How to avoid getting scammed when buying a used bike – GCN Tech Show

It’s been another busy week in the world of bike tech, jam-packed with lots of new releases, many of which broke cover at Sea Otter – more on this later. It’s also been a busy week on the GCN Tech channel where we recently tasked Si Richardson, Alex Paton and Global Triathlon Network’s Mark Threlfall with buying second-hand bikes for less than £2,000.

As we discovered in the video, made with the help of BuyCycle, it’s possible to get plenty of bike for that amount of money. Things are made easy as BuyCycle has measures to ensure that you don’t fall foul of a faulty bike, but what about if you’re buying a second-hand bike from an independent seller or off an online marketplace? There are many more risks involved with this but, as Ollie Bridgewood and Alex discuss in this week’s GCN Tech Show, there are ways to avoid a dodgy deal.

The first and most obvious is to test the bike in person, but a cursory glance won’t provide the full story. Instead, you’re going to need to delve a little deeper by checking for tell-tale signs of crash damage and testing out the components.

Don’t forget to do your research on the seller too, which includes looking at their account history and whether they’ve sold things before. You’ll need to question the seller about the bike, although don’t fall into an interrogation as, well, it will be a little weird for them.

But, most importantly of all, follow the tried-and-tested philosophy of avoiding any deals that appear to be too good to be true.

Have you ever bought a second-hand bike online? Let us know your top second-hand tips in the comments at the bottom of this page.

Read more: Top tips for buying a second hand bike

Hot and spicy tech

Sea Otter, a huge bike show held in California each year, claimed the attention of the tech world over the last week, including here at GCN where we’ve had people on the ground hunting out the hottest and newest tech. Check out some of what we found here, or head over to the tech section of the website for all of our Sea Otter content.

Elsewhere – or in some cases also released at Sea Otter – many new products have broken cover since last week. 

Aluminium faces stiff competition from carbon in the popularity stakes, but not over at BlackHeart Bikes which has just released the new slick-looking AL.

The brand is actually better known for its titanium bikes and the AL mirrors these, but substitutes in 7005 double-butted aluminium tubing. It says that the bike delivers a carbon-like ride but is more durable and 100% recyclable.

Vision’s Metron wheels are up there with the best in the market, but they also have a pricetag to match.

For those wanting performance on a budget, the American brand has unveiled the new SC45 and SC60 wheels, both of which benefit from trickled-down tech from the top-tier range – all for the more bank balance-friendly amount of £1,069/$1,331/€1,249.

Read more: Vision aims to bring Metron tech to ‘highly accessible price’ with new SC45 and SC60 wheels

Decathlon’s Van Rysel bikes made their WorldTour bow in 2024 at the hands of Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale. They weren’t available to the public until last week when they were put up for pre-sale. You had to be fast to get your hands on one of the bikes, though, as they sold out in quick-fire time.

Read more: Sold out already: Decathlon opens pre-order for Van Rysel RCR Pro Replica bike

ENVE is the latest brand to add Classified’s Powershift hubs to its wheelsets. The technology will be available on ENVE’s Foundation, G Series and top-tier SES wheels.

Rather than a standard groupset with two chainrings, it uses a 1x chainset and a hub-based planetary gear system which offers two different gear ratios, either 1:1 or 1:0.686.

Read more: ENVE becomes latest brand to offer wheelsets with Classified’s Powershift hub

Bike Vault

We have good news as, after a few hiccups, the uploader is officially fixed! That means that you can easily submit pictures of your bikes once again for our presenters to critique.

Upload your Bike Vault entries here!

An important reminder here that, although we think every bike is nice, our presenters have high standards that need to be met to gain that all-important super-nice vote. You can read more about that here.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into this week’s submissions, starting with Tim’s Pinarello X. Tim is planning on taking it to Giro d’Italia where he’ll experience some epic climbs, and it is prepared for any gradients with a largest 36t cog on the cassette.

© GCN

Tim's Pinarello X is prepared for climbs with a largest 36t cog on the cassette

© GCN

To balance this Study Fiadh, the owner had to reposition the cranks away from our presenters' preferred position. Would they forgive the Bike Vault faux pas?

© GCN

This Scott Foil is specced with new wheels from Elitewheels, who GCN recently partnered with

© GCN

Icelandic brand Lauf is better known for its gravel bikes but turned its hand to road bikes at the end of 2023 in the form of the Úthald - judging by this specimen, it clearly did a very good job

What's the top bit of tech you've seen from our Sea Otter coverage? Let us know in the comments section below. For all the latest tech developments make sure to head over to our dedicated tech news section of the GCN website.

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