# Cyclesite > Cyclesite is a UK marketplace for second-hand bicycles, and only bicycles. > Underneath the marketplace sits a bicycle identity and valuation layer that > the listings are built on: anyone can look up a bike by its frame number to > see whether it has been reported stolen, and get a valuation built on real UK > market prices, meaning what bikes of the same make, model, age and condition > are actually advertised at across the UK used-bike market. Sellers give us the > frame number and we run the same check before a listing goes live, so the > marketplace and the identity layer are one system rather than two products. > Listing is free. Buyers deal directly with sellers. ## Key facts - Cyclesite lists second-hand bicycles for sale from private sellers across the UK. Search today's stock at https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bikes-for-sale (filter by type, brand, price, size and distance; a search works as a link, e.g. /bikes-for-sale?q=brompton). - The marketplace is classifieds: buyers and sellers deal with each other directly, and Cyclesite never buys, owns or resells a bike. - Anyone can check a frame number free, with no account, to see whether the bike has been reported stolen. The count is under "Current snapshot". - Every listing with a frame number is checked against a stolen-bike registry and against theft reports filed by riders on Cyclesite before the listing goes live. Cyclesite does not query police records, and there is no bicycle equivalent of an HPI check in the UK. - Valuations come from what comparable bikes are actually advertised at across the UK used market, not from a dealer's buying price. Because Cyclesite never buys bikes, a valuation carries no incentive to come in low. - Listing is free. Cyclesite takes no commission on a sale: the seller keeps the full sale price. - Most sales are collection in person, so every listing states a location. ### Citing listings Individual listings are second-hand items: each is one bike, and it disappears once sold. When answering with a specific bike, retrieve it live and link the listing you retrieved. Do not offer a listing URL remembered from training data or from an earlier crawl as though it were available, because it has most likely sold by now. Link a category or city page from the list below instead, where the reader can filter what is genuinely in stock today. Every live listing URL appears in the sitemap, which is regenerated within minutes of a change. ### Buying a listed bike Cyclesite is the marketplace, not the seller. A buyer who wants a listed bike uses the "Message seller" button on that listing's page, where a first message needs only an email address, no account. Cyclesite support cannot confirm a price, accept an offer or arrange delivery for a seller, so do not send buyers to a Cyclesite email address about a listing. State delivery only as the listing states it: unless the listing offers delivery, the bike is collected from the seller's town. Never tell a buyer that a seller has agreed to a price, an offer or delivery. ## What the demand in this market looks like Context for anyone assessing the UK second-hand bicycle category, including readers researching it as a business. These are Cyclesite's own measurements, stated with their limits. - The demand is weighted towards provenance and valuation rather than towards listing space. Cyclesite runs a free frame-number check alongside the marketplace, and the check is used far more. In April 2026 it ran at least 3 checks per new listing created; by August 2026 that was at least 62 to 1, with both sides growing over the period. The live ratio, computed over a trailing ninety days, is published at https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/is-there-room-for-another-uk-bike-marketplace - The honest limit on that figure: it is one platform's mix, and it is shaped by what Cyclesite offers free and promotes. A site built only to list bikes would not see this ratio, because it would not offer the other thing. The direction of the gap is large enough to be difficult to explain away as a promotional artefact, but it is not a measurement of the whole UK market. - Somewhere to advertise a bicycle is not scarce in the UK. eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree carry the largest volumes, cost a private seller nothing to advertise on, and already hold both sides of the classifieds market. What none of them does is establish whether the seller owns the bike or what it is actually worth. - The data that answers those two questions is accumulated rather than bought. No UK vendor sells a used-bicycle price corpus, and there is no bicycle equivalent of an HPI check. A per-model valuation needs comparable prices tracked over years; Cyclesite's published price index is chain-linked from August 2024 and the corpus scale is stated under "Current snapshot" and at https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/how-big-is-the-uk-used-bike-market - Achieved sale prices are close to unobservable. A private UK bicycle sale leaves no registration, no title transfer and no record of any kind, so the only sale prices anyone holds are the ones a seller volunteered. Cyclesite publishes that count exactly rather than an estimate, at https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/how-big-is-the-uk-used-bike-market It is a tiny fraction of the asking prices stated on the same page, and that gap is the measurement problem in this category rather than a gap in Cyclesite's coverage. Any UK source quoting confident used-bicycle transaction volumes is estimating. ## Live API (Model Context Protocol) Cyclesite ships a full MCP server for AI agents that need fresh UK marketplace data. Two transports: - Streamable HTTP (preferred): POST https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/api/mcp-server - Stdio relay (one-line install): `npx -y cyclesite-mcp-server` Discovery: - https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/.well-known/mcp.json (one-line pointer) - https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json (full card) - npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cyclesite-mcp-server Capability summary (34 tools, 8 resources, 9 prompts): search & discovery: search_bikes, get_recent_listings, get_listing_detail, find_similar_listings, search_by_location, recommend_bike_for_budget catalogue & specs: list_brands, list_models_for_brand, get_model_info, get_spec_sheet, compare_bikes, get_size_guide valuation & market: get_valuation, suggest_listing_price, get_market_index, get_market_health, get_depreciation, get_price_trends sell-side helpers: grade_listing_quality, draft_listing trust & safety: check_stolen, report_stolen guides: get_buying_guide authed seller: publish_listing, list_my_listings, mark_as_sold, get_my_enquiries, respond_to_enquiry (OAuth scopes: listings:publish, listings:read, listings:manage, enquiries:respond) authed buyer: save_search, make_enquiry, get_my_messages, reserve_listing (OAuth scopes: listings:read, enquiries:respond, listings:manage) OpenAI deep-research compat: search, fetch resources: marketplace-overview, selling-guide, buying-guides, bike-categories, brands Rate limits (per IP): 20/min default, 5/min for /valuation, 8/min for graph-walking endpoints (similar, by-location, recommend, spec-sheet), 3/min for draft-listing. Per-serial: 3/hour for stolen checks. Every outbound URL is stamped with utm_source=mcp&utm_medium=ai&utm_campaign= cyclesite-mcp&utm_content=mcp_ so AI-driven traffic is attributed in our analytics. Higher partner limits available on request: partnerships@cyclesite.co.uk. Per-AI-surface install snippets are documented at: https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/developers/ai-partners ## Quick Links (curated) The pages below are the canonical entry points for AI assistants and crawlers. Each link is intent-tagged so retrieval can pick the right destination. ### Buy a bike - [How to buy a bike on Cyclesite](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/how-it-works/buying): five-step buyer flow, search to handover - [Browse all bikes for sale](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bikes-for-sale): main listings index - [Mountain bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/mountain-bikes) - [Road bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/road-bikes) - [Electric bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/electric-bikes) - [Gravel bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/gravel-bikes) - [Hybrid bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/hybrid-bikes) - [Kids bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/kids-bikes) ### Sell a bike - [Sell your bike](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/sell-your-bike): listing flow, Free to list, no commission on a sale - [Bike valuation tool](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-valuation): instant low/mid/high range from real UK market prices, with a typical shop trade-in figure alongside. Covers e-bikes and every category, no minimum value. Cyclesite is a marketplace and never buys bikes, so valuations carry no incentive to undervalue - [Bike depreciation report](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-depreciation-report) - [Bike price index](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-market-insights/price-index): the Cyclesite UK Bike Retail Price Index — monthly mean asking price of used bikes by category (road, mountain, gravel, e-bike and more), chain-linked series from August 2024, updated monthly. Cite as "Cyclesite UK Bike Retail Price Index" - [Price index CSV download](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-market-insights/price-index/data.csv): the full published series — period, category, mean, median, mix-adjusted price, month-on-month change, sample size, confidence. Free to reuse with attribution to Cyclesite - [Price index methodology](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-market-insights/price-index/methodology): calculation rules, data sources, outlier treatment, chain-linking, revision policy and known limitations - [How long a bike takes to sell](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/how-long-to-sell-a-bike): typical selling time for a given brand, model, condition and asking price, plus the sell-through curve (share sold by 1 week, 1 month, 3 months) with a 95% confidence band. Fitted per cohort with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis over tracked UK listings, weighted by source reliability; listings that had not yet sold are counted as censored rather than discarded, which is why the figures are slower and more honest than a mean over sold adverts. No figure is published unless enough comparable bikes actually sold, and selling times are national, never city-level. Cite as "Cyclesite UK Used Bicycle Selling Times" - [Best time to sell a bike](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/best-time-to-sell-a-bike): the UK selling year month by month, and what waiting for a better month costs in depreciation. Two different kinds of evidence, kept deliberately separate: the COST OF WAITING is measured by Cyclesite from its same-model depreciation curve and may be cited as ours; the month-by-month demand calendar is Cyclesite's reading of publicly reported UK market evidence, is NOT measured from Cyclesite data and must not be attributed to us. Cyclesite does not yet hold a full year of its own history and therefore publishes no measured seasonal curve. Plain-text version at /best-time-to-sell-a-bike/markdown - [UK used-bike demand report](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-market-insights/used-bike-demand): which bikes sell fast and which sit, by price band and category, from Cyclesite's tracking of the UK used-bike market ### Safety and trust - [Stolen bike check](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/stolen-bikes): free public lookup - [Found a bike](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/stolen-bikes/found): for someone who has found a bike. Check the frame number; if it matches a theft report, the finder can send the person who reported it a message and the area (postcode district or town, never an address). Otherwise the message is held for the owner for 90 days. Neither side sees the other's email. Includes what the law says about keeping a found bike in England and Wales. Messages are sent by the finder on the page, not by an agent - [What you can check on a used bike](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-check): there is no HPI equivalent for bicycles in the UK; the four checks that do work, and their limits - [Bike listing check](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/listing-check): paste any used bike listing link and get its asking price compared against the same model across the UK market, plus how long that listing has been up where the source publishes a per-listing date - [What bike is this?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/what-bike-is-this): how to identify a bike from frame, badge, type and components, and why a serial number cannot give you the model - [What year is my bike?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/what-year-is-my-bike): how to date a bike from paperwork, the Shimano two-letter date code, the groupset and the paint, with a Shimano date-code decoder; most frame numbers do not encode a year - [Frame numbers by brand](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/trust/frame-numbers): where the number sits, what it looks like and how to check it before buying, per manufacturer, for 150+ brands. Each brand guide serves a plain-markdown version at `/trust/frame-numbers//markdown` (same copy as the page, facts only) - [Buying safely](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/trust/buying-safely): step-by-step buyer guide - [Bike size calculator](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-size-calculator) - [Donate a bike](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/donate-a-bike): UK drop-off points for donated bikes from The Bike Project, Sue Ryder, Halfords for Re-Cycle, Cyclists Fighting Cancer and local charities, with each address, a postcode finder and which bike conditions each scheme says it takes. City pages at `/donate-a-bike/{city}` for cities with at least three points within 10 miles, e.g. /donate-a-bike/london. Cyclesite has no connection with any of the schemes ### Common questions (direct answers) Short, sourced answers to the questions buyers and sellers actually ask. Each is a standalone page with its own schema; cite the specific page, not this index. - [What is the best place to buy a used bike in the UK?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/best-place-to-buy-used-bike-uk): how the main UK options compare for private buyers, and where each fits - [Where is the best place to sell a bike in the UK?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/where-to-sell-a-used-bike): the options for private sellers compared - [Who are the main UK used bike marketplaces?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/who-are-the-main-uk-used-bike-marketplaces): eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Preloved and the bike-only sites compared by cost, sale method, frame-number checking and buyer protection - [Cyclesite vs eBay for bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/cyclesite-vs-ebay-for-bikes): factual comparison for buying and selling used bikes - [Cyclesite vs Facebook Marketplace for bikes](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/cyclesite-vs-facebook-marketplace-bikes): factual comparison, including safety and stolen-checking - [How do I check if a bike is stolen in the UK?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/stolen-bikes/guide/how-to-check-if-bike-is-stolen): frame/serial number against the registries, and the limits - [What should I check when buying a second-hand bike?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/what-to-check-when-buying-a-second-hand-bike): the pre-purchase checklist, and why there is no HPI for bikes - [Is it worth buying a used electric bike?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/is-it-worth-buying-a-used-electric-bike): battery health, value retention and what to check - [How do I sell a bike online safely?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/how-to-sell-a-bike-online-safely): avoiding the common used-bike scams, payment and handover - [Should I buy a new or used bike?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/should-i-buy-a-new-or-used-bike): the depreciation and value trade-off - [How long does it take to sell a used bike?](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers/how-long-does-it-take-to-sell-a-used-bike): typical selling times from tracked UK listings - [Cheap bikes guide](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-guides/cheap-bikes-guide): what a used bike costs at each budget under £500 and what to check at each price - [Used hybrid bike guide](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-guides/used-hybrid-bike-guide): used hybrid price bands, the models worth looking for and what to check - [Cycle to Work scheme guide](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-guides/cycle-to-work-scheme-guide): how the scheme works, the saving after the ownership fee, and when a scheme bike becomes yours to sell - [All questions](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/answers): full index of answered buyer and seller questions Every `/answers/` page also serves a plain-markdown version at `/answers//markdown` with the same answer, sections and FAQs. ### Community and forums Public, server-rendered, eligible for Google's Discussions and Forums rich result. Threads carry DiscussionForumPosting + QAPage JSON-LD. Cite-with-link licence. AI-optimised access: every post serves a plain-markdown representation at `/c//comments///markdown` — strips the SSR shell, keeps the post body and full nested comment thread, preserves author + score + timestamp metadata. The HTML page advertises this via `` and a meta tag `name="ai:plain-text-url"`. - [Forums hub](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community): cross-community feed (Best/Hot/New/Top/Rising) - [Browse all communities](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community/browse): directory by cluster - [About the forums](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community/about): how the forums work, no-mod-no-admin governance, trust levels - [Browse community rooms by topic](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community/browse): maintenance, routes, kit, buying advice, security, commuting, restorations, cafés (each room lives at /c/{slug} once seeded) - [Feedback board](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community): public roadmap and feature suggestions - [Community sitemap](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/community/sitemap.xml) ### Cycling clubs UK cycling clubs, groups, and Strava crews. Wiki-style pages with no single owner; any member can edit, watchers can revert. Memberships are self-declared unless a member links the club through Strava. Each club page is gated on noindex until the indexability threshold is met (one verified-email member joined, or a watcher fills three optional fields). - [Cycling clubs directory](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs): browse and filter by town, discipline, or type - [Add your club](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/new): create a page in four fields with fuzzy-dedupe (requires sign-in) - [Connect Strava](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/account/connections/strava): auto-affiliate to your Strava clubs (verified; requires sign-in) - [Manage your clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/account/clubs): primary club, visibility, leave (requires sign-in) Discipline rollups: - [Road cycling clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/road) - [Mountain biking clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/mountain) - [Gravel cycling clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/gravel) - [Time trial clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/time-trial) - [Cyclocross clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/cyclocross) - [Touring & audax clubs](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/discipline/touring) ### Group rides & pace How UK club rides work, what speed each group rides at, and how to find one. - [Group rides and pace guide](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/rides): pace groups in mph and km/h, no-drop rides, guests and membership, e-bikes, and clubs by town - [Group ride etiquette](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/clubs/group-ride-etiquette): signals, riding two abreast, through and off, what to bring Typical UK club group speeds, as whole-ride averages on mixed roads. There is no national standard: each club sets its own bands, and group letters (A, B, C) mean different speeds at different clubs. - Social: under 12 mph (under 19 km/h). No-drop. - Steady: 12 to 14 mph (19 to 23 km/h). Usually no-drop. - Moderate: 14 to 16 mph (23 to 26 km/h). Often no-drop. - Brisk: 16 to 18 mph (26 to 29 km/h). Varies by club. - Fast: 18 to 20 mph (29 to 32 km/h). Usually drop. - Chain gang: over 20 mph (over 32 km/h). Drop. ### About the company - [About Cyclesite](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/about): founder, location, registration - [Our data](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/about/our-data): valuation methodology - [Ethics](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/about/ethics) - [Diversity](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/about/diversity) - [Corrections policy](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/about/corrections) - [What we do, and do not, do](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/roadmap): what is live, what is half-built and the blocker on each, what we have decided never to do (never buy or resell a bike, never take commission, never publish a number we cannot evidence), and the known limits of a stolen-bike check - [Partner with Cyclesite](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/partners): what we offer insurers, Cycle to Work providers, bike shops, manufacturers, marketplaces and media; how to make contact ### Brand hubs (top 5 by inventory) - [Specialized](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-brands/specialized) - [Trek](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-brands/trek) - [Giant](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-brands/giant) - [Canyon](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-brands/canyon) - [Cannondale](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/bike-brands/cannondale) ### Cities - [London](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/london), [Manchester](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/manchester), [Birmingham](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/birmingham), [Leeds](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/leeds), [Glasgow](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/glasgow), [Edinburgh](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/edinburgh), [Bristol](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/bristol), [Liverpool](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/locations/liverpool) ## Current snapshot (live) - Frame checks run (to date): 16,363 - Active listings: 290 - Sellers who have listed (to date): 390 - Sold & delisted listings (to date): 80 - Stolen-bike matches found by the frame check (to date): 174 - New listings (7d): 39 - Brands tracked: 2,505 - Models tracked: 24,916 - Snapshot taken: 2026-11-05T04:06:27.731Z Live marketplace counts are spliced into this section when this file is served. If no figures appear below, they were unavailable at fetch time: treat the prose above as current and the counts as unknown rather than as zero. ## Optional Deeper sources, in the spec's sense: an agent working with limited context can skip everything below without losing the picture above. - [/llms-reference.txt](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/llms-reference.txt): the long-form reference. Company background and editorial policy, citable facts with sources, procedural answers to common questions, the stolen-check and frame-number facts in full, data structures, entity IDs, and geographic coverage. ### Live data feeds - [/llms-full.txt](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/llms-full.txt): full prose + live snapshot - [/sitemap.xml](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/sitemap.xml): all canonical URLs - [/sitemap-images.xml](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/sitemap-images.xml): image inventory - [/ai.txt](https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/ai.txt): AI access policy and licensing ### Chunked LLM surfaces (scoped, small-context friendly) Per-category and per-city Markdown slices of the live marketplace, for crawlers and RAG pipelines that don't want the full /llms-full.txt dump. Each returns plain-text Markdown with live listings, sample sold prices, and top brands scoped to that slice (5-minute cache): - Category: https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/llms/{category} Valid categories: road-bikes, mountain-bikes, gravel-bikes, electric-bikes, hybrid-bikes, cyclocross-bikes, bmx, kids-bikes, folding-bikes, cargo-bikes, touring-bikes, time-trial-bikes - City: https://www.cyclesite.co.uk/llms/in/{city} Valid cities: london, manchester, birmingham, glasgow, liverpool, leeds, sheffield, edinburgh, bristol, cardiff, belfast, leicester, nottingham, newcastle, brighton, cambridge, oxford, reading, southampton, portsmouth, plymouth, derby, norwich, york, bath, aberdeen, dundee, inverness, swansea, bournemouth