All the Tips You Need to Sell Your Bike and Get Your Money’s Worth
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Selling your bike can be a monumental hassle: You have to get it ready to sell, take photos, and create a listing online. And then you have to deal with the seemingly endless back-and-forth with potential buyers. But when you need to make space in the garage for your next ride, selling your old bike is often a necessity.
To make the process easier, we asked experts who’ve successfully sold many, many bikes for their best tips to get a fast, smooth sale.
Check What Your Bike Is Worth
Those of us with spare bikes to sell got spoiled in 2020 when new bikes were almost impossible to find and everyone wanted to get into riding. But now, the market is flooded, and your used bike probably doesn’t command the same value as it did four years ago—especially now that bike manufacturers are offering deep discounts on many of their bikes.
We know, you love your bike. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually worth a fortune. And an almost-new bike isn’t the same as a new bike bought from the brand, especially because most brands won’t transfer a bike’s warranty to a new owner. In this way, bikes are like cars: The minute you drive off the lot, the car drops in value.
Fortunately, checking the bike’s value is relatively easy to do using BicycleBlueBook.com. Just remember: The value listed there isn’t necessarily what you’ll get for your bike. Your location matters, too.
A better gauge for pricing is to look at what similar bikes in your area have sold for, says Andrew Yee, Cyclocross Magazine editor (and secondhand bike aficionado!). You can scope out what similar bikes are listed for/have sold for on third-party selling sites like Buycycle.com or eBay.
Prep Your Bike
Before taking photos of your bike to post, give it a little TLC: Wash it, clean the chain carefully and re-lube it, pump up the tires, charge your electronic shifters, and generally try to make it look as clean as possible. Small tweaks can make a big difference in how the bike looks, so consider putting on new bar tape if yours is looking a bit haggard, or swapping to a newer, cleaner saddle if yours is getting old.
If you’re planning on listing your bike for more than $2000, you may want to get it serviced at a bike shop before listing it so that it’s running smoothly. The higher the price point, the more flawless the buyer expects a bike to be.
Take Great Photos
If you want to make a quick sale, focus on clear, well-lit images of your bike. Even an inexpensive around-town bike can look more expensive when shot in sunlight with a nice background versus against your wall of junk in the basement.
Plus, you want to highlight the important components, from a full bike shot down to the drivetrain details. “Get to the level of the bike for the best shots. Take good pics—lots of them—and make sure you get the drive side,” says Yee.
Decide on Your “Best Offer” Price
If you’ve ever posted something for sale on Facebook Marketplace, you’ve likely gotten at least one message asking “would you take [hundreds of dollars less]?” Before you list your bike and start fielding these questions, decide what the lowest amount you’d be willing to take for the bike.
And don’t get into fights with potential buyers about the pricing—it’s not worth wasting your time arguing. “When I posted my bike to my club’s page, a member told me I was asking way too much for it,” says one cyclist (who prefers to remain anonymous lest he risk his club’s ire). “I replied with data supporting my price. The bike ended up selling on eBay for roughly a third more than I was asking on the club board.”
Write Your Listing
When listing your bike on a site like Facebook Marketplace, be as detailed as possible—and the more money you’re asking for, the more detailed you’ll want to be to avoid a lot of back-and-forth messaging with potential buyers! “Bikes with detailed descriptions tend to sell faster,” says Buycycle CEO and co-founder, Theo Golditchuk.
Include information like:
Bike make, model, and year
Bike size (and wheel size for MTB)
Full list of components, including drivetrain, wheels, tires, saddle, whether it includes pedals/water bottle cages, etc.
Any damage or major crash history
A link to the bike on the manufacturer’s website, if it still exists—this can answer questions about geometry and sizing for potential buyers
Assess Your Selling Options
Local: Post to Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or other local buy-and-sell groups/bike clubs
For a quick turnaround and no shipping costs, selling locally is your best option. This is especially true of more inexpensive bikes, because packing and shipping costs time and money.
If you’re friends with a lot of cyclists, make sure you also post your for-sale bike to your own social media channels, considering a friend or friend-of-a-friend may be in the market. (A high-priced bike is less likely to sell on your local Facebook Marketplace, but it might be worth a shot to see if you can get an easy sale before looking further afield.)
Selling it yourself? Meet potential buyers in a safe neutral location that isn't near your house, and consider bringing a friend. If you’re regularly buying used bikes and fixing them up for resale, or maybe you bought a bike that was the wrong size, make sure you check to see if that bike has been listed as stolen. (You can check BikeIndex.)
One cyclist who loves flipping bikes recalls an awkward experience of going to sell a bike he’d refurbished, only to have the buyer show up with her linebacker-sized boyfriend ready to fight. It turned out the bike he was trying to sell was actually hers—it had been stolen and resold to him! Luckily, the story came out quickly and no one got hurt, but it’s a good reminder to not meet potential buyers alone.
Online, DIY: Post to eBay, Craigslist etc. and offer shipping
If you’re posting a pricier bike for sale online and offering shipping, get super-specific when listing out the bike’s components, as well as size information. Look for the bike’s geometry chart on the brand’s webpage and put a link to that to avoid a buyer asking a lot of sizing questions, or purchasing it and trying to return it because it’s too big or small.
A word to the wise: If you try to sell your bike via eBay or a Facebook group and plan to offer shipping, do some research beforehand to see what shipping will cost. Don’t promise a flat shipping fee unless you’re sure of the price. One seller recalls offering a $50 shipping fee assuming it would be more than enough. When he got to UPS to ship the bike, he was informed that it would cost $200 for shipping. (Fortunately, he was able to disassemble the bike further to make a smaller, cheaper package, but it was almost a disaster.)
Online, Third-Party: Buycycle, The Pro’s Closet
If you have a high-value bike you’re hoping to sell, consider a third-party secondhand seller, like Buycycle or The Pro’s Closet. The nice thing about using a site like this is that while you may lose a percentage of the sale to the site, you get a lot of seller protection in return and the process is much easier than doing it on your own.
They make it easy for you to upload photos of your bike, details about the bike, and receive payments securely—and you can have your bike listed in under three minutes, according to Golditchuk. And with Buycycle, they have deals with shipping companies UPS and BikeFlights, so your cost of shipping is lower and the process is low-hassle as well!
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