Cubist said:
this bike would have been very good but it had too many bits wrong with it.
But you never know, if you upgrade the wheels, frame, gear shifters, handlebars and saddle, it might be quite reasonable. That buyer paid over 80 quid!! FFS
It's amazing what the uninformed will pay for what. 9 years ago, I went to the Uni bike auction with my boyfriend. It was a sale of all the bikesabandoned on campus over the year - quite a lot. Almost all of it was cheap dross, but kids were paying £50-60 for BSO's with rusted solid chains and disconnected brakes, because they looked, I dunno, cool? Red bikes sold for the most - seriously, it was that obvious just watching.
The flipside is that they didn't know real class. Tom spotted a pair of drop bars among the heap, investigated them, and I got my Dawes Galaxy (lilac, with white bar tape), for £15.
OT slightly. I went back the following year and witnessed this. A girl wanted a bike, and her BF was helping her choose. He picked one out, rolled it back and forth a bit, looked it over, it seemed ok. So he hoisted it into the air and asked her to turn the pedals - she did and the wheel span, this one was in moderately good condition.
He put it down and she said "Well, that's no good then." "Eh?" he said, "Why not?" "Well," she said, "the front wheel didnt go round..." I left him to explain....
^^^
