welcome to Flip Bike where we find great deals on used bikes
fix them up and flip them for a profit I'm your host Seth let's go have a look at today's bike
all right so I found a vintage Diamondback I'd call it a hardtail
but by today's standards it's more of like a commuter or maybe even a gravel bike
it was listed for 70 dollars and although it looks like a complete piece of crap
I know better it was a good bike back in its day it's up in Weaverville let's go get it if you're
gonna meet a stranger from the internet somewhere you should meet in a public setting someplace with
some foot traffic in case they're there to murder you she wanted to meet at the post office but the
post office is closed so it's just a big empty lot hopefully Oscar's got my back thank you it's
poorly maintained it's old it's dirty it looks terrible this is gonna be a fantastic flip bite
for its day this was a good bike it's fitted with Shimano quick release levers the front wheel the
rear wheel the seat post these were more expensive to add to bikes and it made them easier to
maintain and bikes that are designed to be easy to maintain are meant to be ridden it's also got some
parts that were really good and even innovative for their day like this Shimano Biopace chain ring
this is a set of three oblong or oval chain rings it's supposed to make it easier to climb hills
but I could see why it was listed for 70 dollars it doesn't work none of the gear shift brakes are
not adjusted properly it's dirty the grips are cracked just by cleaning this bike and changing
the cables and making it work we could probably sell it for more than double what it was listed
for and we could market it as a vintage bike not an old piece of crap bike but a bike with like
hipster points and all these scratches and scuffs on the bike well that's patina
now I would never recommend using a pressure washer on a bike but I'm gonna be real careful
whoa you see how fast that thing spun
all right so we cleaned the frame and all the parts through and through this looks like a
completely different bike now we get to move on to the fun stuff it doesn't shift gears now that we
have all the gears and cables off of it the only problem it could be is the shifter itself when I
push this down it's not clicking it's not moving right the one on the left doesn't work great but
it works we're gonna have to dig in here and see what's going on in these shifters these two levers
are rubbing against each other it's this bottom lever that's bent down I'm gonna just try and
bend it back and if something breaks we'll panic all right we got clicking that was an easy fix
check it out whoa you want to know a secret I used Goof Off on this there was something gummy
inside the shifter that the penetrating fluid was just not helping with so now we are in business
we should take the headset apart we did blast this thing with a pressure washer after all
man it's a pleasure working on good parts these are really old but everything moves
really well nothing's rusty and messed up and these are normal ball bearings in here so we can
repack these with brand new grease and just get it feeling a little smoother nice and clean
here are some real basic grips that we don't have to pay for they came off an old bike
they're used but they're in great condition and the ends on the bar are fine so we don't have
to worry about anybody getting core sampled you see you start trying to push a grip on
only goes so far and then it just kind of goes it's like pushing rope so get your
air compressor under there and that's it we got brand new grips on here
changing out cables on a bike is one of the best ways to make it run like new
shifter cables brake cables all that stuff and if you've ever looked
online for a set of cables they cost a lot but there's a way cheaper way to buy cables especially
if you do this stuff a lot like I do and that's by the roll for years and years I’ve just been
pulling shifter cables out of this thing so each one cost me pennies on the dollar
definitely jumps a few years one two three
and it's pretty much that's it there are teeth missing from the gears in both shift levers
it skips gears one way I have a one two three shifter right here I've got a seven speed right
here which is what we need the only problem is the shifters are built into the levers here and
I don't have replacement brake levers I have like hydraulic disc brakes for mountain bikes
this is becoming a really expensive headache this bike did not turn out to be the amazing deal
that I thought it was this little pad right here on the brake lever is where the shifts
are attached if I do a nice neat little cut right along there it'll be just like
a brake lever with no shifter it will not look janky and it'll work nicely
so that could have been a disaster but turns out these fit together rather nicely
here at Berm Peak customs, we’re custom the old tires were pretty dry rotted so I found some
cheap ones that we can replace them with they're not special they don't have some gnarly tread
but they're new they're safe they don't smell bad okay so the original chain was on the
bike I think it's literally the chain that came with it and it's really stretched out and worn
really dirty I got a new chain we are going to size it by just popping a link out here and
there she goes now we can install it
so now that we have the chain on it's the moment of truth does this shift right
perfect all right now for the front
perfect
do
okay so we're almost done here but the bike needs a couple of
obvious things first and most importantly valve caps I tried to find something that would match
this 90s color over here and this is as close as I could get so let's get in these valve caps
and I don't know you think we should replace the seat
back in the 90s gel seats were all the rage you'd walk into any bike shop and there were
gel seats everywhere but the thing about gel seats is they weren't very good saddles a good
saddle should be smooth so that your clothing slides across it but gel seats all had this
kind of material that gripped your clothing and so when you find them today they all look like
this the other problem with gel seats is that they absorbed water so if you were actually
using the bike for transportation it just turned to complete garbage so we're gonna change out the
seat and I just so happen to have a free one not period correct but we're gonna put on the seat
this looks like a way different bike than we started with brakes work
gears work time for a test ride
I think this shifts smoother than my mountain bike
alright
I've seen people take pictures of the bike laying on the ground
you can tell they just want the bike out of their life if you see that if you have a good camera
use the good camera and if you have a cell phone clean off the lens with your shirt or
something before you start taking pictures with it first thing you need though is a good prop stick
all right so that's a wrap let's get this thing listed
I tried to give the pertinent information up front and then give kind of a marketing
pitch for the bike vintage mountain slash gravel bike will work for riders 5 feet tall to 5 foot 7.
this was a great bike 30 years ago and will continue to be for the next 30. this chromoly
steel mountain bike has been expertly restored with new tires chain cables shifters saddle
grips and deep cleaning through and through if you need a reliable commuter bike gravel
rig or just want a conversation starter with lots of character this will turn heads the
paint tells a story but the ride is smooth and the entire bike feels and works like new
okay so bike has been listed for about three days and I got a few inquiries if we left it up
for another week or so pretty confident it would sell but I just took the bike downtown rode it
around for a little bit and I'm starting to think that the right buyer for this bike is me if this
series grows legs I can't do that I can't keep all the bikes we have to sell them but this time
I just I really want to keep it it's a vintage Diamondback it's steel it's a size small which
is my size when I do need a bike for riding around town I don't want to take my gravel
bike which is worth a lot and can get stolen so I am de-listing it and integrating into our fleet
with that here's the breakdown we purchased this bike for 70 dollars and in hindsight we might
have overpaid a little bit this would have been better at 50 given the fact that the shifters
were beyond repair we put new tires on it but I found a really good deal on two tires for 24
new cables and housing came from my own bulk supply so we'll call it five dollars
new chain sixteen dollars bottle cage five dollars and fifty cents and a water bottle two dollars and
eighty three cents the seat the shifter mod and the miscellaneous parts that we put on the bike
were from my parts bin and so they didn't cost us anything and so we put a total of 123.33
into the bike we sold it for zero dollars with a profit of negative 123 and 33 cents
so no we did not technically sell this bike on an online marketplace but we did buy it
fix it up and list it and now we have a pretty cool bike as part of the fleet hopefully next
time we can make more profit than negative 123.33 I'll see you next time on Flip Bike