Discovering Craigslist

I've bought many things on Craigslist but beyond giving away electronic equipment on it, I've never sold anything on it. Since I've been indoor cycling more I've been wanting to get a mountain bike again as I really love climbing hills (on or off road). This realization along with being able to make the upright spinning bike work for me, made me take a long look at the recumbent and decide that it would be happier in a new home as one thing recumbents aren't very good at is climbing since you can't just stand up in the pedals.

So I took photos (really important), made an ad and posted it to Craigslist. I heard from someone with in a few hours and it was sold in a couple of days. Flush with that success, I listed my electric guitar that I've had sitting around all this time. That sold in 12 hours. Wow. This is cool. Now everything doesn't sell that quickly, I've had a wetsuit listed for a couple of days and have only sold the booties, but a wetsuit is more obscure.

What I really like about Craigslist is that you're dealing locally. No shipping unlike eBay. They come to look at it, you agree on a price, they hand you cash and they take it away. I like that.

After much agonizing, I think I should sell the Trek too as it's honestly too large for me (it's a 51mc and I really need a 49cm.) I hesitate as I really love the bike and I like having both a Mtn and a Road Bike as they are so different. Maybe I can compromise by getting a nicer mtn bike and then get a second set of rims and tires for street use.

Now I have the $ for a new mtn bike and of course I don't know which one to get. The Craigslist experience has taught me that I should consider resale value when I buy a bike, so even though the REI house brand Novara is a nice bike, no one has ever heard of it which kills the resale value.

Brand names I like are
Fisher (of course - my old bike was a Fisher)
Specialized
Yeti
Salsa
Canondale (some of them)
Trek (some of them)
Marin (I think)


Maybe I should consider high end used as I can get more bike that way if I can find a 15 or 16" one that fits me.

Wonder if I should subscribe to the current mtn bike magazines. What's annoying is that they tend to review $4000 bikes (oh please) which is way annoying as the manufacturer isn't giving me a bike like they do them. Oh and they consider $1000 entry level (grrrr.)