Originally Posted by
Koyote
Read my post and cool your jets; I never wrote that college students never bring expensive bikes to campus -- I wrote that I can't recall ever seeing it in over 40 years (5 campuses). I suspect it is very rare, and probably limited to certain (expensive) colleges and universities...And the relative few that have cycling teams.
The nicest bike I ever saw on a college campus belonged to some freshman who sent me an email asking if he could join the local group ride. He showed up on his dad's Trek road bike, which was a mid-level hand-me-down --and then he thoroughly thrashed us and kept thrashing us for four years. He once thrashed me on his $500 fixie while wearing sneakers and cutoffs. (I was on my fancy road bike and wearing full kit.) Now he's wearing the WC Rainbow stripes, so I guess it worked out for him.
My post wasn't intended to be contrary to yours. My post was illustrating that nice bikes very often don't last long at a lot of colleges due to theft, which would certainly contribute to your observations about not seeing nice bikes ridden by students.
I put together a late-90's steel Bianchi as a "townie" bike for my daughter, built from my parts bin, and includes some upper-end components. At the last minute, she decided to not take the bike until she got a feel for whether it would be useful (she also has a car) and safe. That turned out the be a really good choice.