Buying second hand bikes from UK

barrymanilow

Wondering has anyone bought a second hand bike from the UK and got it shipped over ? What site did you use ? The second hand market here isn't great in terms of variety . I'm looking for something like a genesis croix de fer or kona rove cheap second hand but those only very rarely come up on adverts etc

boomdocker

Yes, I have
Not easy - basically you need to
a) find the bike you want - in my case I was looking for a specific mtb, so pinkbike and singletrackworld
b)if road bikes then gumtree (bad idea) or try to find a specialist forum (better)
c) try to find a seller who is willing to ship to Ireland - not easy in my experience, too much hassle for most people
d) then you need to be dealing with someone who is well capable of boxing a bike or is willing to take to a bike shop to do it
e) then there's the issue of transferring money to someone you've never met for a bike you've never seen - for me I always insist on talking to the person on the phone - you'll realise fairly quickly if it's someone you want to deal with

I've bought a few bikes from the UK, never any problem - but they've always been high end. Wouldn't be bothered for something low value, too much effort and with the cost of shipping probably not worth it

Most importantly like most things you just need to use a huge amount of common sense. If the person you are dealing with is not straightforward, forget about it

selwyn froggitt

barrymanilow wrote: »

Wondering has anyone bought a second hand bike from the UK and got it shipped over ? What site did you use ? The second hand market here isn't great in terms of variety . I'm looking for something like a genesis croix de fer or kona rove cheap second hand but those only very rarely come up on adverts etc

I've bought two secondhand bikes from the UK in the last two years.Both Cyclocross.
The first one was on ebay which was shipped to my parents home (who live in the UK) and forwarded on to me and the second was on Gumtree UK and was collected by a friend and shipped to me here.
Two great bikes,sellers were spot on and I grabbed two absolute bargains.

tjc28

I've bought bikes from ebay.co.uk and had them delivered to addresspal and they charge you €25 to get them to Ireland. Been a year or two since I did that though so best check their current pricing.
You're right though the selection of 2nd hand bikes isn't great here. Try lfgss.com. I've seen Croix de fer come up on that sometimes.

Deano12345

My last two have came from UK, found them both through eBay, shipped them via parcel motel. I get charged about 15 quid or so and collected from their depot in Finglas. They can courier it to your house for a fee.

Generally you can’t go wrong through eBay since you will be PayPal protected, but some of the specialist forums may be better for something specific. Parcel Motel gives you an NI address which in my experience UK sellers are happy to send to.

TheBlaaMan

Three times from the UK, once from the Netherlands. Never had a problem, but saying that, I did my homework and even then took a deep breath. All relatively high end bikes.

Last one was a Colnago frame bought on eBay in January, shipped to Parcel Motels UK address in Belfast at sellers expense and then cost me €7 to ship to Waterford.