Gazelle? Does anyone know anything about them?

markplaats is a cross between an auction and ebay
sometimes the sellers put a price they are aiming for.
sometimes they just put the item out there to be bid on
there is no real time span for the auctions usually things go through in a few days or when no new bids have been submitted for a certain period of time
my advise is join and auction set a target and keep bidding till you reach your target

most sellers i have e-mailed have been more than perfectly happy to mail to london and with exception to the cost there isn't really any extra effort putting a bike in a box and posting to tokyo
as long as you meet their demand for postage costs and price of the bike i'm sure they'll be happy to ship

Oh right, they list a price they're kind of hoping for, then others throw in their bids until the seller feels one is good enough. I saw that on a few auctions, there were random lowball bids listed. It all makes sense now! Thanks for explaining - really appreciate it.

It's a ballache being so tall in Japan. 10cm shorter and I'd have a world of options.