So, I'm browsing the old Facebook marketplace and I
found a Kona Hoss.
It's a hard tail.
Modernish geometry, 250
bucks.
I think it's worth it because it has brand-new tires
on it but let me go take a look at it and see if I can get it
for a little less.
This could be a really good flip bike.
There we go.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
We ended up getting this bike for only 200 bucks.
When I got
there, neither the brakes were working.
We don't know what's
wrong with them.
They could just need a flush and refill
but in any case, I think this bike is very much worth 200
bucks because brand new, you can't get anything for that
these days.
The tires are practically new.
They still
have a little hairs on them.
All around that has pretty good
components, great wheels, great fork, even the drivetrain
doesn't really have anything wrong with it.
Another thing
we've got going for us is that Kona is kinda a cool bike.
The
brand has held a lot of value even today but all is not
perfect.
We're gonna have to do something about the brakes, the
pedals are in shambles, and I would like to modernize the
drivetrain just a little bit.
We can make this bike a lot
better than it is without spending big money on it.
And
for somebody looking for a starter hard tail, this might
be the perfect bike.
Let's take it apart and get it over to the
wash station.
I don't know what all this stuff down here is.
It's like
literally tar that got kicked up from the road.
will scrubbing it do anything?
So, I'm gonna grab a tire
lever.
Elbow grease alone doesn't seem to be doing the
trick.
So the good news is the fork has this protective film
over the labels and you pull it off and they look brand new.
The bad news is the frame.
I just thought it was dirty but
really there's all this tar stuff on it.
It looks really
bad and I don't have a plan.
turns out Kevin's got a little
bit of experience with paint work.
He's having me wet sand
it and the stuff is coming off and it's looking good.
So, once
we're done with this, we'll see how bad the paint looks and
decide if there's something else we have to do but it's
coming off.
Kevin picked up an automotive grade clear coat.
We're gonna
scuff up the paint, bring the sheen back to the finish.
It's
not gonna look like new but it is gonna look better.
Alright, definitely looks better than it did when it's
covered in tar.
So, let's go work on the brakes and see if
we can get those working while this is drying.
Well, one
thing's for sure, these brakes do not work.
I've got a whole
bunch of bleed fittings right here.
Let's get to it.
These are bone dry and so we really wanna flush them out and
make sure they're clean and then fill em up.
I've got a
fitting for the bottom.
Oh yeah, this one.
Oh.
This is the
messiest bleed job I've ever done.
Now, we'll go outside and
wash this off.
So now that we've done all that messy
stuff.
Everywhere where that corrosive brake fluid has sort
of eaten away paint and made bolts all rusty, we can just
clean it up.
So, our clear coat dried overnight and it looks good.
Looks really good.
Nice satin clear coat.
None of that
garbage that was on the frame is there.
Not perfect but let's
just say I'm happy with it.
We are changing to a shorter stem.
This actually came off the GT.
Wow.
No rubbing.
Everything is perfect.
We'll need to line up this rotor
That's it.
This is a nice, big, ten-speed cassette.
Oh, Sram
X7.
This ain't a bad derailleur.
It's a forty tooth
So, this will work as a one-by on a twenty-six-inch bike.
These are pretty nice hubs.
So, this is the original crankset.
Had these three rings on it.
We're gonna change it out for
this one single speed chain ring.
I feel like with Oscar here, I'm teaching my son how to work
on a bike and someday, he'll know how to use all these tools
from being on the bench, watching from four centimeters
away.
Alright, we've done this once or twice.
I cleaned up these
grips really good.
Gonna reuse them.
There's nothing wrong
with them.
That's gonna save us a buck or two.
So, for what
it's worth just to freshen up the look of the bike, I'm gonna
install these bolt-on skewers.
They technically decrease the
weight.
They can't get caught on things and they make the
bike look a little bit more streamlined.
A lot of this is
about cosmetics.
One of the last things we have to do is
install pedals and the ones that were on it are not going
to do.
So, I have these red ones and they match some of the
accents on the bike but this bike is subtle something a
little more serious.
So, Kevin installed new pedals on his
bike and his old ones were shot or so he said, he said these
are no good anymore.
That very well might be the case but I'm
willing to bet it is not.
These have never been opened before.
I can see the factory thread locker on the screws.
Ooh.
Oh
yeah.
Bone dry.
Uh any grease is certainly better than none.
So on these pedals, there's a little screw that goes in the
end right here.
When you force the axis in, the extra grease
will come out of the end of the pedal.
So, I'm just gonna put
nice big glob of grease in here.
And then we're gonna
kinda spin the axis in there.
It's just extruding grease out
of the end of the pedal there.
Okay, now listen to this pedal.
You hear that?
Neither do I.
So, we got these cleaned up now.
Now, I have to get all
these pins out.
Now, most of them are mashed up.
I'm gonna
have to take a plier and twist them out by force.
I put tape
over any spot that had some pattern on it.
The rest, we're
just gonna paint flat black.
Some really high-quality paint
with hardener.
I knew this would look better but if you just glance at them,
they look like brand-new Stamp pedals.
I mean, this is insane.
Brand-new pins, bushings work just like new.
This is gonna
add real value to this bike and it didn't cost us anything.
Kevin was ready to throw these away and I was like, dude, let
me see if I can fix those.
Let's see what they look like
on the bike.
Okay.
So, I'm looking at the bike and this there's nothing wrong with
the seat.
It's a perfectly good seat but I think I have one
that suits the bike better.
So, I'm gonna swap it.
I know I'm
obsessing over looks a lot but that's what sells it.
I think
this might be the one where we can claim some degree of
success but we haven't listed it yet and haven't got any
inquiries yet.
And we haven't stared at it yet.
So we just listed the bike.
Let me read you the listing.
This
Kona Hartail is medium sized and perfect for riders between
five, six, and five ten.
The bike is in perfect working
order and has been thoroughly tuned up from the hydraulic
disc brakes to the cables to the drivetrain and chain.
The
tires are fairly new as well.
From its original state, this
bike has received numerous tasteful upgrades including a
more modern 1X drivetrain and Crankbrothers Stamp7
pedals.
Make me an offer and let's find it a home.
I priced
it at 450 and I think that's a fair price.
I'm gonna really
try to get full ask but it needs to sell.
So, let's see
what we get for it.
Alright.
So, just woke up and checked the
messages.
I have like seven offers on this thing.
So, first
person to actually meet up and pay the money gets it.
And all
these full price offers are making me think I might have
listed it for too little.
I literally organized for three
showings of the bike and I told each one of them, look,
whenever the bike sells, it sells, be honest and let them
know that.
Now, I'm meeting up with somebody at 915 to sell
the bike.
And if that falls through, I have other people
that are like, thanks, let me know.
So, we sold the Kona for full ask, 450 bucks and you know
what?
I think we could have gotten more for it.
I had to
message a whole bunch of people back and say, sorry, the bike's
sold.
But did we make any money on it?
Here's the breakdown.
So, first of all, we swapped out certain parts on the bike
like the stem and the drive train and in certain cases, we
definitely went with a better part and so, I tried to be fair
about how I value those.
We swapped the drivetrain from a
nine speed to a ten speed with a bigger cassette.
I value that
at thirty-five dollars.
The chain ring cost us thirteen
dollars.
The bolt on skewers cost us ten.
We swapped out the
perfectly good saddle for a slightly newer and better one
so I value that at five dollars.
We used a lot of
supplies.
Cables, paint, pedal pins, sandpaper, that I'm gonna
value at twenty dollars.
The new pedals were very very good
but they were about to be thrown away.
But those were
expensive brand new so I have to put some kind of value on it
let's say $20 after all they were gonna go in the trash.
So
overall, we put $103 into a bike that we spent $200 on.
We
sold it for 450 and so we made $147 profit.
That's better than
we've ever done so far and I think he got a really good deal
on this bike.
That bike had great bearings all around,
double wall rims, and indestructible coil fork.
So,
everybody won here and we have a whole bunch of parts to put
back in the bin.
If you like episode of Flip Bike check the
playlist below for the rest of the series for now I've got
more bikes to work on