[sv_goon]

Hello everyone,

I'm a former racer (high school and college, mid to late 80s) and I still have my old race bike, which I've been hauling around for years but not riding too much. I upgraded to a more modern (indexed shifting!) bike, so it's time for the old one to go.

It's a Marinoni I had built ca. 1988 and it's got mostly Record C but some Nouvo (sp?) Record stuff [brake calipers, hubs] on it, in reasonably good shape, but showing use and wear, since I actually rode and raced the bike rather than keeping it in a glass case.

So the question is, is the whole worth less than the sum of the parts? I'm seeing individual bits on eBay getting some pretty good $$, while a 20-year-old complete bike seems like a long shot to unload, unless I happen to find a vintage-head who's about my size (58cm).

Any opinions would be welcomed.

Cheers...

 

[cthomas]

I vote for parting it out...

Unless it is a real collectors bike, you will likely get a much better price by selling the parts individually (or the Record as a gruppo), then selling the frameset as well. Bottom line is there are a lot of people looking for vintage parts, just not looking for a built up bike.

58cm is not that far off the normal size, (compared to my normal 63-65cm!), but I still think parting it out is the best way to go. I have done this on several bikes and it has worked for me pretty well.

 

[Squidward]

As a general rule of thumb you will always get more money parting almost anything out than selling as a package. Also, people would tend to shy away from a complete bike because of the cost factor compared to the smaller parts. I believe that there are far more people looking for parts for their bikes or to add to their collection than people looking for whole bikes. There are even crazy people who would rather piece together a bike from individual parts rather than buy one already built.

 

[dnalsaam]

You must however also factor in the cost in terms of time of taking the bike apart, listing all of the parts singularly, dealing with all the individual buyers and awaiting multiple payments. Plus you have the nuisance of more chances fo all the pseudo-experts asking you the most inane questions.