How much do used bikes actually depreciate?

“A bike loses half its value the moment you ride it off the lot” is the kind of thing people say with confidence and no data. So we measured it. Here is what used road and gravel bike depreciation actually looks like, drawn from ~6,000 live listings across 237 models.

The first-year drop: about 24%

Across the 94 models where we track both new-retail and used pricing, a used bike sells for roughly 76% of its new price on average — a 24%discount. That is the cost of being the second owner: meaningful, but a long way from “half.” The myth oversells it.

It is also an average that hides a wide spread. A lightly used, current-generation bike in a popular size barely discounts at all. An older spec, an awkward size, or a tired drivetrain pushes well past 24%.

The curve by model year

Here is the weighted-median used price by model year, across every road and gravel model we track. Newer model years sit higher; the line falls as bikes age.

What the curve tells you

• ▸Years 1–3 are gentle. A 2022 bike still carries roughly 73%of a 2025 bike’s used value. The steep cliff people imagine is not there.
• ▸The five-year mark holds up. A 2020 model retains about 64% of current-year used value. Half a decade in, a well-kept bike is worth most of what it was.
• ▸Ten years is the real discount. A 2016 bike sits near 41% of current-year value. This is where older standards — rim brakes, narrower tire clearance, 11-speed — start to bite.

Depreciation is not uniform across the bike

The groupset tier you buy into changes the depreciation story. Top- tier builds carry the highest used prices in absolute terms, but they also have the most expensive components to depreciate. Here is the current used-market median by groupset tier:

The practical read: the cheapest way to own a quality bike is to buy a three-to-five-year-old high-tier build. It has shed the first-owner premium, the frame and geometry are still current, and the components are a tier above what the same money buys new.

Method

Figures are weighted-median asking prices computed from active listings across five marketplaces, refreshed daily. Framesets, e-bikes, and listings outside the road/gravel scope are excluded. Year-over-year figures are a cross-section — what each model year sells for today — rather than a single bike tracked through time, so the model mix shifts between years. Treated as a gradient rather than a precise per-bike rate, it is a sound read of the market.