Need help with mountain bike value.

[HardDrive]

Guy wants to trade me a mountain bike for my 71 super beetle. I need to get some idea of what his bike is worth. I love road cycling, but I know nada about mbikes.

Here is what I know from the owner:

To be completely honest...I'm not sure! I bought it off a good friend of mine who used to manage the Be-One team in Canada. I think the frame is a 2006 model year, but it was built up using whatever parts were left over from the team. I'm 6'3" and ride the bike no problem, though the frame is likely a Medium or Medium-Large.

The bike is a Be-One Woodbumble Plus with the following parts list:
Syncros Wheels - shop-built locally, still true and round Formula Hubs (including special wide rear hub, which I have spare rebuild parts for) Hayes 9 brakes
e13 chainguide
Manitou Sherman 1.5" fork
Manitou Swinger shock (both serviced by Manitou at Crankworx) Funn bar, stem, pedals, seat Thomson seatpost ODI lock-ons with Ruffian grips, Envy bar caps (can include either Ruffian, RuffianMX or Rogue grips) Sram X9 derailleur, cassette, chain, shifter New 100mm raceface bottom bracket not too long ago


Your thoughts?

[VincentVega]

What's your car worth?

I dont know that bike, but it looks pretty purpose built for downhill/freeride. Is that what you want to ride?

Check http://www.mtbr.com/cat/older-categories-bikes/olderfreeridefullsuspension/beone/woodbumble-plus/PRD_414080_6483crx.aspx for some pricing info.

[mudman]

Yeah, doesn't like like something I'd ride through single tracks with comfort. I would definitely ask for a test ride at your favorite trail. Platform pedals are a giveaway to the purpose of that build, unless someone has some strange tastes.

[Eric Coffey]

Never heard of Be-one, but it sure looks like a serious DH bike. If you were considering letting the Beetle go for $1000 or less, it would probably be a pretty fair trade. Just keep in mind that that stlye of MTB is usually quite heavy and geared toward downhill/freeride/jumping. If you want a good trail/XC bike, this is not the one to choose. Probably not bad just to tool around the neighborhood with, but I wouldn't go cruising down hills that you had to climb back up!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

What kind of components are those?

[creaturecat]

40 lb high maintenance downhill bike.
Absolutely useless for anything other than serious down hill riding.
Serious downhill riding = serious injury, at some point.
The price is actually fair, I believe he would take substantially less money, which really has no bearing on your "even trade" situation. $ 800-900 is my guess.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

That thing does look pretty sturdy for downhilling; you could probably use it for general mountain/singletrack riding too although d/h bikes tend to be heavy as hell and it gets tiresome really quick.

FWIW a neighbor of mine was trying to unload a Specialized downhill bike (a good one, but I forget the exact model offhand) recently - list was $1,800 - I think he ended up selling (unused) for about $600. So as with most things in bikes, depreciation can be brutal.

If you're into serious downhill type riding or wicked trail rides that aren't more than about 10-15 miles a "tank" bike will work fine.

I tend to think a VW bug would be worth a lot more than most mountain bikes though. Complete W.A.G. on that bike feels like about $1,500 or so maybe. Dunno. Maybe try ebay/craigslist for some comparisons?

[billybek]

Did a search for them and turned up nothing.....
It looks like a decent big hit bike, but what do you think the car is worth???
I used to flip my team bikes at the end of the season and even though they were well maintained, they were well used too!!
Consider selling off the car and using the proceeds to fund a good trail or cross country bike.
My Santa Cruz Blurr LT is a great compromise between a full on cross country and a trail bike.
By far the best mountain bike I have had the pleasure to ride.....

[jhynesrockmtn]

I agree with Bill and the others. I ride road and single track quite a bit. That's a big hit freeride/downhill specific bike, not something you want to start mountain biking with. I also ride a Santa Cruz Blur and it's a great all around mountain bike but still on the experienced end of the scale made for single track with a fair amount of technical riding in the mix. I wouldn't buy it for example if I was riding fire roads, out for a spin in the neighborhood or similar. You need to figure out what kind of riding you are going to do and then buy a bike to match. On the other hand, that's how I ended up with so many (*&^%$ bikes.

[herr_oberst]

Nice thing about team bikes is that maintenance is a priority and parts are changed frequently. Id buy a team bike over an individual owner bike anyday as long as the frame and fork checked out.. (plus, it has provenance, fwiw, lol)