This Boardman Comp hardtail with some nice upgrades, including Fox forks, recently came up for sale on a local Facebook group (Bristol regulars will probably know the one) for £280.

I posted it up asking if anyone had lost one, no response.

Fast forward a few weeks and the seller stumbled across the post, and told me to take it down. I refused, he reported it, and it’s been removed. I’ve also received a 12 hour FB ban.

I’ve had a quick search for this bike locally but nothing’s coming up. I;m currently thinking that the forks were taken off another bike (because of the blue decals) but not sure what.

I;m currently thinking that the forks were taken off another bike (because of the blue decals) but not sure what.

or the owner just changed the standard forks?

What makes you think its dodgy?

he probably has a similar bike for sale at a slightly higher price 😆

jairaj – Member

What makes you think its dodgy?

came up for sale… for £280

I’d expect the forks on their own to go for that, give or take fifty quid.

Just out of interest, would anyone buy it at that price?

Isn’t the brand new price for a comp around £500-600? So second hand I’d expect to pay £250 – £300 so the price seems realistic to me.

If it’s that dodgy-as-**** FB group which was linked to from here before, I would just be working on the assumption that everything on it was half-inched.

Isn’t the comp only about £650 new? So ~£300 for a two year old second hand one with some random foxes isn’t that bizarre? Cheap but he may need the cash.

EDIT: D’oh slow post.

some random foxes

That’s the odd bit. Any idea what model they are? They look a lot like 2012 Floats, but the little blue flashes on the decals might be a sign that they came off a complete bike.

chakaping – Member

If it’s that dodgy-as-**** FB group which was linked to from here before, I would just be working on the assumption that everything on it was half-inched.

It’s that one, yes. And if you clicked on the seller’s profile page it made for sad/hilarious reading: BB pins, weed, and pictures of his ankle tag. (He’s recently figured out how to make it private, sadly.) Not wanting to judge, but…

Tricky. It is a bit odd to not break the bike up for a sale, but how would you sell a boardman frame for anything other than pennies?

Still, there is something a little off there.

Yeah ok, that sounds off. Do the plod not cruise these things? I searched for “Bristol Bikes” in FB and what appeared seemed to be a list of items that you could just’ve easily tagged as “Stolen from Clifton”.

Yes, the police do check dodgy FB groups, Ebay, etc, but there’s not much they can do without a theft report.

The pricing really all depends on if you apply a realistic valuation, or use the STW bicycle valuation calculator… That bikes probably only cheap by STW classified standards.

But it sounds like you’ve done a thorough FB profiling of the seller and that’s led you to smell a rat… Interesting that FB have slapped you across the knuckles though.

I thought the truly organised, organised bike thieves stole bikes from one part of the country and then offloaded them a few hundred miles away, ideally letting them sit in storage for a few months or breaking them up to avoid polices searches.
Hence a bike for sale in Bristol may well have originated from Manchester or Newcastle and could be composed from parts snaffled from several other bikes. so a local theft might not be where this one came from at all….

The properly clever ones would have written off the frame (especially a boardman) and broken the bike to sell as parts on fleabay (all virtually untraceable) as it’s typically only the frames that can tie it all back to the original theft.