Atlas Shrugged

I allocate 4% of my time cycling and thus prepare to dedicate an equivalent percentage of income. Typically, I replace my bikes every four years, but since I buy quality and sell the old ones after purchasing replacements, I only need to fund the depreciation; I maintain a rotation schedule for two bikes. Although I have a few extra bikes, they are not factored into my budget calculations as they've already been paid for. I amortize the depreciation over the four years, forming the basis of my bicycle budget framework.

PeteHski

That’s a really odd way of asking what your bike budget is 😂

For me it’s around £5k for a new bike. That seems to be about the sweet spot for a desirable build without going nuts on marginal gains or bling.

Eric F 

Although I find this kind of analytical approach to bikes almost depressing, the frequency of how often you get a new bike pretty much makes up for it.

Can I count my time on BF and other time I spend thinking about bikes as part of my "cycling time" calculation? If so, my wife may not be so fond of the hit to our family funds.

2muchroad

Sure, but you explicitly stated that you ride expensive bikes because they get the most out of you in terms of physical fitness.
Followed by the assertion that you'd pay $10,000 for a bike if you could.

That's why I asked, but it's fine.
Yeah I get the personal enjoyment part, I can certainly agree with that, hypothetically.

It was your assumption about an expensive bike's performance benefits and ability to challenge oneself physically that I thought might've been a little questionable.
Do you agree with @TMonk and I that the point of diminishing returns is probably below even 5K?

tomato coupe

Why does it matter?

tomato coupe

Yep.

SoSmellyAir

Because OP is trying to flip a bike with super deep wheels.

Koyote

Yes, another OP asserting that anyone who spends more than he did on a bike (or jersey, or whatever) is foolish and wasteful.

As I've written before, it's a very childish sort of egocentrism -- to judge other people's values, preferences, priorities...To fail to even understand the rather obvious fact that some people have more money than you do, and that it buys them more expensive stuff.

Eric F 

A high-quality bike is going to be light, efficient, and designed with the intent of being ridden hard and fast. It will inspire confidence, and perform reliably and predictably under high-demand conditions. Although I'm not as strong and fast as I used to be, the former racer-boy in me isn't dead, and I still enjoy riding at/near the limits of what I'm capable of. Yes, a bike that costs less than the ones I have might also serve me adequately, with measurable performance differences being minimal, if any. However, I don't buy bikes to serve only a performance level desire. I buy them because they excite me, as well as the fact that I've been doing this long enough to recognize, appreciate, and enjoy the differences between decent and excellent.

I tend to agree with TMonk about most bike-related things, including his assessment about the tipping point on diminishing returns.

EDIT: I would buy a $10k bike. Not because I think it will make me X amount faster, but because that bike excites me, is a joy to ride, and serves my needs for how I want to ride. Right now, that bike would be a Time Alpe d'Huez with Dura Ace Di2 and Enve 4.5 wheels. It is unlikely that I will ever own that bike.

Koyote

The OP has likely never even thrown a leg over a $2k bike, much less a $10k bike...And yet he's got a pretty strong opinion that the $10k bike isn't 'worth it.'

It's like another semi-regular argument that popped up again earlier today, in which people who've never tried anything nicer than a $70 Pearl Izumi club fit jersey absolutely insist that the $20 Amazon jerseys are just as good as the $200 offerings from Assos and Rapha and the like, and that anyone who buys the expensive ones has been duped.

I mean, really. If someone said to me, "I've never had sex, but I think it's probably not all that great," I'd laugh until I fell on the floor. And yet, regularly here on bf, people tell us "I haven't tried _____, but I know it's not worth the price, and the rest of you are foolish for buying it."

zandoval 

Well I dont know how long you have been riding or what you have been ridding. If you are completely new to the sport then I would say get a 300 USD Road Bike. Ride it a year and then decide what you want to invest in.

If you are experienced and have been riding for a while then you already know what ya want, so get off the pot...

base2 

I love the assumption that I paid for my road bike as if it were a bought commodity item. A better question would be how much I spent on my road bike. I have only ever purchased 2 bikes at a store. One was a last season hold over bought at a 50% discount totaling $600 after tax with helmet & pedals. The other cost $6000 dollars. I still own both & neither remained in store bought configuration for long.

The $600 one is hanging in my garage rafters with a crack at the chain stay bridge. I've probably cycled $10,000 dollars of income (hyperbole?) through that frame set in one form or another over the years. The $6000 one lives on the Zwift trainer with an untold amount of ridiculous weight weenie upgrades. It weighs in the 13 pound range.

Blowing $50,000 in a decade on bikes is still cheaper than financing one moderately priced car. TBH, I'd rather have a bike instead of some equivalent cost "Sat/Nav entertainment package" option any day.

Russ Roth

Pre-pandemic, 2000 was probably not a bad spot to claim a decent performance bike after which returns would drop off faster than it might be worth. Currently I think its about 4k but you probably have to shop around to get the best deals. For 4k I got a trek cross frameset, 12sp force wireless, and king wheelset custom built with lightbicycle rims along with the rest of the parts needed to make a functioning bike.

Don't forget old volvos. Windows eventually go all the way down, locks work most of the time, but it starts, runs, stops and shuts off at 25 years and 300k miles.

My moderately priced car is now 10 years old, has 178k miles, was new off the floor and only 28k with interest by the end of the loan period. Only wish I'd paid that little for bikes over the same time period. If it was for just me I'd have been able to keep it under that but with bikes for the whole family I've blown past my car "investment" but the car is still going so there is that.

shelbyfv

From what's been posted, it doesn't seem OP actually rides a bike of any price. IIRC he said he flips mostly mtbs and had no experience with road bikes until he bought the one he's currently trying to flip.

SoSmellyAir

OP has most likely not, because he would rather spend the money to play video games or mine BitCoin; see below:

DUHI4GOT

My bike collection ranges from $3,700USD to $12,000USD. I'm not a racer, just a weekend warrior. Some were bikes that I simply wanted in my "stable" and some that made me want to ride more. My wife spends money on golf and I spend on bikes and nice cars.

merlinextraligh

So we can actually graph this out following the concept of marginal utility. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the return for increased spending gets steep above $5000. That is only part of the equation.

The next part is what those funds not spent on a bike could be spent upon,and the utility from such expenditure.

On a micro level, if you are struggling to pay buy groceries, the utility of buying another pound of hamburger greatly exceeds shaving 50 grams off your bike.

However, if you have everything you need, and most of what you want, that 50 grams could be worth a few bucks.

On a micro level, you can’t judge for a person in who’s shoes you do not walk

On a macro level, the market sorts it out.

Koyote

You obviously remember your microeconomics course. Along with utility and marginal utility, you're applying the concept of opportunity cost -- which essentially suggests that a $10,000 bike costs different amounts for different consumers. That's one of the key factors that many of these scolding posters don't recognize: to someone who has substantial net worth, buying a $10k bike is no big deal because it doesn't require giving up anything else that is deemed essential or even important.

Though I must offer one correction: individual markets are still considered the micro level, not macro. You can see that by perusing the table of contents of any intro level text. Trivial detail in this context, obviously.

ScottCommutes

OK guys, how much are you all paying for sex?

ScottCommutes

God bless the rich people. They supply the used market. Darn near every cool thing I own once belonged to someone wealthier than I.

13ollocks

by that reckoning, you must have the Wurlitzer of beds…🤔

Mtracer

My main bike, a Trek Domane SLR 7, with my power meter pedals, radar, lights and cycling computer is right around $10,000 and worth every penny of it, to me.

Pretty much any additional amount of money you spend on a bike is going to be diminishing returns. At least if the baseline bike functions to some degree. And that's true of just about any product. Value is also subjective. Some put more value on least expensive now, others on least expensive over time. Some value features more or less than others. No one calculation is the right answer for all people.

It's obvious that someone in a 3rd world country making say $1,000 year or whatever would think spending $10,000 on a bike to be absolute insanity. And from their perspective, I would completely agree.

I could have spent something like $4,000 more and got my Domane with the Dura-Ace groupset and higher-end wheels. But, I chose not to. So, I drew my line there.

But I also drive a 22 year-old Toyota Tundra pickup, that has less paint on it every year. I could afford to buy a new truck, but the one I have works just fine (only 65,000 miles), though it is starting to look pretty crappy. I put more miles on my bike than my truck. Plenty of people would have bought a new vehicle before spending thousands on a bike.

I could probably have spent about half or less than what I did on my bike, and had 95-99% of the same speed (performance). But I like the Ultegra Di2 electronic groupset, I like the lighter SLR frame, I like the custom paint color.

I'm not some multi-gazillionaire, but I'm retired, my house is paid for, and the only difference the money I spend on bikes is going to make is how much money my kids get when I'm dead.

PeteHski

For me, the opportunity cost of even a £15k bike is pretty much irrelevant. It just means my kids would have £15k less inheritance and that would probably not be a bad thing anyway.

What actually stops me from spending £15k on a top tier bike is my self-consciousness. As an average, middle-aged British sportive rider, do I really want to rock up on a £15k S-Works or Pinarello? I just feel more at ease on a £4.5k Canyon Endurace. We are all different in that way and there is no right or wrong.

seypat

You end up paying for it one way or another.

2muchroad

Agreed, I would call it the pre-(massive)-inflation era, but prices have definitely soared in all sectors since then. Brand new bikes between 2K - 3K offer a reasonable edge in terms of performance and value. 4K is probably the sweet spot, including full carbon frames, wheelsets etc. and some really nice groups. For used bikes that threshold is usually around 2K.
That's funny. I can totally relate with "bikes for the whole family".
I remember my dad taking us to Walmart for our very first bikes and we loved it. Nowadays, your kids are telling you about which freehubs to get for their light gravel bike.

Who spends more?

Hmm that's an interesting point you're making. I think the real question is at what point necessity and utility are outweighed by indulgence, but also whether financial stability is the only deciding factor.

The point of diminishing returns is a very clear and quantifiable threshold wherein the cost-benefit ratio of bike parts in terms of performance and reliability reaches a bottleneck.
I understand what you mean, but I still wonder if you can articulate what it is in particular that makes a 10K bike worth every penny for you, which couldn't be achieved with a more cost efficient solution.