I had a request for Craigslist shopping tips. So here are some. Does anyone else have any?

Tips for bike hunting on craigslist:

• Search the “bikes” category with no search text.
• Also search the “bike parts” category with no search text.
  (there will be parts in the bikes category and bikes in the bike parts category)
• Try adding a max price like 100 dollars to search for only cheap/bargain bikes.
• Try clicking the “search nearby areas” box and including farther areas.
• Search for multiple specific thing in one search by searching: trek|specialized|cannondale
• Or for multiword names use quotes: colnago|”de rosa”|derosa|masi
  (notice how I searched for both De Rosa and Derosa…just in case someone listed it with no space)
• Try searching for mispellings: trek|terk|treck|trex
• You can exclude listings. If you don’t want to see any listings with a mention of Huffys or Roadmasters, you can add “-huffy -roadmaster” to the search (without the quotes).
• Keep in mind that searches are not intelligent. bike and bicycle are two different words. So if the listing has the word bike and you search for bicycle, you won’t find it. And vis versa.
• If a listing title is vague, check it out anyway. Chances are that listing of “Red bike” for $25 is a cheap kids bike, but you never know.
• If you want to do the same search often, bookmark it. Bookmark lots of searches.
• SEARCH OFTEN! Multiple times a day. The best deals don’t last long.
• Contact the seller ASAP. Sometimes first person to call/email/text gets the bike.
• Try to be the first person to be there to get the bike.
• If the seller says someone is coming to look at it, follow up. Maybe the person never shows up.
• Check older listings to see if the bike is still available. If the bike as been listed for a while and hasn’t sold, they might be ready to deal. See if they will take less than they are asking.
  Bonus:
• Search all craigslist areas by doing a google search “site:craigslist.org cannondale bike” (without the quotes)
  (keep in mind the google search results will not up to the moment current and may be out of date.

http://www.craigslist.org