Craigslist Bike Adventures

08/26/15

I have now bought two items off of craigslist, and both times I rode my bike to get the item.

The Pannier

The first adventure involved me biking 6.1 miles in 110F heat to get a pannier bag for my bike. It cost a mere $20 and it's an amazing piece of equipment. It holds more content than my backpack does, properly straps itself into my bike rack. It's also an Iron Duck brand bag, and I can't find its counterpart online. It may not be something that is still for sale. The cheapest bag of theirs I found on their site is $180. So, I think I got quite the deal out of the purchase. There's some well-worn holes in it, but nothing that can't be patched and nothing that makes it less usable by any means.

Even better is, I got to see how well I handle biking some 12.2 miles in the horrible heat. More or less, I felt like I was dying. I had to stop by work again on the way home to get more water and cool down a bit.

Totally worth it, though. I've had it for a little over a week now and have used it everyday. And today, I used it to go and get....

The Stand Mixer

So, last weekend I noticed some stand mixers were on clearance at Target for $180 or so (down from $270 or so). Curious, I checked on craigslist to see how cheap they were there. $80. For what seemed like an equivalent piece of hardware. Awesome. I even managed to strap the thing into my bike and haul it back home, no problem. And it looks like it works just fine.

It's pretty exciting. Not only do I get pretty nice equipment for pretty freaking cheap, but I get some fun stories to go along with them. Like, when I was strapping the stand mixer to my bike, the person I bought it from was all, "You sure you don't need help getting it home?" I got to wave goodbye to them while I started my bike ride home.

The Future

Pretty soon, I'm thinking I'll be getting a bike trailer off the site. It'll help me haul ever bigger items, like Costco bulk items, and other craigslist items. Already I've spent merely $100 on items that could've cost me half a thousand.

I also have plenty of junk lying around my house. I should probably sell some of it. I could net gain money out of this.