What are the biggest wastes of money in biking?
 

I Set off for a random ride today. I decided I may opt for a longer ride and keep going out.
So, I grabbed an empty plastic soda bottle and filled it with electrolyte water.
I then thought how people waste $40 on a water bottle. Not just bikers, but in general.

What are the biggest wastes of money in biking?

It always goes so well here in threads about money and what things cost. 👍

Otto

Some people get into a mode where they need the newest thing and that's pretty wasteful. MSRP turning into used wholesale value walking out the door of the shop...

Some nice components are a lot longer lasting but the price up front is high and you really need to use them up to realize that as savings. And if you are buying the latest thing all the time you won't ever.

There's definitely a price level in mountain biking where everything works a lot better, and then from there you can spend at least twice that and not get a lot better bike. Some of the components might be better spending than others, but when you get a complete bike everything is upgraded and some of it might not be so needful.

I replaced my hardtail MTB when it got to a point most major components on a similar level bike would not fit up to it. That took about sixteen years. I think that span would be a lot shorter on a suspension bike. And the new bike was a lot better! Things changed in the interim.

It's their money not yours, they can spend as much as they want.

...is this a trick question ?

Half the water bottles I have were free at various events I have done. They stay in the holder much more securely than soda bottles. Most I have ever paid for one was about $10

Because a bottle with a screw-on lid and unregulated flow is exactly what I want to try and drink from while riding...

N = -1

Roadmaster bikes from WalMart.

Sometimes you just want a certain kind of thing, and you have enough money for it, and it makes you happy, so that’s not really a waste. If we talk about how things look on paper, in terms of cost to performance/utility/convenience value, there are lots of examples of “waste.”

Near the top of the list might be carbon fiber water bottle cages. They are only a few grams lighter and maybe slightly tougher than ordinary plastic or metal ones, at several times the cost. Full disclosure: I own a few Campagnolo carbon cages. I think they cost me around $120 on clearance, for two cages and two bottles. I don’t regret the purchase. They’re a very cool accessory; they just don’t stand up to financial scrutiny.

At a bike shop today I saw an Enve bike seat priced at $400. It is very light and sleek. Is it twice as good as a $200 seat? Almost certainly not. But it’s way cool. If you have enough money that you can buy stuff like this and not go without food and shelter… why not indulge?

Drinking and riding seems dangerous

I’ll second that. GMC Denali bikes and Kent whatevers are the same category. A $200 bike that will not work well even when new, and will not last through three seasons of serious riding. That’s a waste. Spend like $500 or so, and you can get something really decent that will serve you for many years.

Lol at using a water bottle. I tow a hose behind me. Free.

Larry does it all the time.

I think lighting up at 4:20 is dangerous in a Cat 6 race

My Camelback Podium Ice Bottles are now $30 but I had my first one (which I still own and use to this day and got for much less) for 10 years so at todays cost that is $3 a year for a bottle that I am still using and still gives me water that tastes like water with minimal maintenance and really excellent insulating properties. I would say that is pretty darn good. I know Cheapo is a troll but seriously folks a bottle that lasts a long time and will still keep going for many years to come is a good deal in my book.

The biggest waste of money is the bandwidth to hold threads like this.

Its gotta be the garmin varia. How do people go through life worrying about a car hitting them from behind

Buying a bike to ride and not riding it or giving/selling it to someone who will ride it.

Paying for a 'premium' (or whatever it's called) membership on teh Biek Formz and being subjected to stupid threads like this one.

Fortunately, I've yet to do that.

$40 water bottles? Where do you get this stuff? The average price on the REI site for basic bottles are $6 to $18.

How about a little research before making wild claims or touting how cost effective you are?

A $6 bottle is not being foolish with money. Besides, are you secure in your knowledge that your single use bottle doesn’t contain BPAs? I know mine don’t. Cancer costs a whole lot more in the long than touting how cost effective you are and implying everyone else are saps.

PS: buying a water bottle is NOT A BIG waste of money. Not even close.

Internet.

John

Bottled soda. Now there is a waste of money.

Not on a trike. Oh and I am bracing myself for hate mail.

In most anything you buy, buy the mid-level product. Who really needs a $16,000 bike, to just ride on the MUPS around town.

Pneumatic tires, pumps and patch kits, chain drives, shifters, cassettes and chainrings, brakes and brake pads.

Hey, why worry about what someone else spends on whatever.

They derive some sort of satisfaction or pleasure from purchasing said goods.

As you know, there are some folks that have incredible income and wealth that what may seem outrageous to ordinary folks that travel using commercial airlines(whether coach-business class or first class) and drive their own cars, rather than having a chaufeur, and a pilot to fly them wherever they wish, in anything from a humble King Air to a super-fly Gulfstream G-5. So yeah, if you're very successful in what you do, and on top of that, just more than a little bit lucky, you to could be in that very small fraternity of the beyond incredibly affluent, somebody fitting that example would be Dick Grasso. You say who? ...not related to the Kardashians, or an NBA star, or a famous rapper, country music star, or a rock star's name, or anybody from Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Tesla that you know of..
Apologies to Dick, as his name is just one that popped into my head for just a random example. There are hundreds and hundreds of other fine folks that have significant means like Mr. Grasso. Hey, they all aren't superstar famous like Kim K., LeBron, Tom Brady, John Travolta, George Clooney, Jay Leno, Garth Brooks, or Keith Richards.

Look at it this way that they are providing at least some tiny part of keeping the economy stimulated.

You can't take it with you.
Now having said that, my wife and I enjoy nice vacations, but we keep it realistic, so I think that renting Jagger's little place on Turks and Caicos, for $57,000 (us dollars) per night is out of the question for us. Hell, we look for airfare deals and book ahead accordingly at places like Holiday Inns, so there is no way in the world that we would be that extravagant.* (*) Now theoretically, if we were in that financial league, who the hell knows, as if its a drop in the bucket..........you can say all say that yeah, we wouldn't even if............but reality might be different, ....anyway it isn't something that I will ever need to ponder.

Don't worry about what or how much some of your pals spend money on.~ ... (~) Unless of course, you are the bankruptcy attorney and your pal is the client declaring bankruptcy,
Be happy for your pals that are prospering economically.
Remember though, that all the money in the world cannot buy good health. It certainly can help attain the best treatment and doctors available, but that is it.
All the money in the world cannot guarantee health or happiness.
Why waste time and energy worrying about what others waste their own money on. I'll bet that you have never gone down to any local city council/county commission meetings to voice your input on just how your city council/county commission is wasting your tax dollars. Oh hell no, everybody notices that Sally G. ....Robert's wife two houses down the street, got a new Blue RANGE ROVER or Mercedes, yet she teaches 3rd grade and Robert is a self employed CPA, and they have four kids aged 9 to age 17, .. (Neighbor TERESA says:)".oh you know Molly, I just don't know how they can afford that" (Neighbor MOLLY replies to Teresa: " oh yeah Terri, must be something we don't know about, as Janet tells me that Sally spends $95 every two weeks getting her hair done, and she tells me Sally must spend $2000 a month on clothes, not to mention her $375 shoes that she has so many pairs of.) The girls in neighborhood aren't necessarily the worst at doing this as you know the guys do it as bad or worse, just not as non-stop often. Hey, I am not pointing any fingers. My hearing is still at least minimally good enough to hear this type of gossip around here, and my guess is that no matter where you live, you have something similar if not so mindless and brainless chattering from spoiled folks with too much time on their hands, and a need to vet and/or judge and "approve of" what is happening. It is silly. I see that it fosters from the wine consumption sessions that the girls on the street have. I have used the term, girls, even though everybody is somewhere between 37 years old and 85 years old. Maybe stupidity like this is more prevalent with affluent Southerners who have never lived anywhere else. You see far less of this in areas like Hilton Head and Isle of Palms, where better educated, better raised, folks from elsewhere in the US have changed the landscape there for the better over the past 50 + years.

In a nutshell, don't worry too much about what all the other little nuts are doing. (yeah, if it concerns how your taxpayer dollars are squandered and pissed away, then you have a reason to voice your opinion at city council/county commission meetings, but nobody seems to care about that..............they only seem to get concerned about silly as hell things.) I'm just a dumbass, and certainly not one of the brightest bulbs on the christmas tree, but that is how my pea sized brain sees it.