How to sell your bike in Barcelona

December 05, 2019

How to sell your bike in Barcelona

Way back in France, when we'd first hatched the idea of selling our bikes in Barcelona, our friend Fabienne expressed doubt and suggested we just bring them back to her and she would sell them on our behalf. Later in Spain, another friend Joan, laughed outright at our notion and said we'd be magical to get them sold in the three days we'd budgeted. I figured that we'd always get them sold but we may just have to give them away in the end. Mountain Dad was insistent that we had quality bikes that deserved a good sum. And that, more than the getting rid of the bikes, caused me more stress.

And so weeks before we'd even arrived in Barcelona, Shea had been contacting second hand bike stores. He'd washed the bikes and taken photos to send to them. We researched Spanish online used-gear websites and settled on the one called Wallapop. I created an account and crafted our adverts. On this website we asked what we thought was a fair price for the bikes and chariot. On visiting nine used-bike shops, Mountain Dad was offered half that price.

We split our Barcelona time between exploring and assessing ways to sell the bikes. We obsessed over our Wallapop account, dropping the price of the bikes incrementally with each day that passed. The chariot was a hot ticket item but no-one was enquiring after the bikes. Mountain Dad struggled to reconcile in his mind that his value of the bikes was completely different to the value we would receive.

Then one afternoon at a playground we stumbled upon, Little Ladie struck up a conversation with a girl her age. Running over to me she excitedly babbled,

"Mum! She has English as a first language and speaks French as well, just like me!"

Her parents, we noticed, clearly more canny than us, had set up at the park-side cafe/bar and were enjoying a beer while their girls played. It made me realise the folly of my choice to sit in the playground when there was a bar so close by, so Shea and I drifted over and struck up a conversation. We shared our stories; they are American expats just setting up a new home in Barcelona. They'd been there a week now.

We ordered more beer and the kids, their two the same age as our two, continued to play in the playground. An hour later, as we reluctantly said goodbye, (it is so nice to find someone who speaks your language, is it not?), they said they'd buy our bikes.

Just like that. At the full asking price. They'd actually been meaning to buy bikes the previous weekend but hadn't gotten around to it. These would be lovely. He was a former triathlon athlete and appreciated the quality of the bikes. They also bought our locks which Mountain Dad had been fretting about losing money on and was already pondering how we could ship them back to Australia and sell them there. As we left the playground, reeling a little that we’d sold our bikes, Lox commented,

“Mama, that was a bit unexpected, I didn’t know we would give that girl my bike. I needed more warning.”

Our new friends had graciously suggested we keep the bikes until we flew out of Barcelona and we could just drop them off at their house whenever it suited us. And so we had a few more days of zipping around Barcelona before handing our valiant steeds over. It was serendipitous and Mountain Dad kept trying to draw a life lesson from the occasion. Don’t plan because you never know what might happen? Explore every avenue? We’re still trying to figure it out.

We were still congratulating ourselves on the day we were booked to fly out of Barcelona. And missed the plane. And lost our baggage.

Mountain Dad’s life lesson on that one is two hours to clear security and customs at Barcelona airport is actually NOT enough.