...why so many people sell bikes they've hardly used?

[frank9755]

I have just been perusing the bikes for sale listings on eBay.

I'm always amazed how many of the bikes, in particular racing bikes costing £500-1500+, are advertised as having
- 'never been on the road',
- 'done only 30 miles',
- 'only used twice'
- 'been gathering dust in the shed'
or similar

Is it because they've:
a. been bought off the internet and are the wrong size
b. bought by someone looking to take up road cycling but who found the bike too uncomfortable (who would have enjoyed riding a tourer but will never be aware that they exist!)
c. been stolen
d. other reason...?

[CREPELLO]

I'd imagine most likely A and B, though just plain 'couldn't be asked/never had the time to get fitter' probably fits the bill of many of those selling.

[quiksilver]

Probably for the same reason a lot of people join gyms and only go a couple of times, good intentions but lack of motivation and determination.

[kwackers]

Probably for the same reason a lot of people join gyms and only go a couple of times, good intentions but lack of motivation and determination.

+1
Most people aren't as fit as they think and cycling is harder than they thought. Buy the bike, cycle a mile to the shop come back, knackered and in need of a kip.

The other is people who buy it with the idea the whole family can go out for nice rides in the park. It's such a lovely vision, marred only by weather, others reluctance, general lack of fitness and the fact they can get there in half the time in the car (which they probably don't bother doing either).

Eventually they find tripping over it to be an annoyance not worth the benefits and get rid.

[yakdiver]

They find the saddle too hard

[rogerzilla]

(a) it takes a few weeks before you're aerobically fit enough for brisk cycling to be much fun - much longer to build up dedicated muscles.

(b) people realise that it rains most of the time in the UK, and most bikes aren't sold with mudguards - so they never get used.

(c) churn from "bike to work" schemes, where you can have a heavily discounted bike every year with no obligation exceot that half the bike's use is for commuting (so one ride a year would cover it).

(d) yes, a lot are stolen, especially Bromptons - and a thief who is in it for the money (rather than a way to get home from the pub, as in some student areas) will go for something clean and new rather than an old rusty hack.

Like cars though, I expect a lot of people just get bored with the colour or want something new and updated. Read "Cycling Plus" and you'd think you were obliged to drop £2000 on a new carbon fibre road bike every season just to be a proper cyclist.

[CREPELLO]

They find the saddle too hard

...or the bike shop (where ever) never set the gears and brakes up right and the owner never thought of coming on here to ask. As a result they concluded that it was too much like the bike they owned as a kid in the '70's .

[thirdcrank]

There was an interview with Chris Boardman in the paper a couple of weeks ago, discussing the monocoque bike he rode at the Barcelona Olympics. He mentioned that a lot of people thought it was the bike that won the medal, rather than him, which upset him a bit. I think he was talking about cyclists thinking the bike had given him an advantage, but I remember when I used to commute to work, people were always asking my advice about buying a bike. One point I used to make was that you have to propel it and I actually used to say, "It may look as though the bike is pulling Chris Boardman along, but he's the one making the effort." I think cycling can be one of those equipment sports where people think that so long as you shell out enough £££ you'll be OK. I always used to say, borrow something off a neighbour or buy something cheap to begin with. If they were set on spending zillions, I used to tell them to give me first refusal when they came to sell it.

For anybody taking up cycling from scratch, there is that pain barrier which has to be tackled. This is part opf the reason so many people ask about soft saddles. Once those big backside muscles have got used to cycling, most people could ride on a wooden saddle, but a lot pack in without getting those first few agonising rides out of the way.

[Jonty]

I'm amazed by this as well. There are probably many reasons for such "irrational" behaviour. I suspect many people buy inappropriate bikes because they don't have someone to turn to in order to get sensible advice. So they buy bikes which are too small or too big, or has tyres like tractor tyres.
I'm sure the point about fitness levels is true as well. I believe that the average British adult can barely get themselves out of their chair after watching television.
One of the reasons why there are so many 4x4s is that many people are so fat they can't get into normal cars. No doubt they will soon come with in-car cranes and hoists.
But I'm amazed by the number of people who are obviously experienced cyclists who put good bikes up for sale shortly after they purchased them simply because they see something better or "it's not quite right". You would think that if they're going to spend £1-2K on a bike they would ensure that they got it right first time; there are obviously people out there who have money to throw at bikes and don't mind if they get it wrong.
I've seen adverts for used New Series Moultons of over 10 years old which are described as "excellent condition and only ridden for 100 miles since new".
Perhaps if your bike is worth £5k the last thing you want to do is to ride it.
jonty

[MacBludgeon]

I know a lot of bikes are stolen but many of those are at the lower end of the market. I think poor sales advice, stubborn attitudes from the customer and believing the hype on the internet has a lot to do with it. I was surprised but it actually seems worse in cycling than I found it with golf. But the similarities are there, in golf, if the hype were to be believed, re distance and accuracy improvements for new technology during my golfing life, then I should be able to drive the ball about 600 yards. Internet reviews of kit along the lines of 'Wow Dude this is just the best......blah, blah', then 6 months later the same person is posting a review of the next bit of kit and, yet again, they claim night and day type improvements. In both sports the incremental improvements get smaller, and more expensive, the better you get. But high end stuff will often only give performance in return for the ability you bring to it. Mere mortals couldn't use Tiger Woods clubs any more than they could benefit from an elite cyclists setup, especially the road gearing.

Given my physical condition when I started cycling a road specific bike could have put me off permanently. I just couldn't have coped with race bike positioning and may have found that I couldn't adjust the bike enough to make it comfy, even if I could have been bothered. It's like people that say a saddle is comfy for 50 miles then it becomes a pain. Maybe it's their core strength that flags after that distance and their posture slumps, nothing to do with the saddle at all.

[glueman]

Unlike luxury cars or houses, where few can afford a Maserati or a Georgian manor, acquisitive types can run to a top of the range bicycle. So they buy the mags and decide they want 'the best', which means a bum in the air bike with gears too high for them.

Bike purchases are often made when people are bored and have been browsing the web, swallow the hype and make a spur of the moment credit card transaction. I use all my bikes but succumbed to the same stoopid condition when I bought a folder in spite of the fact a ) I dislike small wheeled bikes and b ) I hate folders. There are occasions I need to carry a bike on public transport but for the other 363 days in the year it sits forlornly in its bag.
Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Colin63]

It's a year since I bought my Mercian and Ally, my then wife, bought one too (or rather I bought it for her). It's a £2000 bike purchased on the back of my enthusiasm. Ally's bike is upstairs in the spare room with less than 100 miles on the road. Basically she bought the wrong bike for her. At about the same time we both bought Bromptons. This was as a result of having been to the Brompton World Championships and having a whale of a time whizzing about the Blenheim Palace grounds on borrowed bikes. Ally used hers for commuting while I have hardly ever used mine and wonder why I ever bothered. It's probably done less that 50 miles, a completely inappropriate bike for me. So my Brommy is up for sale and I suspect that Ally's 'new' Mercian will soon be sold too, though I may keep it as a guest bike if she doesn't want it.
The previous Summer we bought two Trek hybrid bikes. These were bought because I had been unable to ride for years due to a dodgy back. I felt it was worth the money as I missed cycling more than I could say. it turned out that the back was no longer a problem and for that knowledge I would have happily paid every penny I had. Those bikes got me back into cycling and gave Ally some enthusiasm. We had a fantastic summer riding together but that was as much bike as Ally needed whereas I wanted more. So my house now contains six bikes, all relatively new. One, my Mercian, is ridden regularly. Of the other five, two Treks, Ally's Mercian and my Brompton are never used and Ally's Brompton is occasionally used.
I think what I'm really saying is that people buy bikes for lots of reasons and sometimes buy the wrong bike. Also a newish bike that isn't used is a pot of money. Why keep it?

[fatboy]

I think that the point about Chris Boardman and his bike is a good one. People seem to think that if they buy the bike then they'll fly! I recently did an Audax ride from Stevenage to Saffron Walden and back which is undulating but hardly hilly but tons of people that I saw had carbon fibre bikes but were really struggling up the hills because they lacked low enough gears. Me and my mates (two tourers and an MTB) had no problem keeping up with them as we could ease our way up the hills, the real time when having a light bike would make a difference! So I'd like to add another possible explanation; they bought a bike with lots of gears but can't work out why they can't get up the hill. (So I suppose that's a bit of a modification of the OPs point B that they should have got a tourer but didn't know such a beast existed).

[eileithyia]

Probably a combination of all responses; inappropriate bike, high expectations, etc. Ideals of floating around on a sunny summers day pale into insignificance on wet, cold, dark winter days with gale force winds.

Our staff "intranet" currently has a bike for sale only used 2-3 times for work then been "garaged".

Even more amusing are the sales that all too frequently appeared in CTC mag over the years; The Tandem. Clearly designed as male pilot, female stoker and all too often accompanied by "50 miles" or "used once". Read cyclist male, non-cyclist girlfriend and idea of getting her cycling! She has never cycled before and he has (probably) never stoked or has limited tandem experience = disaster!
These were closely followed by the matching pair his n hers touring bikes!

[fatboy]

Even more amusing are the sales that all too frequently appeared in CTC mag over the years; The Tandem. Clearly designed as male pilot, female stoker and all too often accompanied by "50 miles" or "used once". Read cyclist male, non-cyclist girlfriend and idea of getting her cycling! She has never cycled before and he has (probably) never stoked or has limited tandem experience = disaster!

I've only been on a tandem once and I found it very scary as an experienced cyclist! This tandem was bought by a friend so that he and his wife could ride off into the sunset.............don't think that she's ever been on it!