You know who you are, Mr or Mrs. Bicycle Expert. This is your busy time of year and 2020 is even more insane than usual. The texts, calls, and e-mails flooding in from friends, and friends of friends, who trust your in-depth mountain bicycle knowledge to help them navigate their new or used purchases. A bike is an emotional and financial commitment and no one wants to buy into an abusive relationship.
I am very sorry to say, that when it comes to the used market, you are failing at this sacred trust. Failing. I know, because every week at work I am breaking hearts telling folks that their new-to-them love requires a larger investment than their purchase price just to be rideable. Some of these new partnerships never even get off the ground, rendered slag by changing standards, proprietary systems, and equipment by ghost brands.
Be Proprietary Wary
Every full suspension frame is itself proprietary. Good luck buying a linkage, chainstay, seat stay, or front triangle on its own for the last generation of almost any bike on the market. The good news is that in the last decade bike companies have become generally very good at making frames and as long as the pivots have been maintained a careful check of the frame for dents and cracks and a bit of time on Google should be enough to determine if the frame itself has a decent life left.
What is worth noting here is the piles of perfectly serviceable frames being recycled, or straight up junked if they are carbon fiber, because they require proprietary rear shocks that are no longer supported. Straight up ignore any used bike with a pull-shock or second shock. The cooler it looks the more likely the purchase is going to be a 2am Vegas wedding.
There are plenty of situations where a rear shock is co-branded with the company that makes the bike your friend is looking at. This is not necessarily an issue, just make 100% certain that a generic shock can be bolted in there in the future. For example, some Specialized BRAIN shocks can be replaced with an off-the-shelf unit, and others will spell the demise of their bicycle.
Be An Ageist
There are plenty of old mountain bikes still in regular service but the vast majority of them are repurposed hardtails. That said, as technology and geometry have calmed down there are absolutely folks out in the hills having fantastic fun full suspension experiences on fifteen-year-old bikes.
In some ways, assuming we are talking about a machine that still has some life left, these bikes are quite inexpensive to keep running. There are myriads of 9-speed and 10-speed components on the market, and then there are still solid deals to be found on 26″ rims, tires, and wheels. If there is no demand for a dropper post then interrupted seat tubes and legacy post sizes are not even a concern.
Bike companies have never clearly laid out expected product lives, maybe because everyone uses their mountain bikes differently. With all that out of the way, the fact is that the older a bike is, the less likely that the expensive to replace parts like shocks, forks, and brakes will be supported. That can mean buying a $500 rear shock instead of a $50 air can, a $1000 fork instead of a $40 spring guide, and a $300 set of brakes instead of a $5 lever part.
Some bikes from a decade-plus ago are also nowhere near as good, up and down, as you remember them so even if the bike is fresh hanging in a garage and the suspension has been serviced yearly, make sure to have a look at that geometry chart.
Marzocchi Is Dead; BOS Is Bullshit
I am not talking about the rebadged Fox Racing Shox stuff from the last couple of seasons, I am talking about the old Marzocchi mountain bike brand that has changed hands twice since 2012 and factories multiple times before that. A blanket avoidance of any legacy Marzocchi product is absolutely the best practice.
As a general rule, buying bikes more than a couple years old requires a bit of research to make certain that the specific suspension products installed are still supported by the manufacturer. I am not talking about main seals but rather the chassis, air system, damper, and etc. It is hard to harbor any ill will towards Fox for ghosting past Marzocchi supporters as the product was basically sh*t by the time they took over the brand name and IP.
On the other hand, BOS can go f*** themselves. After making a big push into North America they abandoned the customers, bike brands, and shops that supported them. That BOS equipped bike is a great example of when it makes sense to call around first to make sure the stuff is supported v. just assuming because it is either shipping to Europe for service or more likely buying replacements. A rider who has purchased a BOS equipped bike in the last few seasons has no one to blame except BOS, themselves, and potentially their Bicycle Expert.
The 1-1/8″ Headtube
Maybe, for the right price, a bike with Marzocchi or BOS suspension could still be an okay value as long as they were cheap enough to budget for a replacement fork and shock in the purchase price. Assuming it is possible to buy a new fork or shock.
Two years ago, this month, I wrote a piece for NSMB.com about the dearth of replacement 1-1/8″ straight-steerer forks available and since then the situation has gotten even worse. The used market has been decimated and is mainly left with people trying to flog unsupported Marzocchi forks for too much money.
At the same time, even people who have diligently looked after their older suspension products are running into issues where components are wearing out and there is no support, no parts, and no suitable 140-160mm travel replacement fork being made.
It’s quite sad because on a budget there could be some amazing decade-old rigs that would be a great starting off point. We have reached a point where the only straight 1-1/8″ compatible bikes worth anything used are the hardtails, where a rigid fork is always an option, and Bicycle Experts recommending otherwise should feel financially responsible for their awful advice.
Used mountain bike buyer, expect better from your Bicycle Expert.