Here’s one of our favorite questions to answer, what should you look for in a used bike? Tune in for our tips on how to inspect bikes on the spot and what to look for safety-wise when purchasing a used frame.
Dan: 00:02 Welcome to the #carbonqueries podcast, the interactive show where we answer your carbon fiber related questions hosted by Ruckus composites. You can submit a question using the Hashtag carbon queries on instagram, facebook, twitter, linkedin, or email.
Shawn: 00:16 What we recommend if you are directly in front of the bike our favorite tool here is just an inspection flashlight. Take it with you, look over the frame closely
Dan: 00:26 or user or use the light on your iphone.
Shawn: 00:28 Oh, that’s a great idea. Yeah, exactly. Inspection Light. Everybody’s got in their pocket and basically added on an angle. Look at any scratches being a used bike. It’s probably going to have some chips in the paint, some scratches in it, and you just kind of want to get a better look at those. If there, if anybody has any stickers or duct tape or tape over part of the bike any way. Take it off. Um, we’ve heard a lot of sad stories and someone buying a bike and there was tape on it for whatever reason or some events sticker and it turns out that was covering something and we’re here to help you. Uh, we can definitely fix that. But knowing advances. But I’d always makes it a lot easier to swallow being surprised with it.
Dan: 01:12 It’s better to walk away from a broken bike obviously, and look at another one.
Shawn: 01:16 There’s plenty out there or use it as a way to bring down the price if you’re like, hey, this is actually got something weird here for a lower price, haggle them.
Dan: 01:24 Another thing you can do, and this is a pain in the ass, but if you can and you have a the tools and be the technical know how to take apart the front end, the cockpit of the bike. If it’s a carbon steel tube, we see hundreds and hundreds of broken carbon steer tubes year. Pop out the steer tube, give it a once over with the flashlight. A. These things can break all the time. The, we see a lot of over clamped steer tube areas, you know, from the stem. So just give it a once over. Like I said, we realize it’s going to be kind of a pain, but this is an opportunity either to get a lower price if you find something, uh, to ensure that the bike is safe or to walk away altogether. So five to 10 minutes can end up saving you a lot of time, money
Shawn: 02:09 and hassle in the long run. Looking at a great bike and something seems weird with the fork. Talk about it right away. That’s not something you want to play any games with. You know, if you do lower the price and still buy the frame or bike, whatever the case is, you know, if you need help finding a fork and get ahold of us, we can find forks. Um, we have a lot here. We can get a new fork pretty easily if you care about what they look like. We can an wanted painted to match the frame originally. So a lot of options there always yet again, play it safe. And one thing that’s obvious, um, depending on what city, every city is a little different, is trying to look up the serial number. If a deal seems too good to be true. We have heard a lot of weird stories where people have in their bikes get stolen, then they get broken and then the owner gets a back like three later and you know, they’ll bring it in and we repair it. That’s great.
Dan: 03:05 There’s a ton of bike registration sites. So check the serial number, give it a double-check to make sure that the bike you’re buying actually is from the person selling it.
Shawn: 03:15 Yeah, exactly. Neil seems too good to be true. It probably is, you know, with Ebay could be harder. Um, yeah. Again, we’ve heard hundreds of stories that people buying a bike on Ebay so the bike arrives and boy there’s something that wasn’t shown and you know, most of the time the seller has been pretty good and it’ll be like give him some money off or refund them or take the bike back. But we’ve also heard the opposite where the seller disappears and you know then this person is stuck with a broken bike, or are they somehow claim that was damaged in shipping? I don’t really know. But yet again, if they’re, you know, if you buy a bike off Ebay even before you want box it, take a photo of the box, you know, if there is anything that needs to be claimed in a shipping insurance way, you need those photos of that box where right away that’s actually a surprise.
Dan: 04:09 It’s a boring photo because it’s a photo of a box. But it’s amazing if there is any sort of crushed marks or if it looks paved or mishandled, that’ll really help expedite your claim process. Another thing that we hear all the time relating to the boxes, small parts falling up to. So yeah, check all the seams, make sure it’s well taped up. Like I said, we’ve heard anything esoteric and weird here. So these are just firsthand examples of things that we’ve seen. Yeah. On that same thing with small parts.
Shawn: 04:34 When you’re looking at a bike and person, make sure they’re all there. If the bike has a specific seat post like an aero seat post or just a basically a non-standard one that isn’t round and make sure the seat post itself is in good shape. I’m fit. You might have a hard hard time down the road. Finding a replacement. A lot of those specific arrow shaped posts don’t exist after a couple years or they’re very hard to find. Some of the companies seem to stock them for quite a while or they’ve committed. I think Scott like on the foils have committed to one size they’ve stuck with for quite a few years, but some people, smaller brands like Kuota I think was one of my favorites for changing the post every year and then not making very. Not Making any replacements and then people, you know, sometimes the seat post breaks for whatever reason. Now your whole frame is trashed. You have any questions about what you’re buying at anytime you can send us a photo. It might be hard to answer because we do have corresponded a lot of people in a day but we are happy to, you know, at least give our two cents. Sometimes.
Dan: 05:33 Another thing that our customers do all the time is they buy a bike online and ship it to us. Once they get it, just keep it in the box. You know, a lot of times we hear customers say, well you know, I actually saved a whole bunch of money buying this, so why don’t you guys give it a full inspection just to make sure. And for us full inspections actually are pretty quick process within a week turnaround time. So if you buy a bike ship it to us quickly upon after buying it, you still might even fall within the 30 day warranty period for anybody that you buy online. So it’s going to be fine. Something through an inspection, you know, then you have verified, well this was actually broken. You sold me broken bike, you know, just kinda protecting yourself. And we have seen that a couple of times. Luckily we haven’t gotten anything broken from people that have bought on Ebay. Protect yourself more than anything else. Send it to us first. We can give it a clean bill of health or diagnosis of buff it up or clean it up to make it feel like.
Dan: 06:31 Thanks for tuning in to the carbon queries. If you have a pressing carbon fiber related question, you can submit it to us using the Hashtag carbon queries on instagram, facebook, twitter, linkedin, or email. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed putting together this podcast where everybody so far, and I’ve gotten some great feedback, so if you have anything to say, comments, suggestions, please go on to Itunes, give us five stars or just an honest rating that works as well. Other than that, please like, comment and share, facebook, instagram, Google, play, wherever you get your podcasts. It would really help us out a bunch. Thanks everybody. We’ll talk to y’all next week. Yeah.