The cost of bicycles

Did anyone tell him that for that much money, he could get a decent used car and save himself all the pedaling?

 

Last year I bought a new bike for $800 to replace the aging junk I had. It has hydraulic breaks, and heavy duty suspension. I went to Moab with it and it performed extremely well. But boy, you gotta be fit. Nevertheless it is the best investment I ever made to enjoy the outdoors.

But $10,000 grand for a bike? yikes. :surprised

 

I just splurged for my first new bike since 1993:

http://www.evanscycles.com/product_image/image/568/da5/84a/41207/product_page/specialized-tricross-comp-2010-cyclo-cross-bike.jpg [Broken]
just under $2000. That was, and I use it for my daily commute.

$10,000? Sorry dude, that's flamboyant.

 

I'll buy myself a nice Specialized one of these days. I am just too lazy to do the pedaling.

 

That's the low-end these days. In 2003, I think, Tyler Hamilton's Phonak team were riding $20,000 machines.

 

That's not all that extraordinary. A low-end road bike might have a 3 lb frame and 3-3.5 lb wheels.

A big question in my mind is whether going to such extreme lengths as building a custom $10,000 bike has any effect on performance. Most serious competitions require bikes to weigh at least 15 lbs. My $600 Trek weighs 20. I think I can make it 17 or 18 with $300 of upgrades. Not that I have any desire to do so, because I'm not a competitive cyclist and I need to lose a lot of weight myself before I start splurging on the bike.

BTW, all those racing regulations seriously limit innovation. Forget weight. Road bikes of this day have aerodynamics of a brick (Cd ~0.9). Surely there are ways to cut that substantially by adding some lightweight composite fairings. Alas, those are banned...

 

completely agree. i have a collegiate class license, but i've seen some cat 1 guys, and their bikes are insane, but $10,000 seems quite a bit exorbitant even by racing standards, especially when you consider that unless you're cat 1 or above, you probably aren't good enough for most of what you're paying for to have any effect.

 

If you are riding a bicycle for exercise, then doesn't getting a more efficient bicycle defeat the purpose? If you are using it for transportation, then are you going to leave a $10,000 outside when you get to your destination?

 

people who spend more than $750-$1000 on a bike don't buy the bike for exercise or commuting. they buy it for the sport.

 

Actually, I participate in the sport of bike-weighing.

Seriously, there is a huge jump in the quality of the frame and components when you go from $1000 to $2000. It's mostly in the components. The function isn't linear though. You have to spend twice as much more money to get "just a little better," and so on.

 

Over a decade ago, I spent almost $300 on my mountain bike. I thought that was a lot of money then, but that was the price-point I had to meet to get quality shifters, good brakes, etc. When you're bashing a bike around on rough trails and logging roads, you want something that will hold up, so you can ride it back out, not walk it back out.

A friend of mine in college 40 years ago had a Peugot road-bike that cost well over $300 back then. It was a PITA, because he had to take it apart and lug it up to his room every night so it wouldn't get stolen.

 

My ex-boss spent a few grand on a bicycle and he only used it for exercise/commuting. He figured riding his bike to work was good multitasking.

 

I spent $1890 for my bike (see p.1), almost exclusively for commuting.