For various reasons, I have decided a fat bike is just not suited to my local riding. A shame, as it is a lovely bike, but no point in having it gathering dust.

So, I put it up for sale:

Link to classisfieds

…and haven’t had a nibble.

So, have I bought a pup? Or am I just being over optimistic with the pricing? Gut feel says pup…?

It’s an XL – so limited market.
It’s a Trek. I like them but they’re not cool.
£1,100 is too much. £1,300 retail so could probably haggle in a shop for £1,150.
On One, Go Outdoors and others are knocking out fatbikes for less than £800.

Interesting. Certainly thought an XL would be a limiting factor.

Didn’t know Trek were not cool. I’ve always liked the brand but admittedly may not be too down wiv da kids.

So how much is right then?

Well I don’t know much about fatbikes but that looks very nice and the spec seems OK. I’d think this is a great time of year to sell one.

You’re only asking £37.50 less than people could buy one for new though…
http://www.harryhallcycles.co.uk/m21b14s396p5211/TREK-Farley-5-2016/RS_GB/19037?gclid=CLrd96bQosoCFcaVGwodDxAMRg

So I’m gonna go with optimistic pricing.

Well I suppose £37.50 discount might be a bit daft!

Thanks for that Chaka. Must. Google. Harder!

Let’s try £137.50 discount and see where that gets to…

Still pretty optimistic. I’d try £900 and be prepared to haggle down to £850.

Thoughts appreciated. Thank you.

Nervous about posting this as it might be misconstrued as being mean; it’s intended as genuine feedback.

Saw your ad and gave it serious consideration. Thought it was well spec’d and lighter than the on one but three things put me off. No matter how recently it was bought it wasn’t enough of a discount off new given what else was out there, it was XL and I could get a Fatty on a cycle to work scheme saving the tax and spreading the cost.

Hope you get what you’re looking for it.

Don’t be nervous, good advice, thank you.

Yeah, I’d seen the advert. Couple of things struck me:
1) too close to the full brand new asking price. I know it’s only 3 rides old, but second hand is second hand (can’t remember the Trek warranty criteria but I think it’s lifetime for the original owner only?)
2) i don’t think I’d spend anywhere near £1k on anything in the classifieds, sorry but for me it’s a place for bits and pieces. I always think that whole bikes advertised on there for £500+ are in the wrong place – but don’t ask me where they should be advertised…….Pinkbike? eBay? I look at them, usually love the look of them but rarely tempted to actually buy. I think the most I’ve spent on a classified item is £120.
3) if it’s only 3 rides old, what’s wrong with it? Why do you want rid so soon?
4) all the fat bike chat on here seems to be about OO Fatty, Calibre Dune and Felt double. The Trek rarely gets mentioned (IMO) so there’s little hype about it.

Hope that helps!

Edit: Just had a proper look at the trek website – that’s a lovely looking bike. Can’t you hold onto it?

Have you sent a direct link to Ton(y)
He was looking at getting a Fatbike, and he needs XL..

I saw the ad too. I’m extremely fat curious at the moment.

My immediate thought was nowhere near enough off retail price – for reasons people have mentioned above.

My main bike is an XL but I’m wondering whether a smaller frame would work better for a fat bike, giving a bit more maneuverability.

Which leads me to the last point, which is that, if the price were reasonable, I’d come try it out for size if I was near by. And that’s the big if. I wouldn’t buy a bike blind off the classifieds, particularly not for over a grand. And if you’ve not found use for a fat bike round your way, maybe others haven’t/don’t think they would.

If you want to bring it to Newcastle so I can try it and maybe give you £800 for it, you’re welcome 😉

Im in Cardiff this weekend & fat curious, bike would appear my size looking at geo, have cash so if your flexible on asking price is be very interested. Also be great to see a pic or two of the bike!

Cheers

Where are the pictures? At that price I’d want photos of the bike (yours, not a trek advert) along with any damage shown. Also, as others have said second hand is second hand, not new old stock so start at 60-70% of the current cheapest retail price and expect to go down. Also classifieds is meant to be more of a “Mates helping out” ethos than a money recovery exercise so expensive or overpriced stuff rarely seems to shift.

Clearly priced far too high for a second hand bike. Don’t need to consider any other factors at this stage. Ask yourself, why would you pay that when you could buy a brand new one, with shop support, for so little less?

Solution: Stick it on ebay where most people don’t know their arse from their elbow.

1) rare foray into the bike forum by classifieds poster to shill a 9hr old advert. Not cool.
2) how much? No price in original ad.
3) “price reduced to £1,000”. Far too high. Why do you think the rule of thumb for s/h pricing is 50% +10% pa.? The warranty disappears as soon as you sell it. Id certainly not want to take the piss out of trek trying to defraud them using your receipts.
4) No photos? You want the sale, dont make the punter run around for you.
5) Ad posted 20hrs ago (as at this morning), whiny post posted 11hrs ago. Ad up for 9hrs and you run to the chat forum to shill it rather than think first about your ad and pricing?

That’s a no from me then. Nice bike or otherwise.

1) Harsh, but not unfair.
2) Price in header.
3) Your view appreciated, thanks. That’s why I posted!
4) Fair point.
5) Again, harsh. Was a genuine request for views.

Glad you like the bike anyway. Ta.

TBH I think there’s a lot of people just now finding out their fatbike’s worth less than they thought. About a year ago I started looking for a used bike and it was obviously a seller’s market but the higher quality budget options have kind of blown the doors off that now.

(I suppose there’s still a lot of people who have a brand issue with Halfords and Go Outdoors though, going by the price of used On ones)

I’d keep it a while yet. You won’t lose any more money than you already have once you get around to dropping the price to ~£700 which is unfortunately more realistic. You can pick up a bike from Planet-X with Bluto’s for not much more than your asking, with a warranty.

I’d not worry about the Dune, it’s too sizes too small to be any competition price wise but it does still represent the cost of a new budget fat-bike, so it will still affect peoples mindset when looking t buy a ~£600 bike.

Even as a Fat evangelist I’d admit that it took me about a month of riding regularly to get the tyre pressures dialed in and get used to riding it. The first few rides it felt like a horrible bouncy, heavy, slow pig. Once you realise that everything revlolves around the correct tyre pressure +/-0.5psi and staying off the brakes it suddently clicks and it becomes the monster truck ploughing through everything you imagined it should be.

Spoon – that’s really helpful, thank you. I was coming to a similar view on keeping it!

Very interesting on tyre pressures – I’ve already had a play and realise the sensitivity. Maybe I should persevere. Biggest issue for me is the contrast with my ‘normal’ 29er, which whilst being no lightweight (Singular Swift) still feels like a marked contrast in situations where you feel the weight of the bike – draggy climbs etc.

The other issue is that I bought it expecting it to cope well with mud. In practice, in the deep, gloopy, seemingly endless mud that form my local trails it actually slides over the top due to the increased area of the contact patch, rather than cutting through like a narrow tyre does. Maybe naivety on my part in thinking it would be different…

Anyway. Thanks again – appreciated.

ssmith1979 – Member

The other issue is that I bought it expecting it to cope well with mud. In practice, in the deep, gloopy, seemingly endless mud that form my local trails it actually slides over the top due to the increased area of the contact patch, rather than cutting through like a narrow tyre does.

It does, but you can help this with more appropriate tyres- most OE offerings are fast, it’s kind of the equivalent of putting XC race tyres on a normal bike. It never really goes away totally, my bud floats on some mud, but it does make a big difference- I’d say it’s dialled down from “aaargh” to “a thing it sometimes does”

TINAS, larger Dune is on its way btw.

Ad posted 20hrs ago (as at this morning), whiny post posted 11hrs ago. Ad up for 9hrs and you run to the chat forum to shill it rather than think first about your ad and pricing?

Very much this, am surprised the mods haven’t deleted this thread yet tbh. I think I’m going to start overpricing everything I put in the classifieds and then asking about why it’s not selling on the chat forum. Will make my ads a lot more visible.

There’s also the issue that it’s between Christmas and January Payday. Everyone’s skint.

(I suppose there’s still a lot of people who have a brand issue with Halfords and Go Outdoors though, going by the price of used On ones)

TINAS, larger Dune is on its way btw.

I should probably sell it quickly then 🙂

As a comparison, I bought a few-weeks-old Spesh Fatboy 2016 second hand just before Christmas for £950 (including expensive pump and spare tube!) via UK Fatbikes facebook selling page. Similar level/spec.

That Trek is a nice bike though, especially like the slidey dropouts to fit bigger tyres. So far as ‘not cool’, only a Surly owner would say that, and thats because they paid twice as much! 😉

as above, compare the tread of your Barbegazi with a surly bud before discounting fat bikes on mud

Should you still wish to move it on im still interested & down this weekend 🙂

A lot of people don’t like Trek don’t know why bloody great bikes and one of the best companies for warranty around.
Problem with your bike is Fat bikes are not as popular as people think they are at the end of the day you still need a good level of fitness to get them around and as yours is like my Trek fat bike a rigid one its still not as good as a Hardtail with forks down stuff.
Also yours is very new so you loose a lot on it plus the second owner will have no warranty so why paid £1000 for that when you can get a new one with full warranty for £1150/£1200 of your LBS.
The way of the world and it sucks these days selling bikes as said above I think your be doing well to great £800!!.

I’ll tell you the main problem with the Farley is that it seems like like mate who had one the angles just don’t make it ride very well and the forks are super harsh…..when you look on eBay the most stripped down frames for fatbike swerve/are all new farleys!
For the same money as a Farley you can get a carbon forked Fatboy, Carbon Forked OO Fatty, suss equipped OO Trail Fatty…
My advice would be cut your losses if you’re not going to ride it and sell it for £800 or swap to more mud friendly tyres drop the pressures down to 8psi and ride it some more……loads of beaches down your way too!

How long have you had it listed on eBay? Presumably no offers on there either so I’m afraid it’s simply the price.

If you can get one for £1,100 new I’d suggest £800 is the best you’ll do. As an on-one with Blutos seems better vfm in my opinion

Bluto + Nates.

I think my Farley 9.6 rides great way better than a OO 26″ wheeled one i tried last year everybody to there own.

Took one of these for a spin around MBR at Coed Y Brenin and had a great time. Not relevant to the discussion but thought I’d share anyway 😀

Hi smith1979

What you have there is a great bike. I would say keep it and change your expectations a little. Are you near the coast? Try beach and coastline riding. You will be able to ride technical, rocky trails that will easily defeat your 29er. Play about with air pressure. It makes a BIG difference. Take advantage of the traction. The Farley will see you up climbs that the Swift doesnt get a look in on. Stop worrying about speed and just enjoy the ride. See just how far you can push the limits of traction. Try going off path and connecting sections of singletrack where there are boggy bits in between.

Conme fat biking with fellow fatties. Forth Fat is on April this year. Check out Coaskid’s blog and be ready to be inspired. 😀

Seriously, don’t sell it. You haven’t scratched the surface of what it is capable of!

Cheers

Sanny

E2 head tube gives you precise handling in gnarly conditions

Would be the deal breaker for me 😉

Some really helpful and constructive replies. Thank you STW. Much appreciated.