When I was a kid my mom used to take me to garage sales and flea markets. She would spend friday night circling the ads in the local paper (we lived in Clifton NJ, a suburb 1/2 an hour west of NYC, which was firmly middle-class when I lived there in 1974 but has since become very upper middle class. When I lived there, we were literally down the hill from Montclair State College, which is now Montclair State University.)
Anyway in the mid 70s, there were no cookie-cutter furniture places like IKEA. People's houses were very unique and it was always interesting to go to other people's houses and see how they lived. It was always different and unusual, so when people had garage sales and sold their stuff, it was always an enormous range of tastes and eras and styles.
It was also a big influence on why I went into photography. When I worked in 1 hour labs, I thought I would get to see all these great places, unusual homes without even having to go inside.
But by the time I started working in 1-hour labs in the late 1980s, I quickly found out everyone's homes now look the same and so do people's pictures.
Anyway at these garage sales, my mom went for the really OLD crap. Remember this was the 70s, so 'old' meant 1920s and earlier. For years she was into daguerrotypes, these photos that were printed on metal plates and looked more like negatives than photos. Later she got into old photo albums, and when I say old I mean OLD, they were these 100-year-old velvet-covered affairs with THICK pages that weren't even paper, they were like solid laminated cardboard. The albums were as thick as Manhattan phone books.
The photos were so old the people weren't even smiling. It was like people were always depressed 100 years ago.
My mom ended up with literally hundreds of these albums, anonymous families and people she never even knew, stacked ten-high in the living room collecting dust and soot. The albums were so old and brittle the spines would crack when you opened them, so you really didn't want to look through them for fear of breaking them.
ANYWAY. I don't really know where I was going with this. Oh yeah. At these garage sales and flea markets of my youth, things were always plentiful and cheap and fun, and then the internet came along with eBay and Craigslist and I thought, 'what a great way to have these virtual flea markets 24 hours a day 365 days a year reaching millions of people instead of every weekend reaching a few dozen. '
But then I didn't account for crazy.
I browse the bike listings on Craigslist every so often and almost all I see are these horrible crappy bikes that weren't even sold in actual bike shops when I was a kid, they were sold in like, auto parts stores for $50 in the 1970's and 1980's. HEAVY steel bikes made with parts no one had used in 20 years combined with Chinese components that were probably rejected by the Chinese themselves.
I swear, they were so crappy that given the choice, you would rather walk.
Criaglslist sellers use words like 'vintage' to describe them, and then have the gall to post prices like $175, $200 for this junk. It's not just a few either, it's like 70-80% of the postings.
It's driven me so crazy that I sometimes post ads with links to NEW bikes from Walmart and Target for $99 to try and drive the prices down.
I don't know why it bothers me so much. I just feel that out of all the capitalism and corporate greed in life, at least bicycles and inexpensive transportation should be accessible to the masses.
But then I realize another truth: Theres always going to be DUMB people in life.
Dumb is the reason Britney Spears, Black Eyed Peas and Miley Cyrus are popular. Dumb is the reason a show like 2 1/2 Men stays on the air while Fringe is about to be cancelled.
I spend my life trying to educate people, trying to help them help themselves. If their computer breaks, I try and teach them how to fix it. But then they don't want to. They would rather just pay me and let me do it.
I can't complain, it keeps me employed.
But I guess I have to break down and admit there's always going to be dumbasses that are going to buy overpriced crappy bikes. Even if it's 40 years old, weighs 40 lbs and has been stripped of all components to turn it into that detestable hipster trend known as a 'fixie.'
So anyway I saw a Cannondale on Craigslist for a reasonable price and I had to buy it, partly just to reassure myself that there's still rational people in the world and good bargains to be had.
Also to say to all the Craigslist idiot sellers, "LOOK, dumbasses, I can buy a REAL bike here for what you're trying to charge for shit."
Cannondales are reknown for their lightness and superior componentry.
Like an idiot, I drove up to Stamford CT to buy it too. What am I trying to prove by all this anyway?
Jeez I have 27 bikes, when am I going to open a bike shop already.
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