A350driver

What I find hilarious is the guy who will pay $14k for a 16lb bike but he’s 30 pounds overweight!

mschwett 

i have one of the bikes being bandied about here - an s-works aethos with 12 speed DA. i ride it to and from work a couple days a week, three or four rides for riding’s sake every week, around 500 miles a month. i don’t “baby” it (it sees rough roads, some gravel, dirt, sand, rain, etc) but i don’t bang it around or lock it up outside the grocery store.

at the rate it’s going, i’ll probably sell it in 5 or 10 years, and the difference in life cycle cost per mile will be a nickel or something. i enjoy the hell out of the bike almost every day, love riding it, it makes me want to ride more, so it’s “worth” it to me. i’m sure i’d also love the less expensive trims of the same bike, but the difference in cost is really marginal over the life cycle of the bike.

tomato coupe

What I find hilarious is the guy that cares how much someone else spends on their bike and how much they weigh.

veganbikes

That bike is way too fragile to ride daily, ff you read certain 110% factual opinions here (with a 110% margin for error) that bike is probably going to asplode and it cannot take racks or go mountain biking so it is clearly not able to be ridden daily.

Would love to see pictures!

Rolla

Two good points here. One is that when you amortize the purchase over the length of ownership, even an expensive bike is fairly reasonable, especially compared to some other sports/hobbies I can think of. The other is the whole "pride of ownership" aspect you allude to; I want to be excited when I go out for a ride! I can (and do) get that feeling from my cheaper bikes too, but spending a sunny day on my "good" bike often motivates me to ride a little more/longer/faster, and that only adds to its value.

tomato coupe

And, yet, there are people on this forum that have directly stated that you are stupid for spending that much money on a bike, because their tiny brains can't fathom that it's a worthwhile purchase for you.

mschwett 

i mean … they may be right that i’m stupid 😂😂 but probably not because of my bike purchases and use 🤔

totally agree, having something you really like and have spent time tuning/upgrading/adjusting/maintaining generates a positive vibe. it doesn’t have to be expensive to do this but some people just like very specific things, and some people don’t.

it’s a little like driving a sports car to work i guess - perfectly suitable for the task, not really a lot “faster,” but very enjoyable. something to look forward to at the beginning and end of the day.

and since this is a thread about reverse snobbery bikes i’ll add some pictures of said bikes.

current setup


oh no, it’s leaning on a tree!


oh no, salt water!


oh no, rough wet roads with debris!


oh no, it’s dirty!



and now clean (ish)


second one to the office, in an hour there will be 30 bikes in here


with my daughter (behind her sirrus) at the local ice cream place

tempocyclist

Well they likely worked hard enough in life to afford plenty of fine food that they love to eat and nice high end bikes that they love to ride.

Good on them I say. 🙂

beng1

The governing bodies for bicycle racing, if they were not hopelessly corrupt, should remove the cost of equipment from being a factor in bicycle racing by making everyone compete on the same low-end bicycles. They should just race on round steel tube framed cycles with the wall thickness dictated in the specs as not being exotic, they should dictate aluminum wheels and a certain number of steel spokes, and they should cap the number of speeds the drivetrain has at twenty. Clincher only tires would be allowed and no exotic materials, just steel and aluminum. This way the races would be won by riders not money, and it is always good for society to show people it can be just fine if it is not centered around wealth and the "new" and instead centered around things that matter much more.

wolfchild

Not even a chain stay bridge or points for mounting full fenders ??....Must feel nice getting splattered with road grime..I guess to each his own, personally I prefer to have full fenders on all of my bikes. Fenders keep my clothes and my roll top backpack clean.

genejockey 

Specialized Aethos S-works. 5.9 kg. With disc brakes, and a > 275# rider weight limit.
https://www.specialized.com/us/en/s-...=321744-199439
Didn't see mschwett post his beautiful Aethos. I blame PG&E - our power has been out since 8 AM and this is the first time I've been on BF today.

LesterOfPuppets

​​​​​​They have that in Japan. Not sure if they use clinchers or sewups, and the number of speeds is capped at one instead of 20...

wolfchild

I don't race so the governing bodies of bicycle racing or UCI rules don't apply to me. I am free to ride whatever bikes I want.

genejockey 

He's getting closer to it.

mschwett 

never really been an issue, never come back from a ride with road grime on my shirt. recent weeks aside it doesn’t rain often here. my errand/child seat bike has full fenders and i’ll ride it when appropriate. there are also simple, light and effective rear fenders that attach to the seat post if i really wanted a rear fender.

Polaris OBark

Ours was only out for 3 hours last night.

But it has still been out more than on in 2023.

genejockey 

Thought of that way, his Aethos is much cheaper than one tire I had, which cost me $40 (in 1998 dollars), and lasted < 100 yards before a shard of glass cut the casing.

vonfilm 

$13,549 plus $535 freight
Two Racing Bikes

genejockey 

Yikes! This is the only time we've lost power. But we're in the heart of San Mateo.

genejockey 

Pretty sure I could tell the difference.

genejockey 

Yep. I just got one, after my abortive 13 mile ride on New Years Day that left me with soggy shorts. It was like all the mud went right into the shorts/saddle interface and left me looking like I'd crapped my pants. I ordered a SKS S-blade from Performance which arrived the next day, and last Sunday I did 56 miles and no skunk stripe or sodden shorts despite riding through a LOT of water.

tomato coupe

Yawn.

genejockey 

Counterpoint: By allowing experimentation within a limited set of parameters (and the UCI is big on setting parameters), like minimum weight, diamond frame, etc, the UCI encourages bicycle manufacturers to constantly improve bicycles, because that technology trickles down to bikes for average schmoes like me.

If you have enough money - and it doesn't take all that much, in the grand scheme of things - you can own a bike just like the World Tour pros. Or wait a few years and get the same features on a bike for thousands less. Try that with motorsports.

big john

And you can bet on it.

big john

I don't think Hermes wants to take that KTM to his next race.