I am after a new bike but I am a bit skint at the moment so have been looking in the classifieds, pinkbike and ebay. There are several bikes that would do the job but I am not sure about pricing.

As a rough guide, am I right in thinking 2nd hand prices are about half new plus or minus a bit depending on condition?

I think the old rule used to be 1/2 the price of new -10% per year of age. Then add or take away a touch for condition and upgrades.

hooli

As a rough guide, am I right in thinking 2nd hand prices are about half new plus or minus a bit depending on condition?

No you’re wrong. Let me explain how it works. First let’s start with an RRP of £2000. Then we’ll wait till the end of the year and get it on sale for £1300. After a quick period of adjustment the OEM tyres will be replaced for ubiquitous Schwalbe or Maxxis items and the bars will be swapped for Renthal/Easton or similar 800mm wide versions*. After a few rides, lots of skids and gratuitous power hosing it’s time for a new bike.

The bike is now a custom build/extensively upgraded one off and is now worth £1300 second hand. Hope this helps.

*Obviously road bikes will have appropriate upgrades for them.

There’s a lot of speculative pricing on here now. I have bought a few complete bikes at c half retail with v little use but have not bought anything for a year or so now.

I would hold out and keep making offers, sellers either want to sell or not.

Jimjam
The bike is now a custom build/extensively upgraded one off and is now worth £1300 £1500 second hand. Hope this helps.

Fixed that for you 😉

I’ve been looking at road bikes recently around the £1,000-£1,500 mark

Certainly at that price point it makes no sense what so ever to buy second hand as on Ebay I could get a 1-2 yr old bike for about £200 less than I could buy a brand new unused bike. Didn’t make sense to me.

IMO, I halve the sale cost of a bike each year (not RRP).
IMO, shiny handlebars (etc) and different tyres are irrelevant to cost.
IMO, only complete brand new drivetrain or brakes or wheels would up the cost.
IMO, any ‘old’ standard such as 26″ and straight steerer reduces price again.

All depends on the bike. Direct sales have made the “half RRP” rule even less accurate.

For example, I reckon you’re far more likely to pick up a Santa Cruz at half RRP than a YT of the same age and condition.

50% of price plus 10% per year isn’t a bad yard-stick for mainstream stuff, Spesh, Giant, Trek etc.

More ’boutique’ stuff seems to be a complete lottery, either it’s in vogue and seemingly immune to meaningful depreciation – ‘custom build’ Bronson for more than the same or better spec SC full build – yeah why not. I’ll take a worn drivetrain, a few marks and no warranty over the dreaded ‘Single C’ frame. Or falls like a stone when the bike that only 4 people outside of North America cares about is looking for it’s second owner.

At the other end of the scale, YTs a ‘discount’ bike co, Capra especially, £2400 at the end of the season, £2400 on eBay the same day – sold.

I’ve generally paid 10-20% less than RRP for new items and this excludes the big discounts available on end of season complete bikes. As such using RRP as a starting point is already too high. There is a lot of optimistic pricing out there, tbh I am would probably be the same as a seller as a bike/frame is worth more to me than it would probably fetch.

Thanks chaps, seems we are roughly in the same range.

I’ll keep looking but I can see me just buying new at this rate, second hand isn’t worth it for a few hundred saving when it could need new bearings and/or drivetrain.