Originally Posted by
livedarklions
So you do know you definitely weren't the newbie me and
tomato coupe were talking about, right? I'd hate for you to be under that impression because you've done nothing to be obnoxious.
I've been around campuses a lot including one very elite one with a generally rich student body, and I've never seen the above scenario. I don't doubt your word that you've seen it, but I really don't see losing any sleep about it.
I wasn't under that misapprehension.
But I haven't ever owned a super expensive bike myself.
I ballparked the figures. Looking online, 5 kg was too low. It seems more like 8 kg for a carbon frame road bike. Whatever. My point still stands that some people go overboard into biking and then quickly lose interest. It happems with everything, but is the clearest case of a waste of money in biking. Calling a $120 pair of bike shorts a waste of money depends on who is buying.
As far as price, just searching online with Google and new bike shops online, a disc brake carbon frame model seems to go for $2,000-$6,000, with many between $3,000-$4,000. I was not that far off by saying that some are $5,000.
I cannot spot a $6,000 bike from a $3,000 bike in a line-up, but looking online, some brands I have seen go for the low end and others go for $6,000. The people I am talkimg about are not piecing together bikes from scratch. They are the ones going into the local bike shops and buying the tagged models that go for $3,500 and up. I have been in for parts and noticed middle-aged men with teenagers in college vicinities buying said bikes. It does happen. And when you are in an area with extremely low bikes per capita, you notice said bikes on racks easily. There is also a weird habit for newbies to get racing road bikes and very high-end MTB bikes ... in Florida, which is flat as can be. Yes, people are buying bikes for thousands and thousands of dollars and use them to commute around campus for a month and lose interest within a couple months. You see the bikes every late August and early September and then they are almost all out of sight by October.
Not you, lions, but the poster above you fixed upon my figures. I really do not think we need to quibble over whether a $2,000 bike or a $6,000 bike is de facto abandoned in order to say that someone just wasted thousands of dollars.