I hope i dont ruffle any of yalls feathers here, but does it bother anyone to see bikes stripped down and sold off on Ebay? Its not so much the entire bikes, but parting an awesome or rare frame and fork really irks me. You see it all the time. Last week it was a Harry Leary turbo. Today theres a Race Inc. Man those forks belong to that frame. You cant split em up. Thats like splittin the children up after a divorce. It just aint right.

I understand about getting everything you can for your property, but sometimes it just aint about the money. People change out parts all the time but rarely does anybody change out the forks that came with the bike, because they just belong together. Thats just one less vintage f&f set out there when you do that.

Totally agree with you there on that one. Parting out a whole bike is fine, if it doesn't have the original parts on it, as long and the frame and forks stay together. Besides it being a damn shame, it's also devaluing the frame and the fork individually for the buyer. I wouldn't buy one without the other if they are clearly being sold separately for financial gain.

Well I'm not a bird so I don't have any feathers for you to ruffle but yeah, I agree; I hate to see an original matching F&F fork split up.

You are not alone.

I agree. I won't touch a frame that doesn't have a fork(well, I guess if the forks were super easy to find).

Agreed - Original F&Fs should never tbe parted.

In the last year I've tracked down Cook Bros and undrilled GT Pro forks for two of my frames - and had to pay more than the frames cost to get them. There's the sellers motivation I guess...

From a buyers standpoint it sucks.

From a sellers standpoint its a total gain

And, afterall its the sellers goods so they can do what they want with it.

In the same respect, if it wasnt for people selling forks seperately alot of buyers would just have frames.

It works out in the end............

no, that still leaves a frame without forks and another person looking for a set. I understand the logic of the seller, I just dont think its right. I'd also venture to guess that most of the time, they aren't making much more than if they sold them together, if at all. The forks may be valuable to someone needing a set, but the frame loses its value, generally speaking that is. There are exceptions of course, but most of the time, they are making the extra cash from the extra shipping charge.

I can’t agree more, if you built the bike from parts then no harm done. But if you have a survivor, then you are destroying history. This really does tell you who is in the hobby for the money and who is in it for the love of it.

On an upside for me considering 80% of my collection is true survivors and some survivor builds, it will make my bikes worth more down the road.

Exactly so if someone needs a fork how are they supposed to get it?

Isnt it more fair this way anyway?

And before I get into all of it, like it or not, if its not yours you cant tell someone how or what to sell.

If you see a frame and fork on ebay and its a parted set that means you have just as much of a shot as winning it that anyone else. Just gotta bid on two things.

The beef comes because people dont want to pay top dollar for two items. Thats not the sellers fault.

I understand the whole thing about it being a shame to part out the frame-fork but ultimately you cant be upset at the seller.

Also it really depends on what the item is. Foir example if its a pk frame with landing gear who cares if its parted or split up? They only made a bazillion.

Now if its a super, super rare frameset, yah you would like it to be sold as a kit and more than likely it would be since that would bring in the most money.

"If you see a frame and fork on ebay and its a parted set that means you have just as much of a shot as winning it that anyone else. Just gotta bid on two things."

What if the fork auction ends before the frame?
I'm not going to buy a fork not knowing if I will get the frame.
Could it be, that buyers will shy away from bidding, just because of the uncertainty of aquiring both pieces? I hope so.

As said, the seller can do whatever he/she wants, but it is a shame to separate original parts.

Yeah see thats exactly my point. Most people want a deal or a bargain. The seller knows hes going to get more for the two items so can you blame him for selling them that way.

If you wanted the frameset then you could very easily win them. Just bid higher than everyone else who wants them.

Yeah its a shame to see them split from a collectors standpoint but from the person selling its standpoint, why would he-she care?

Also, lets say you have a certain frame but no fork. Is it fair now to hope someone is selling the missing fork? I mean afterall its probably from a split up frameset.

Or would you rather the seller be a little less flash and sell a frame and then wait a few weeks to then sell the forks?

That way you never knew they where together at one point.

Im not trying to start anything either. Its just that I see both sides of this coin.

From a sellers point of view I sure had alot of folks thanking me when I sold stuff. Nobody seems to care as long as they get what they want. Its when you have to hunt, beg, or pay for stuff thats when people start getting angry.

*ohhh one more thing. if youre buying any used part from a bike your buying something from a bike that has been taken apart. Its very seldom that you buy used andy patterson bars that where found sitting in a box. More than likely someone just parted a bike.

So, in that case I guess folks would be happy the seller is just selling the bars and not a complete andy patterson with flights and graphites. Afterall its a shame to split it up?

Wrong, you know the seller is splitting the bike up UNLESS they are already rich, or dont know any better or its a rare case where the complete is worth more than when split. But tharts seldom.

No, the beef with me comes from splitting up a vintage frame set. That frame will (almost assuredly) never have the forks that came with it again. You cant reverse this.

It certainly isnt about the money. I pretty much established that in my first post, along with every else who posted here.

oh and please dont tell me i cant blame the seller. I can blame him all I want. The greed is ruining this hobby (more like a passion) more and more with each f&f set split up.

]No, the beef with me comes from splitting up a vintage frame set. That frame will (almost assuredly) never have the forks that came with it again. You cant reverse this.

****So if you have a frame sitting around you shouldnt be allowed to buy a fork? By your own terms you would be participating in a event where at one point the frameset was split, so dont add to the crime-stay away. Your frame is worthless and will never have a fork.



It certainly isnt about the money. I pretty much established that in my first post, along with every else who posted here.

****if it wasnt about the money you would have bid $400000 for both pieces and won the auctions at whatever it came up as.



oh and please dont tell me i cant blame the seller. I can blame him all I want. The greed is ruining this hobby (more like a passion) more and more with each f&f set split up


***Yeah this hobby is ruined, all about the greed. I see the greed as the new guys to collecting that want to come in and buy all the collectors out who put all the effort in to find this stuff. You cant walk into something this late in the game and expect the world to fit into your terms.







[

seriously dude, you dont get it. You keep bringing up the money as an issue for me being upset but I havent lost out or bid on any f&f thats been split up. It just bothers me that people do it. If you cant understand that, then I dont know what else to say to ya. Im through trying to explain it tho.

My $2.50 worth.

These sellers claim they split these framesets up so that someone needing a fork (for example) has a chance at getting one. Well, I call bull!@#$. Their pure motivation is greed and greed alone.

Me personally, I would never bid on one of those auctions. Of course, I would probably not buy a rare frame, missing its matching frame, unless I was prepared to throw down a HUGE amount of money to get the matching forks.

I'm a frameset kinda guy

I started a very similar topic on an Australia website, after seeing Series 1 DB Turbo split right up into each individual piece.

Being on of my holy grails, there is no way I would bid on the DB turbo in pieces, as there was no guarantee of getting a complete. In retrospect I would have bid far more that the total he pulled parting it out...It is greed plain and simple in my opinion...I then saw a set of GT power series cranks parted into separate crank arms...sorry that is just dumb and ended up back firing on the seller anyway...

I've parted out bikes and got plenty more in bits, but I would never part out a few specific OEM complete classics and I would never separate a frame and forks...but that is just me...

No, I guess I dont.

But what do I know...........

Uh I have this here frame I'm selling. No reserve. Bid early, bid often.

This here fork, don't know where it came from, reserve price $1,700.


Shame.

Tell me about it!

I'm chasin' Kuwahara freestyle forks for my Kuwahara frame!

Worse still, My family threw away an Exhibitionist in 2005 and a built Redline 800P.

What I know: Thanks to your parts there are enough restored BMX bikes to outfit an army...a large army!!! Thanks for offering up one of the largest caches of BMX parts and history I've ever seen!

LOL...................yeah and look at all the bikes with bars and forks.

Waaa Waaaaa Waaaaa....Its all about the hunt....usually splitting a set gives those others a chance to get those frames or forks they need...granted its more fun to score a set vs. piece parts....

I used to get frustrated with this separating frame from fork business 5-6 years ago when I started but then I started buying bikes for a part or the frameset and sell the rest back to ebay a couple weeks later to help subsidise my interest.

As someone says above, if say you split a PK from a set of LG's what difference does it make provided that you reunite the era correct items at some point when you reconstruct a build - both items have their own identity and can happily stand alone - plus there are a bazillion of them, or is that a batallion of them?

Anyway, if you think about the production process and we've all seen the factory and warehouse photos of SE, GT etc BITD every thing was fabricated separately, stacked high, paired etc. to suit the orders, so marriages were convenient - a bit like in the 19C or Asia

The question that started this thread is really - Is it immoral to separate a fork from a frame or vice versa? Emotively we want to keep it together, rationally it's relative to it's rarity.

As an example, I have a stack of frames and forks which I every so often re match to get the best fit for era correctness - usually I do this when I'm pulling a few items to sell and I re order everything. Does it matter? They were doing the same thing in the factories 25 - 30 years ago. Forks may want a permanent address but they don't have serial numbers.

In the end it's about judgement.