I once bought one of those near mythical “fantastic used
bikes that sold for a mere fraction of their worth.” Here’s how it worked.
I was made aware of the deal by an acquaintance of a friend
of a friend. Seems this nice
elderly lady had been recently widowed.
She was getting rid of a lot of stuff that her dear departed husband had
accumulated. She was selling his
“nice” road bike, and she only wanted it to go to someone who would appreciate
it. She didn’t want much for
it. It was reputed to be an extremely nice bike.
Since the lady was nearby, living in a condo, and it was
fairly convenient, I agreed to go take a look at it. I had the time available.
The bike was amazing! To begin with, it was my size. It looked shiny. The wheels showed a good bit of use on
the brake surfaces. The tires were
middling quality and somewhat worn.
But the bike was incredibly clean.
The frame was an all carbon model, produced by a very noteworthy Italian
company. It was equipped with the,
then fairly new, Campagnolo Record 10 speed group.
I inspected it.
Twisted things. Lifted the
rear and shifted it through it’s range by kicking the pedals around while I
worked the shifters. I pulled the
brakes. All seemed very
functional.
The lady didn’t rightly know how much to ask for the
bike. Would $500 be too much? Like an idiot, I actually bargained her
up! I did not want to
take undue advantage of a widow, and this thing was then going for around $5000,
new. She just couldn’t take more than $1200 for it. We agreed on that price, and I walked out with the bike.
I propped the bike in my home shop and went on about my
business. It wasn’t until two days
later that I put the bike in a stand to pull the wheels and replace the
tires. While it was sitting in the
stand, I noticed a bit of something liquid around the bottom bracket. Nasty, reddish brown liquid. I wiped it off and continued. As I removed the rear wheel, I heard a
bit of a slosh. Slosh?
I shook the bike in the stand. Definitely.
Sloshing.
I got out my Campy tools and pulled the crank. It was extremely hard to remove.
As soon as I got the crank off, I could see why. The bottom bracket was a Shimano pattern. (For the uninitiated, Shimano bottom
brakets are not compatible with
Campagnolo anythings.) On closer examination, the chainring
bolts on the crank were badly buggered up, and the chainrings were not Campy.
After a bit of struggle, I managed to get the bottom bracket
out. It was a Shimano, and the very lowest end of their line. As I took the thing out, something like
two cups of water poured out of the frame. Worse, as I applied torque to remove the bottom bracket, a
crack appeared in the frame paint.
That crack widened and shot up the frame’s downtube. Not good.
Total to that point.
Campy crank, ruined. Crappy
chainrings. Lousy bottom bracket. Frame, broken and not repairable.
In the next few days, I had the Campy shifters off of the
“bike too good to be true.” They
mostly disintegrated as I inspected them on the bench. The rear brake seized up, due to the
pivot bolts being overtightened.
That had obviously been done to conceal that fact that the bushings were
completely worn out. The headset
was rusted to the point of uselessness.
The handlebars had a bad crack under the bar tape. One wheel collapsed when I tried to
true it.
I tried to contact the nice lady. It wasn’t easy.
When I did get in touch with
her, she was adamant about not
refunding any of my money. I
pressed the issue, saying I would be over to see her that afternoon.
It turned out that the “nice old lady” (whose last name
ended in a vowel) had a “nice young son,” and two “nice young nephews.” These three gentlemen each weighed in
around 250, and were employed by a large multinational corporation
headquartered in Sicily. Their job
title was “corporate relations and policy enforcement.” I had plans that involved keeping my
knee caps intact, so I gave up on that front. I’d been taken.
That bike had been “rigged,” and done so in an expert fashion. And I’d been played like a brook trout.
I’m often reminded of some wisdom my father imparted years
ago. “A con requires two things of
the mark, a bit of dishonesty and a bit of greed.” I fell for it.
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