rsbob 

You may not care, but you also are saving major watts with your flat bar, which means you can go farther or faster for the same output

PeteHski

Would be interesting to fact check this, if anyone can be bothered. But I know I certainly couldn't afford a pro-level road race bike growing up in the 70s or 80s. I very much remember lusting over them in Harry Hall's pro shop in Manchester and they were miles out of my league as a student. I eventually managed to cobble together one of his budget Reynolds frames with a 105 groupset (mid 80s vintage with "Biopace" chainset) and that wasn't cheap for the time.

Modern top-end bikes are also not priced the same as automobiles. I wish I could buy a decent new car for £10k!

tomato coupe

Here’s a quick fact check: the average price for a new car sold in May 2022 is just over $47,000.

PeteHski

Cars are easily more affordable today than they were in the 70s and 80s. When I grew up it was rare to see more than 1 car per household and very few people owned high-end models. Now pretty much anyone can get themselves into a fairly high-end car on credit. Even your average bog-standard housing estate is packed full of fairly new Audis, BMWs, Mercs etc. with inadequate parking space for every household "fleet". Back in the 70s the very same housing estate would have contained roughly 1x Ford Cortina or Morris Marina per household.

Come to think of it I also don't recall seeing ordinary club riders on pro-level bikes like you routinely see today. Now I don't bat an eyelid when someone rocks up on a £12k S-Works or Colnago. It's not exactly a rare sight. Again credit makes it easy it for the average Joe to acquire one if they choose.

Herzlos

Cheapest UK car is £15k new, so you could manage to spend more on a bike than a car, but it's a bit of a stretch.

PeteHski

For a fair comparison we could compare the cheapest UK car to the cheapest UK bike - which is roughly £150. So about a factor of 100 cheaper.

livedarklions

Is that true? Seems like the latest tech guys skew kind of old, especially with bicycles.

livedarklions

Back to cars again? Lots of reasons households are more likely to own multiple cars now besides price. First, far more likely now to be a two-income household where both spouses need and can afford to buy a car. Also, the cars last much longer, so almost no one is replacing their car every 3 years, which used to be quite common.

PeteHski

Are you kidding me? Here in the UK people shell through new cars like peas. I'm not saying that's a good thing at all, but it's the way the market works. Manufacturers and dealerships go out of their way to get more new cars out on the road. Most finance deals are over 3-5 years and designed to get you into a new car at the end to rinse and repeat the cycle. Maybe it's different over there.

Herzlos

I think that's a very strange quirk of the UK, that having a new car on a lease/purchase deal that refreshes every 3 years is desirable. It doesn't seem as bad as anywhere else in the world where they'll usually buy a new car and run it into the ground.
Of course we also have a lot of coast and road salt which causes cars to rust a lot faster than somewhere like Spain or central USA.

PeteHski

Yeah I agree. From my limited experience over the pond people tend to keep their cars a lot longer. Interesting thing here is that the hire purchase "model" now pretty much applies to every relatively expensive product, including high-end bikes. Nearly all of the £10k bikes on our roads will be financed over 3-5 years exactly like a car. Not many people will walk into the shop and put down £10k up front. Most people just don't have that kind of cash to hand.

GhostRider62

My first new car was a 1980 Toyota Celica ST for $4100. A very nice Campy NR bike was $1200. I was making $7.50/hr working fulltime on the night shift while doing my engineering degree during the day. Yes, everything is so much cheaper today.

PeteHski

That's interesting thanks. I tend to agree that everything is relatively cheaper today and the standard of living is generally much higher as a result. Obviously depends where in the world you live of course!

Sticking with bikes, the average UK club rider today is far more likely to be riding a pro-tour level bike than at any time I can remember in the past. No doubt the highest of high-end bikes have widened the goalposts over the last decade, but if you drop down a tier or two there is much better value and you still get performance ahead of what was state-of-the-art only a few years earlier. That's kind of my strategy with bikes. I tend to buy second tier models and replace them every 5 or so years. I don't see much value of the very top-end diminishing returns.

BTinNYC 

This. The road feel on the new CF bike is a amazing compared to my much loved steel race bike.


Silent?
Very, except coasting on this DT Swiss hub...OMG, it sounds like a deep sea fishing reel getting spun out by a running marlin! No longer need a bike bell, but dammit, my hardcore riding buddy/mentor knows whenever I stop cranking.

GhostRider62

Few of the people I ride with are on top of the line bikes. More likely to be on older bikes but my county has fallen on hard times, we used to be the 3rd highest income in the country but just got pushed out of the top 10. People used to buy their cars and bikes back then. They say the average american doesn't have the cash to make a $5,000 repair on their car.

I see a lot of Shimano 105 on midlevel carbon bikes, very few DA or SRAM Red. Such a machine is far better in comfort, ease of use and speed than the steel campy bikes of 40+ years ago. Perhaps, the high end bikes are in urban areas.

GhostRider62

I wish my Cervelo was silent. The freehub sounds like a garbage disposal. The seatpost creaks, the BB is a PITA creaker too

Herzlos

That's a very good point, but not just for the top end stuff; Halfords offer credit plans on all of their bike ranges, and most of the online retailers do similar.
I usually buy 2nd hand bikes so paid cash, but paid for my good bike over 12 months worth of installments (part of a tax free cycle scheme).

But then I think we can pretty much pay up anything these days. Phones, TV's, furniture, etc.

Kapusta

Bikes are not cars, and 95% of analogies or comparisons of the two are a complete waste of time.

Same goes for electronics, airplanes, motorcycles, and golf clubs.

Herzlos

I don't think many beyond the most serious of enthusaists (which will be over-represented here) will be in particularly high end bikes. Most of the bikes I see on group rides and Strava friends are sub $2000 and fairly old. But then if you're doing a leisurely 20 mile loop at the pace of the slowest rider you're not going to see any real benefit in Dura Ace over Sora.

Even the riders with super expensive bikes tend to put a lot of mileage on cheaper bikes too.

prj71

Quit buying Ford, Chevy or Dodge products and you don't have to worry about that. Want to avoid unreliable cars and lots of repair bills? You buy Toyota, Honda or Nissan.

GhostRider62

I'm not the average american.

t2p

That one one of the first high quality made in Japan cars that placed the Japanese auto industry solidly on the map

prj71

Apparently you aren't familiar with the 3 year / 12,000 mile lease. Lots of people are replacing their cars every three years.

PeteHski

Yeah I love the DT Swiss hub noise and it does make a great bell substitute! Pedalling is silent on my Endurace. Not a creak or rattle anywhere. A lovely ride. My Defy rattles a bit over rough roads. Mostly from the 105 brifters and internal cables.

Jtravels

Not an unfair assessment but I will disagree.

Lot of tribal stuff in the keeping up with your mates. Showing everybody you got the same coins in your pocketbook, etc. But all the whining on the net about the electronics and bicycles, all the other issues with these 50 plus flavors of bottom brackets the list goes on and on and on.

The fellas assessment was spot on. Grab yourself one of those older vintage steel lug frames, one of the lighter ones which I have built in 22 lb range sans just reasonable effort. Of course we're not talking about vintage bikes that we can enter in the tour de France up today, but none of you guys can compete in the tour de france. It be just a matter of emptying your pocketbook.

Not telling anybody how to spend their coins. But do understand a lot of us are a lot more practical than your average character writing checks. And that's what I'm coming from. Have fun with them high tech steeds of yours.