I’ve sold and bought a few used bikes, and I’ve also been to the Oakland Flea Market and to the AT Showdown Cow Palace swap, along with having seen other “swap” or “bike bazaar” type places. From my experience, I will state the following:

- The bike stuff at any flea or swap market place is almost always in cruddy condition. It is VERY rare to find reasonably nice stuff at these places.
- If you do find nice stuff at these places, it’s usually obsolete, NOS (New Old Stock) stuff that’s pretty undesirable.
- It is VERY hard to make a profit selling stuff, unless you got it for a steal (pun intended). With the advent of Ebay and other online marketplaces, along with the increasing presence of Asian-manufactured-parts sellers on those marketplaces, being a successful used bike broker is very tough.
- Ergo, Morales-Sanchez and his family are probably full of poo. If they were selling crap stuff, they’d be back at the market, every week, unsuccessfully trying to sell the same old junk. If they were selling nice stuff and making a profit, then it’d be almost guaranteed to be stolen goods.