Buying and selling bikes, the smart way

Start with the paperwork. The V5C logbook should match the seller's name and the address you're standing at. Check the VIN on the frame matches the V5C, and look for signs it's been disturbed. Run the reg through the free MOT history check on gov.uk. It shows mileage at each test, so clocked bikes stand out fast.

Pay for an HPI-style check before you travel. It flags outstanding finance, theft markers and write-offs, and buying a bike with finance still on it means the lender can take it back. Then look at the bike itself. Ask for a cold start, because a pre-warmed engine hides rattles and smoke. Sight down the frame and forks for anything that isn't straight. Read the service history against the mileage, and check the consumables match the story: tyres, chain and sprockets don't lie about how a bike's been treated. And only take a test ride if you're properly insured to do it. Your own policy may cover it, or the seller's might, but assume nothing until you've checked.

Bike theft is the tax on cycling, and the second-hand market is where stolen bikes end up. Ask for proof of purchase: a receipt, an order confirmation, even the original listing photos. A genuine seller won't blink.

Check the frame number. It's usually stamped under the bottom bracket, and you can run it against the police property register and the national bike registration schemes. Meet somewhere public, ideally in daylight. And trust your gut on price. A two-grand road bike for two hundred quid isn't a bargain, it's evidence.

The same care applies to parts and high-end kit. Wheels, groupsets and power meters get stripped from stolen bikes and sold on. No box, no paperwork and a seller in a tearing hurry is a pattern worth walking away from.

Honest photos sell bikes. Clean it, shoot it in daylight, and photograph the flaws too. A buyer who knows about the scratch on the bar end before they arrive doesn't haggle over it on the doorstep. Dig out the service records and receipts, because a folder of history justifies a stronger price.

Price against what bikes actually sold for, not the optimistic asking prices still sitting unsold. On payment, cash or an instant bank transfer you're watching land in your own account. Never hand over the bike against a screenshot, a pending payment or a promise. If the money isn't in your account, the bike isn't leaving.

The classics keep working because they catch people in a hurry. Fake payment confirmations, where a doctored email or screenshot proves a transfer that never happened. Courier tricks, where a buyer sends a third party to collect and the payment reverses the moment the bike's gone. And deposit pressure, where you're pushed to pay a holding deposit on a bike you've never seen, at an address that turns out to be a car park.

The rules are boring but they hold: see the bike, check the paperwork, watch the money arrive. Any deal that can't survive those three steps isn't a deal.