Hi all,
My partner and I will be cycling the Danube bike path in September/October 2015 and will end up in Romania at the Black Sea in the end. From there we'd like to fly to the Canary Islands for a "vacation" from the trip, where we would not use the bikes. This involves several flights and bike storage/packing along the way, along with the ensuing airline charges. We'd rather not lug the bikes with us while we flit all over Europe after the trip
Is it feasible to sell the bikes in Constanta or Bucharest? Especially considering that it will be November by the time we get there. Or does anyone have any experience shipping back to North America? The best I can come up with so far is about $1900/bike from Bucharest. That's the value of the bike, so not worth it :-)
The bikes are each worth about $2000CDN to replace and they are:
Surly Disc Trucker 2014
Tubus racks, Schwalbe Marathon Tour tires
and a few other accessories
Surly Troll 2013?
Tubus racks, Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires
and a few other accessories
This is not an offer to sell the bikes ...yet. Just a description of the bikes to see if it's reasonable to expect to sell this kind of bike in Romania.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
...Michelle and Patti
contact some bike shops in Bucharest and Constanta and ask them if they would interested to buy your bikes, there are not much Sulies in this part of the world so i think you have a chance.
you can also try to sell the bikes on ebay...
Having just cycling through Romania, I don't think most Romanians have a standard of living to be able to afford touring bikes. Can you store them at your next stop? We spent 2 months off our bikes, and found accommodation in a city where we were staying to store them for a month for fairly cheap. With airline fees for the bikes and storage it will be MUCH cheaper than shipping them home. All apart of the cost of bike touring in the end. We just sucked up the cost because we had no other choice.
If I could give some advice though, skip the Danube in Romania and bike up through Transylvania. In 8 months away, it's been our favourite place to bike hands down. Not the greatest roads (a fair amount of traffic) but the villages and the people there were fairy tale amazing. Romania is VERY affordable. We stayed in hotels/apartments every night and ate like pigs for around $60 CDN a day.
Hi Tara,
Thanks for all the great information. It's good to hear from someone who's been there, done that :-)
We're exploring different ideas for the bikes since we're hoping to end up in the Canary Islands after our trip. There's no storage at the airport on Tenerife and getting boxed bikes to a WS host would be a bit of a hassle. Someone suggested shipping them by bus to our next destination and that might be an option since we'll be flying out of some central European hub at the end. We don't mind paying a bit extra so we don't have to lug things around. But so far, the best option seems to be to just take them with us wherever we go.
Thanks for the Transylvania tip. We'd have to check into the weather since we'll be there in October. I've heard much about the Transfara ...something as well and would love to explore that area.
Thanks again for the info and have a great summer.
...Michelle and Patti
While a buyer could be found for these bikes (touring is gradually taking off in Romania, especially in Transylvania), to find that buyer you’d probably have to search for a few weeks, and you’d need some knowledge of Romanian – and ideally Hungarian too – to navigate the classified sites.
Also you wouldn’t be able to sell one of those bikes for $2000. By looking around for sales, a Romanian can already order a brand-new touring bike from an EU-wide seller like Thorn UK with quality parts for less, so you'd probably have to lower your price to under 1000€ to compete.
So, I say give up on the idea of selling the bikes. If you don’t want to drag the bikes all over Europe, you could just leave them in storage, e.g. with a WS host in Romania, until you come back to Romania for your flight home. And if you are not flying back to Canada from Romania, consider having your bike sent by bus from Romania to the country you are ultimately flying back from. Many long-distance bus companies connecting Romania to Western Europe will carry freight for a fairly affordable rate.
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for the information. We'll definitely look into shipping by bus. We will most likely not be returning from Romania since the air fares and schedules simply don't work out for us after going to the Canary Islands ...(there is no storage facility at the Tenerife airport).
Michelle and Patti
Hello there,
Romanian WS here. I would love to be able to buy your bike but they are so so expensive... but that's not important :) I think you should take your chance and try to sell your bikes on local web sites like www.olx.ro and www.dirtbike.ro/bazar. Please let me know if you need some help with those websites :)
Also, as one member mentioned, if you want to leave your bikes here, I would really enjoy riding one! I'm kidding! But still, if you're into this, I can ask my sister - as I live in an apartment but she has a house - if she can host two bikes :)
Also important thing, I'm not in Constanta but in Craiova...
Thanks for the links. We'll check them out.