Keep unused 18-year-old road bike or sell?

[Chalknewton]

I bought this Trek Alpha Series 1500 with Ultegra in 2000. Still have receipt and manual.

"So what?" I hear you say.

Well, I was unable to ride immediately after buying it due to a torn cartiledge and other injuries and never used it. Suddenly it's 2018 and the bike has been in dry storage for 18 years and apart from the odd bit of dust it's in virtually mint condition.

So, now I want to ride again. I took the bike to a well known chain sellers for a tighten-up and they said that due to its condition I might get a very good price for it, especially if I went through a broker. I didn't know brokers existed. They were talking around £2k. Yet they said if it did fetch this amount I wouldn't be able to buy a better bike for that money in today's market (??!!).

Does anyone know where you would find a broker?
Would you ride or try to sell this bike?
Would you buy an 18-year-old mint bike or has technology moved on so much that it's now an antique?

A lot of questions for a first post, I know, but would love to hear your opinions.

[Bikes`n`guns]

£400 tops in mint nick. Very tops at that.

Keep it and ride it a retro.

[Cyril Haearn]

Have a look at well-known auction sites for similar bikes, little-used ones might be offered
Quite likely the tyres would have deteriorated, were they pumped up regularly?
You could ride it of course, bikes can last many decades, some people think newer stuff is not better, more and more gears

[peetee]

As previously stated, get the tyres checked out and then ride it.
It's not antiquated and it was a standard bike of it's time so not a collectors piece now.
I am sure a lot of us here ride older bikes and are perfectly happy with them.
Higher tech than that comes at an eye-watering price for purchase and maintenance and the difference in performance over what you have will be barely perceptible.

[random37]

It's an interesting anomaly to have one with so little use, and it was quite a nice bike (I remember that exact one!). But it was never special. There are millions of identical Trek road bikes sat in sheds all round the world, probably with only slightly higher mileages.

A valuation of £2000 is ridiculous. If that was of interest to collectors, it would be to strip the components to hang on a collectable frame. I've been looking at eBay a lot recently, I reckon you'd get £350.

Peetee beat me to it!

[fastpedaller]

I'd also say to ride it and enjoy it (if you are now able to), if it still suits your needs. A newer bike won't necessarily be better, just a few more (probably unnecessary) gears and more expense. You'll probably get more joy out of this, knowing it's been with you 18 years. I parted with my old racing bike 4 years ago (it was 35 years old) and it was like losing a pet

[Cyril Haearn]

I would check the bearings, chain and cables too, the oil and grease could have disappeared
Best to replace the cables probably

How much did you pay for it back then, if one may ask?

[keyboardmonkey]

...I took the bike to a well known chain sellers for a tighten-up and they said that due to its condition I might get a very good price for it, especially if I went through a broker. I didn't know brokers existed. They were talking around £2k...

Let the bike shop take it off your hands for £1k, tell them to sell it and keep all the profit they make

[Chalknewton]

Let the bike shop take it off your hands for £1k, tell them to sell it and keep all the profit they make

LOL... The chain was Evans.

Great replies. Cheers. And all of the same opinion. So I'll keep it and ride it. Unless someone else chips into this thread with information that might make me consider otherwise.

Paid £800 for it in a sale. I think full price would have been £1500.

Never thought about checking bearings/chain/etc. I'll have to take it to a shop for this as I won't know what I'm looking for.

And yes, I thought about £400 tops on eBay too.

[Cyril Haearn]

Plus One
We would be interested to know what condition the parts are in after 18 years, what needs to be replaced?

[Chalknewton]

We would be interested to know what condition the parts are in after 18 years, what needs to be replaced?

Good point. The bike can act as a scientific experiment: a measure of the degradation of various bicycle components over an 18-year period while dry-stored without use.

[Chalknewton]

We would be interested to know what condition the parts are in after 18 years, what needs to be replaced?

Is it a simple job for a local cycle shop to check the parts for degradation (it won't be wear) or will we need men and women in white coats and the use of lab facilities at Imperial College?

Only joking on last bit of course.

Hopefully I can just take the bike to the local repairer and he can give me an answer in a day or two.

[Mud-Plugger]

There are a lot of people riding Seventies/Eighties bikes around and enjoying them. 18 years is still 'young.'

Anything 'rubber' may have started to degrade, so new tyres, tubes and brake pads at the least.

New cables as mentioned, is a good idea, especially if there is any corrosion. You won't be able to see inside the cable outers so changing both inners and outers might be useful. This might not be needed if the bike has been stored indoors. Shed bikes tend to get condensation everywhere you can't see.

Any competent mechanic will be able to check over bearings at the bottom bracket and wheels, while the bike is in the shop for the other work.

All of this stuff is an easy DIY if you want to learn how to do it your self. Everything you need is on YouTube.

As to prices: there's one on GumTree for £200.

[Tangled Metal]

Would be interested to see what had 3 degraded with time. My nearly 30 year old bike probably hasn't been ridden for 10 plus years. But as good at yours but still at school and shelling out £450 was a really big deal at the time for me. Got me a light steel bike (heavy steel bike by today's standards) that I had fun climbing the hills of the Ribble Valley and East Lancashire on school holidays.

BTW anyone know if this trek will be all modern cartridge bearings? A mate reckoned my old road bike had loose bearings which explained how it free wheeled so smoothly compared to modern bikes costing £2-3000 ridden by some other group riders.

I certainly get the impression there's something about older bikes worth enjoying. The choice is lose all that money or ride a potentially decent bike. I know n+1 but that's a perfectly decent bike to give up for not much benefit really.

[Mud-Plugger]

"BTW anyone know if this trek will be all modern cartridge bearings? "

A lot of them had OctaLink V1 b/b's.