Thinking of developing a new used bike/bike parts classified

Goodgertron

Yeah I think this is definitely something a lot of people would find useful if I make sure to feature things that people really want.

Here's a sneak peek at my progress: sign up/sign in now implemented with a nice profiling system (early days yet). I'm gonna build in support for notifications, AJAX profiles (and possibly chat, so people can discuss items live if both are online!)

Majski

cooldad wrote:

AS a matter of interest, as you only joined today, where's your deep interest in all things bike been up to now?

This isn't the only biking website in the whole interweb you know!

cooldad

Majski wrote:

cooldad wrote:

AS a matter of interest, as you only joined today, where's your deep interest in all things bike been up to now?

This isn't the only biking website in the whole interweb you know!

The only worthwhile one though. Obviously.

bikepimp_co_uk

Hi there,

I'd definitely support this. A UK bike classifieds aggregator / builder / hub would be a great thing. Too many people buy new stuff (in all walks of life, not just biking) when it's probable that someone, somewhere has that thing for sale in a serviceable condition.

Searching bike classifieds is definitely a time-consuming experience - partly because the sites with traction (STW, BikeRadar, LFGSS) don't actually have dedicated classifieds sections, just forums re-purposed as classifieds, which means no structure and buried / non-existent reputation information.

My site:

http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/

eases the pain somewhat - it provides links out directly into Ebay, BikeRadar, STW and Pinkbike from a search results page, and pulls in data from Ebay and various RSS feeds to show after the main search results:

http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/buy?q=fox+rp23

but it doesn't have a dedicated classifieds section or a way to submit them. I've investigated that in the past but decided that the chance of gaining any traction is minimal without a lot of marketing and effort, given the strength of the incumbents.

Anyway, I hope BikePimp is useful to some extent. I'd be interested in collaborating on a classifieds project, and if I can help out with any web development advice I'd be happy to.


Andy

Goodgertron

Hi Andy..

Nice idea, it's definitely a useful utility. I'm already quite a way a long with this project actually. I have a decent amount of functionality right now, the next step is for me to create the (crazily complicated) ad submission form, but it shouldn't take too long. I started this site last night and I've now got a general layout/design, register/login functionality with a profiling/members system and a toolbar at the top which I should soon have a notifications drop down for too!

As for advice/help, I'm not sure that I really need any as yet. I'm a professional web developer/designer so this shouldn't be too taxing (I'm sure we'll see about that though!)

bikepimp_co_uk

Excellent. What tools are you using? BikePimp is built using Ruby on Rails - it's a fantastic framework for building out web apps quickly.

Rushmore

Thanks for the Idea.. I have my web developers working on it as we speak...

Goodgertron

If you are doing that you have no shame/if you aren't good joke.

Goodgertron

@bikepimp, cheers! Well I'm using wordpress as a platform (I believe it's a very strong framework). I start with a bare canvas and write the necessary HTML/PHP and for the look of it I use SASS (it's a superscript of CSS with ruby programming capabilities.)

gingerrob25

Looking good so far...

Forgot to mention that I would also happily test it out for you!

Goodgertron

Thanks very much rob! It would be awesome to get a good group of people together from this thread and let you all have a mess around with it then. I'll get in touch with everybody that's kindly offered to help when the time comes and we can see what everyone thinks about it and I can take on board suggestions for improvement (always good to get a fresh mind on something!)