Most road bike auctions on eBay run 3, 5, 7, or 10 days, ending at whatever exact time the seller listed it. eBay uses proxy bidding: you enter the maximum you're willing to pay and the system only bids as much as needed to keep you in the lead, up to that max.
This is a dated snapshot, not a live feed. Auction clocks and prices on the boards moved after that; confirm on eBay.
A reserve auction has a hidden minimum price the seller set; the listing says "Reserve not met" until bidding clears it. A no-reserve auction sells to the highest bidder no matter how low that ends up being, which is why no-reserve listings often get the most bidding activity in the final minutes.
Frame size in the actual measurement system the seller used (cm seat tube vs a generic S/M/L label can mean different things between brands). Every photo, not just the hero shot, for carbon frame stress cracks near the head tube, bottom bracket, and seat stays. Groupset generation, not just the tier name, since a "105" from 2010 shifts differently than current 105. Wheel size and hub spacing if you're buying a frame or bike where you plan to keep or swap wheels. Shipping cost and method for a full bike: bike-specific freight often costs more than the winning bid on a budget auction.
Bids are binding; eBay retracts them only in narrow cases (like a typo caught within minutes). Sniping tools and last-second manual bids are common on higher-demand listings, so a bike sitting at a low price with hours left is not a reliable signal of final price. Buy It Now disappears the moment any bid is placed on an auction that offers it, so on a bike you want at that fixed price, don't wait.
One habit worth more than any spreadsheet: before bidding on a frame, ask the seller for close photos of the head-tube junction (FIG. 1). Hairline cracks hide there on carbon and lugged steel alike, and they rarely show in the hero photo. That question costs nothing and has killed more bad buys than any bid strategy.
See the auction-format snapshot rows on auctions ending soon, or skip bidding entirely with Buy It Now road bikes.