Agreed. Of course that brings me full circle to my reluctance to go through the headache of selling per my post yesterday. Along with the basic hassles inherent in any e-bay auction, the bikes themselves present challenges.
We here at Riv are fairly spoiled. Grant and his many happy customers have done such a great job marketing the brand that a Riv on eBay or other classified basically sells itself. The custom tourer is by an excellent but obscure builder, Tom Oswald. If you could find some of the few thousand people in the world who know and appreciate Tom's work, the bike would get near its value. The other tourer is a fully restored Trek 728. After fixing the frame, I kitted it out with early '80s components. It would be hard to duplicate. As such, I would probably be happier selling the Oswald, but ultimately would probably never recover the value. I guess any money donation is better than none. If I had not been such a pack rat, I would not have to worry about all this. On Jan 16, 10:06 am, Bill Connell <bconn...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 9:51 AM, JoelMatthews <joelmatth...@mac.com> wrote: > > >> I could give my All-Rounder to a homeless guy but it wouldn't really > >> work any > >> better for him than giving him an inexpensive, used-but-serviceable > >> mountain bike. > > > That is exactly the problem I am running into with my redundant > > touring bike. I have found many programs looking for bike donations. > > When you read the prospectus, however, it is clear most of these > > services are looking for basic transit bikes like a Trek Globe. > > > I am sure these groups would take a touring bike, but it would never > > be used to its full ability. Not even close. > > > Every now and then I read stories about people riding around the world > > for charities whose original bikes are destroyed or stolen or > > something. Such a person would be the ideal donation candidate. By > > the time I hear about them they usually have a new bike from some bike > > shop though. > > With a bike like that, if you're really looking to make the most of > donating it, it seems far better to sell it and give the proceeds to a > charity. The bike goes to someone who will use it, and often a charity > can do more with cash than with an item. Food banks are a great > example, they can buy more food with a dollar than most of us. Even > bike recyclers though, i know a local group that has used bikes to fix > coming out of their ears, but a stash of cables or tubes or chains > would make their work easier and faster. > > -- > Bill Connell > St. Paul, MN- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
