £60.

I refurbed it as a Winter bike, spending around £100 on tyres, cables, pedals etc. I bought decent quality parts, so could have done it a little cheaper.

So that's £160 without a respray: no way I could sell it for that.

Thanks for a rough idea of prices Jim.

So really, I would need to get a free frame to have a small chance to make any money from it. :/

 

[GilesM]

I managed to make a bit of cash out of it when I was a kid, but I worked in a bike shop part time and was able to buy the bits at cost price, I also recycled alot of old stuff that came off bikes during repairs, however I remember the bike shop very rarely bothered to do up the part exchange bikes that came in, it just wasnt worth it.

 

[dellzeqq]

difficult. This chap is a real devotee, has a fanbase, does a nice job, and yet barely makes a profit. Luckily he has a day job...
http://retrodicorsa.cc/Retro_di_Corsa/intro.html

 

[Monkspeed]

difficult. This chap is a real devotee, has a fanbase, does a nice job, and yet barely makes a profit. Luckily he has a day job...
http://retrodicorsa.cc/Retro_di_Corsa/intro.html

Wow he has some really nice bikes, I love the old Eddy Merckx bikes.

Off topic but is that Jerry Lewis in your avatar?

 

[dellzeqq]

Hutch lives in a really cool flat on the South Bank, with vintage Italian frames hung on the walls like paintings.

Jerry Lewis? I think not! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004462/

 

[yello]

My take? I think it may be possible... IF you have both a good eye AND a good knowledge. Seeing the potential in something and knowing how to source spares etc for minimal cost to represent the bike.

Then you'll need luck, in finding the bike in the first place and being able to snaffle it at a good price before someone else does. So a lot of ifs there!

My wife does a similar sort of thing (with furniture rather than bikes, she's an upholsterer) and it's a difficult balancing act; knowing how much you can get for a finished piece and what it'll cost to get it there. The biggest problem is frankly the seller. Everyone thinks they've got an antique! They want top dollar for tatty old frames. The biggest cost for refurbing a chair is not in the frame, it's the fabric and sundries needed to do it up, so if a seller wants too much for the frame then there's simply not the margin there - it's a non-starter. Most stuff we look at is simply (and sometimes sadly) not worth it.

Where my wife CAN make money is with an original creation rather than a refurb. That is, take a very ordinary but solid shaped chair frame and recovering in something a little different. It's like what might be called a 'statement piece'. It's something unique and has a more niche appeal perhaps, but then you only need 1 person to buy it!

Perhaps if you can be creative with your rebuilds, rather than slavishly respectful, then perhaps there's a similar market?

 

[Cubist]

There may be a way of making a paying hobby, but ebay is not a good source of cycling bargains, as anything with any sort of reputation sells for silly money. Even used components sell for 80% of what a new item would cost online.

You just might be able to find contemporary bikes for sale in local ads and auctions but you have to be able to predict what they will cost to fettle, and then be sure of a good market afterwards. Profit margins won't be massive.

I occasionally find budget hardtail MTBs for sale on the grapevine, and as long as all they need is a good clean and service, new cables or whatever, they can be sold on for a modest profit.

Restoration of older bikes is done for the love of it though.

 

[Monkspeed]

My take? I think it may be possible... IF you have both a good eye AND a good knowledge. Seeing the potential in something and knowing how to source spares etc for minimal cost to represent the bike.

Then you'll need luck, in finding the bike in the first place and being able to snaffle it at a good price before someone else does. So a lot of ifs there!

My wife does a similar sort of thing (with furniture rather than bikes, she's an upholsterer) and it's a difficult balancing act; knowing how much you can get for a finished piece and what it'll cost to get it there. The biggest problem is frankly the seller. Everyone thinks they've got an antique! They want top dollar for tatty old frames. The biggest cost for refurbing a chair is not in the frame, it's the fabric and sundries needed to do it up, so if a seller wants too much for the frame then there's simply not the margin there - it's a non-starter. Most stuff we look at is simply (and sometimes sadly) not worth it.

Where my wife CAN make money is with an original creation rather than a refurb. That is, take a very ordinary but solid shaped chair frame and recovering in something a little different. It's like what might be called a 'statement piece'. It's something unique and has a more niche appeal perhaps, but then you only need 1 person to buy it!

Perhaps if you can be creative with your rebuilds, rather than slavishly respectful, then perhaps there's a similar market?

Hmmm, you make a good point Yello. If I could somehow, take an old frame and jazz it up with a nice respray and put modern bits on it? Perhaps make some fixed bikes they seem to be all the rage at the moment...

 

[Chris S]

West Midlands Police sell unclaimed bikes through auctions. They typically go for around £20-£40 for a lot of 10 (http://www.astonsauctioneers.co.uk/west_midlands_police_auction_catalogue.html). I suspect most of them end up on Gumtree at that price each.

 

[Alembicbassman]

I have refurbed a few bikes from 1990s road bikes to a cheap Apollo hybrid. Never made a cent on them. I have made money buying nearly new stuff at cheap prices then selling them on. It's not easy and items don't come up too often. you have to search all the ad sites as well as local supermarket boards etc...

If you do want to have a go only buy quality stuff. At least Reynolds 531 or Columbus Aelle, try and get Reynols 653, 753, 708 make sure the wheels are in good order otherwise you've spent £50-100 already. Most of the ebay stuff is junk, one old Reynolds 753 bike sold last week for £330 so you're going to struggle. A cheapo £200 Viking road bike will be lighter than most old 80s and 90s bikes and have more gears and be guaranteed for at least a year. Decathlon do a full STi equpped alu-carbon bike for £300