(rock music)
(jigsaw roaring)
- Guys it is slim pickings.
Unless you wanna spend a few $1,000
or buy a department store bike,
there's not a whole lot on the used market,
but I found an old Diamondback
and they only want $150 for it.
And for the only bike that we can really get,
that's a pretty good deal.
So let's go check it out right now.
(upbeat music)
So here it is.
I gotta be honest,
I didn't have a heart to ask her for less than 150.
It is a hardtail that is in pretty good condition.
It's one tune up away from just being ridden and loved.
So at 150, we'll probably have enough space
to actually do some stuff with this.
(upbeat salon music)
So what do I like about this bike?
Well, first of all, the chain rings are bolted on.
We don't have to change the crank set or anything
if we wanna upgrade the drive train.
Even that GT that we upgraded had riveted chain rings.
And overall this is like a blank slate.
It's a hardtail.
It's got pretty decent geometry.
Now there are a couple of downsides on this bike.
First of all, it does have Schrader valves,
which usually date a bike
or make it look a little more low end.
There is a fair bit of rust around it,
especially on the little nuts and bolts and things,
which we're gonna have to change
if we want it to be showroom ready.
It's not even that dirty.
We can just pretty much start working on it.
So let's start ripping it apart and come up with a plan.
(bluegrass music)
(drill buzzing)
In order to get the crank off,
you have to use a crank puller.
It's this little tool that threads
into the outside of the crank,
and then it pushes on the spindle and yanks it out.
(wrench clanking)
Still don't want to come off.
I tried to pull this off with my crank puller
and it damn near pulled all the threads out of this thing.
(sighs)
It begins.
(air blows)
(man mutters with frustration)
(crank snaps)
Ooh.
(man blows out air)
Could have just cleaned it.
I do want to try and make good
and get this crank set off.
(blow torch flaring)
(hammer banging)
Didn't budge.
Not even slightly.
(hammer bangs)
Well why don't you just take the whole thing
and put it back and put the bike back together.
I'm not gonna sell a bike with a seized crank set
because I know that as soon as the bottom bracket goes bad
the person is absolutely screwed.
And the person who sold it to me
didn't know that assuming, but I do.
And so ethically, I'm not gonna do that.
(hammer banging)
I'm well aware of how easy it is to pull threads
out of the outside of a crank.
But I'm telling you this crank is so seized on.
I don't care what kind of a crank puller you have.
That worked.
(saw roaring)
This is the crank arm, and this is the spindle inside of it.
(hammer banging)
It's not even budging.
(bike part clanging)
I have another flip bike that I have not revealed yet,
and it's got a perfectly good crank set on it
that I am planning on replacing for the build.
So I'm gonna grab that crank set.
We're gonna do a crank transplant and move forwards.
If I make $1 on this bike, it's better than losing $150.
So let's see what we can recoup from this.
(upbeat music)
People ask in the comments all the time
how much time do you spend on this?
Because you have to factor that in.
Most of what we do could be done in a few hours.
If you just have your head down doing it.
Some of it is planning out the video
to make it a good video.
If we try and play the game of
how to run a successful business flipping bikes,
very few people are gonna be able to do it.
There's so little money to be made.
What I hope to gain from these videos is
show you how you could buy a used bike
and actually make it more valuable for yourself.
(slow upbeat music)
Okay.
I've actually never taken apart one of these SunTour forks
but this tool is designed to make it easier.
How many times have you put a big old wrench
around one of these and marred up all the plastic?
(bike part clanks)
I highly doubt it's gonna run any differently
than it does right now when we're done.
But I had to do it once in my life.
I've never serviced a SunTour fork
because nobody services these.
(whispers) My goodness.
I don't believe I have a socket extension
that's two feet long.
(bluegrass music)
(wrench cranking)
It's almost like it's a real fork.
This fork, you could probably get brand new
for like 90 bucks.
It is actually impressive that it's so serviceable to be,
to be completely honest.
When a bike comes with a nicer fork
I really should take the time to service it.
If you want to be able to service, every fork that comes
in the shop and you're dealing with old bikes.
There's so many different weights
of oil and service kits and grease.
I don't want to get another brand worth of stuff
but this was easy.
All I needed was a little tube of grease.
(bluegrass music)
Ooh, that feels smooth.
(bluegrass music)
(bike part sliding)
There we go.
(bluegrass music)
You know what? (laughs)
It's pretty freaking smooth.
(saw roaring)
(sander grinding)
(man blows air)
Perfect.
(bluegrass music)
Next let's get the cockpit going and the wheels.
Let's get this looking like a bike.
This is a freewheel.
You don't need a chain whip to get a freewheel off.
You just turn it.
It's all one piece and we're gonna take it off
so we can take off this dork disc
'cause the dork disc is all yellowed
and we can really upgrade the bike
(disc snaps)
by taking this old cracked piece of garbage off.
Yeah, I'm gonna put in orange rotor bolts.
I don't have red ones
but I wanna make it look like the bike was worked over.
I want things to look new.
Existing skewers are rusted everywhere.
Not a good look gonna put on these bolt on skewers.
(upbeat music)
So one thing that looks really bad when you're looking
at a bike is like rusty bolts, right?
You look at that and it's like, this thing was neglected.
So I have these, these are water bottle cage bolts.
When you can fill in these holes with a nice shiny bolt
it really makes a bike look well cared for.
(bike part clicking)
(upbeat music)
What do you think?
You think it's worth putting the red pedals on?
- [Man] I think so.
'Cause you got red caps
and then you have the red pedals and it's very soft.
(relaxed upbeat music)
(wheel spinning)
(ziptie clinking)
- [First Man] Pedals, bolts, accents,
all the little finishing touches.
I have no idea whether we made a profit on this bike
or even what I'm gonna sell it at
but I think it's time to stare at it.
(triumphant upbeat music)
So this bike photographed really well.
It looks probably better than it is
but we're gonna put it up for a fair price.
And I think that's 400.
The Kona sold for 450,
and we way under priced that.
We could have gotten a lot more.
So about to post this.
I wrote, "For sale is a Diamondback Response
hardtail, size small.
If you are 5'3" through 5'7", this should work.
This 21 speed mountain bike has been fully tuned up
with a new chain, fork service, brake service, new cables,
upgraded derailleur, stem, handlebars and grips.
The pedals are brand new.
There's literally nothing you need to do
besides buy this bike and hit the trails with it.
Send me an offer and let's find it a loving home."
So this bike's officially posted.
So let's wait for some inquiries
and hopefully we can flip it.
(upbeat music)
Alright, I'm down here by the river.
It hasn't even been up for a day.
I'm getting pinged with tons of messages.
I have somebody that wants to pay 360 today.
That's only 40 bucks off.
And we're gonna meet at Target by the airport at five.
And so hopefully this goes through without a hitch.
If I got a sure thing on the table today
I don't wanna wait tomorrow
and then have all these other people flake out.
All right, went really well.
It was a couple traveling cross country
trying to replace one of their bikes.
It was a full rigid.
I feel really good about the bike they got.
Let's get back to the shop and take a look at the breakdown.
So that was a good entry level bike with a few problems.
And I feel really good about what we did to it.
We definitely opened up a can of worms with that crank set.
And once we discovered it with seized
we couldn't in good conscious just go forward selling it.
Also, I didn't bother checking to see
whether the bike had a freewheel when I bought it.
And I think we could have made it way better
and sold it for a lot more.
But with that, did we make any money on it?
We put $20 pedals on it.
We swapped out to the derailleur at a value of let's say $5.
Took a crank set off another bike.
We'll value that at 25.
Bar and stem, let's call it 20,
Used grips, $10.
Chain, $15.
Bolt on skewers, $10.
And we did use a lot of cables and hardware
and miscellaneous items.
And I value that at $12.
We didn't have a whole lot
to sort of buy back from the bike.
Really good sharp set of pedals.
Bar and stem and this hardware here,
which we can't really value at anything.
That all gives us a credit of $15.
So we spent $102 on parts.
We bought the bike for $150
and then we sold it for $360
with a profit of $108.
Not a huge score, but we didn't do too bad
considering the whole planning phase of the operation.
So again, the purpose of these videos is not to
show you how to start a business flipping bikes.
It's to show you how to buy a used bike
and actually add value to it.
We selling these bikes for more
means we're making 'em better.
If you like this video
I've got a whole bunch of other flip bike episodes
in the playlist below and we'll be doing more of 'em,
so make sure you subscribe.
Thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
He's a battle pup.
(upbeat music)
Hey, can you throw me that 400 grit over there?
- [Man 2] It's right there. - [Man 1] Yeah.