Charles,
I was the first bidder with the minimum amount; I do that sometimes when I want an item but want to try and prevent the seller from canceling an auction as a result of a request by someone to buy an item outright; I think sellers tend to be more reluctant to cancel an auction once a bid has been placed.
At any rate, re. your comments on the bid up by a zero feedback buyer - I had planned to bid a reasonable amount at the very end of the auction but will not do so now. This bike would have been quite nice for my wife and I and the "pickup only" would be easy as the seller is located within very easy driving distance. This type of bidding is, in my opinion, one of two things. Either the bidder is a shill bidder or a newbie with little bidding experience - hard to believe that someone with zero feedback (so presumably never bought via eBay) would be willing to spend so much on a first purchase. Everyone I know, myself included, was fairly conservative in my bidding/buying when first getting started in the eBay arena.
Eric Elman
Somers, CT USA
>I was toying with bidding on this mercian, but the bid
> history has me a little cautious:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/
>
> Note that someone with zero feedback incrementally bid up
> the bike to its current price. Does anyone else here find
> that at all unusual? Would any of you have some hesitation
> bidding on the item because of this?
>
> The auction will probably end before most of you get this
> post, but I'd be interested in how you feel about this kind
> of thing, on or off the list. I see this from time to time
> and I always wonder a little about it..
>
> Charles Andrews
> SoCal
>
>
> "The deeper I go in considering the
> vanities of popular reasoning, the
> lighter and more foolish I find them."
>
> --Galileo Galilei