Is there a price guide for bicycles published?

I mean if you have comics there is an overstreet price guide or if you are looking for a car you would use the NADA guide. Is there anything annual or monthly published for bikes? I asked this question before and the answers I got was pay 1/2 to 3/4 of the value for a used bike. Where would I find out the original and new value of the bicycles? I mean how do bike shops come up with their numbers or do they just guess when it comes to selling used bikes that they take on trade ins.Is there a price guide for bicycles published?
There aren't any used price listing for bicycles. You must use rules of thumb, experience and do web searches for original retails etc.



Used bike pricing isn't a guess but based on make %26amp; model, original price, condition %26amp; age of bike, demand, type of bike and where purchased. There's more to it but details would all fit under the categories I listed.



Here's what I would do looking at a used bike I was offered. I will deal with quality bikes mainly and can't write all the details but will provide the main concept.



- is it a "real" bike or a department store quality bike. If a dept. store bike I already know it's worth no more than $100. If buying from a yard sale even less. 10 year old dept store bikes go for $25-35 commonly at yard sales.



- If it's a quality or "real" bike I look at type, make and model. There are many fine brands but not all models may be good quality. As far as type, an average condition free ride bike would be worth less than an average condition road bike in general (compared to MSRP) Why? Because road bikes tend to take much less of a beating than bikes used to trail ride and jump etc. Also, does size make a difference? Yes it does. An odd sized bike (very small or very large) has far fewer buyers than a common frame size.



- Now I consider the bikes MSRP. This can sometimes be difficult as some bikes may never have been sold at full retail. I could look up MSRP on the web and together with the brand and model I may be able to determine the real new price - maybe not. This takes experience and knowledge. In general I know botique bikes and some high end brands are sold at full price while others are discounted. Except for asking the seller you will never know the true price, besides a good bike may have been bought as a year-old model at deep discount but in the used market that doesn't really matter.



- Now what condition is the bike. Of couse like new is worth much more than a fair condition bike. When looking at condition you need to know what are the costly parts of a bike. Items like frame, wheels, crank, shifters can be very expensive to replace on a high end road bike for example. If the front deraileur is junk you can replace for maybe $50 but if a set of nice Mavic wheels may cost $500 or more.



- Next what age is the bike. If the bike is 6 years old it won't demand the same price as one 2 years old. Depending on age the technology of parts used can be important. If you're looking at a bike 10 years old or more it may have old type tech. parts that may make it difficult to re-sell later, find replacement parts for or upgrade.



- The demand strongly corelates to the technology mentioned above, the make, model and type of bike. As an example, old road bike for the 60s to the 80s are demanding a little more money now from knowedgable sellers. Why? Because using old frames to build up single speed bikes is quite popular now. These old bikes have horozontal dropouts that make doing a clean SS build very desirable.



Finally, determine if any repairs need to be done. Many are cheap or free to do yourself. BUT if you must take the bike to a shop for most repairs the labor costs can add up quickly. Can you repair the bike or not. Calculate that cost into the price. If you can't do much, you may want to pass up bikes that need TLC. The rule of thumb is not hard and fast for general pricing but: A cheap dept. store bike in good condition 1-2 years old 50% of retail. A high end quality bike 1-2 years old in good condition 70-80%. In general, used price will declind about 10% per year after that, subject to condition and all the other things I mentioned.



Hope this helped because it was a lot to write!