Cycling on a shoestring

[KneesUp]

Buy top the most expensive cycling shorts on offer,they work out cheaper in the long run!
Example £59.99 decathlon shorts,not very good pad poor comfort after 1 year of use sold on eBay for £10.
A loss of £49.99 and product was not that good.
Rapha shorts £150 top performance,very comfortable.sold 2 years later on eBay for £100 same loss but twice the use and had the benefit of the best product. Cheapest product nearly always mean poorest performance and virtually complete loss as they have no perceived second hand value.

I could have bought 15 pairs of my cycling longs for the price of your Rapha shorts though - and they're perfectly comfortable.

 

[shadow master]

I could have bought 15 pairs of my cycling longs for the price of your Rapha shorts though - and they're perfectly comfortable.

You've obviously never owned a pair of rapha shorts!

 

[KneesUp]

You've obviously never owned a pair of rapha shorts!

Why obviously? The maths is correct (15 x £9.99 = £150 or thereabouts) and the statement that my Aldi ones are perfectly comfortable is also correct.

YMMV.

 

[Gravity Aided]

I haven't seen anything wrong with less expensive shorts, it seems the expensive ones last quite a bit longer, maybe even long enough to go out of style. If you want to buy expensive shorts, get them in black, with few graphics. My teal 80's shorts are still hangin' in there, much to my chagrin. Matching waistpack. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

[MichaelW2]

And back to the bus fares - I've had the bike about a year, and even though it's cost more than I thought (to make changes that I wanted to do, but didn't have to do) it's cost me £275. Bus fares are £1.70 per day - a cost per year of £408 - so one might argue I have got fitter and bought a bike to my own specification for -£133. I prefer that way of looking at it

A decent bike will last 5 years, the std duration for writing off capital investment.
5x408=£2040.
Your £275 capital cost will save you £1765.
Even if you factor in £100/year service costs, you save £1265

Many people fail to make this simple calculation and assume that cycling should be a shoestring activity, so they commute on a £99 discount store full-sus MTB/BSO with the cheapest tyre using 1970's tech.
Under-spending is just as foolish as over-spending

 

[Arfcollins]

Buy top the most expensive cycling shorts on offer,they work out cheaper in the long run!
Example £59.99 decathlon shorts,not very good pad poor comfort after 1 year of use sold on eBay for £10.
A loss of £49.99 and product was not that good.
Rapha shorts £150 top performance,very comfortable.sold 2 years later on eBay for £100 same loss but twice the use and had the benefit of the best product. Cheapest product nearly always mean poorest performance and virtually complete loss as they have no perceived second hand value.

I've never even thought about the second-hand value of my cycle-shorts, maybe because I wouldn't consider buying shorts that had been cradling someone else's parts! Why do you sell them?

 

[mick1836]

Is this what the OP means??

 

[MattDB]

Wow. Are expensive shorts a lot better than cheap ones?

 

[Arfcollins]

Wow. Are expensive shorts a lot better than cheap ones?

I refer you to my post #49. Two pairs of Aldi padded shorts (very comfortable and exceedingly stylish!) cost me about £15 10 years ago. That's 3p a week. So yes, they are better.

 

[slowmotion]

What happens at CycleSurgery??

1) You pay them £20 to adjust the FD
2) You ride the bike from the shop to Richmond Park
3) The FD auto-shifts randomly between big and small chain ring
4) You take it back and they "fix" the problem.
5) You ride to Southend on a FNRttC.....and the chain falls off on the three lowest gears. It also continuously rubs on the cage.
6) The chain breaks in Parliament Square on the ride home.

Will that do?

 

[MattDB]

1) You pay them £20 to adjust the FD
2) You ride the bike from the shop to Richmond Park
3) The FD auto-shifts randomly between big and small chain ring
4) You take it back and they "fix" the problem.
5) You ride to Southend on a FNRttC.....and the chain falls off on the three lowest gears. It also continuously rubs on the cage.
6) The chain breaks in Parliament Square on the ride home.

Will that do?

Damn them. Get your money back!

 

[Tynan]

shorts lasting 10 years?

what are they made of?

quite apart from rips and tears, I find the arse wears thinner and thineer until my wife happens to see it and tells me to throw them out, a much loved and repaired pair of second hand Assos shorts finally got slung at the of the year

 

[MattDB]

Something I'm trying to do at the moment is to have spares of everything around so I can replace straight away and don't have to pay for public transport. Two weeks ago my chain snapped and I had to wait to get another one delivered (couldn't get to a shop during the week) so that was 4 days of getting the bus (4x £4.50) that's THREE new chains!

 

[KneesUp]

A decent bike will last 5 years, the std duration for writing off capital investment.
5x408=£2040.
Your £275 capital cost will save you £1765.
Even if you factor in £100/year service costs, you save £1265

Shhh - don't tell my bike - it's already 26.

 

[Arfcollins]

shorts lasting 10 years?

what are they made of?

I have no idea.

quite apart from rips and tears, I find the arse wears thinner and thineer until my wife happens to see it and tells me to throw them out, a much loved and repaired pair of second hand Assos shorts finally got slung at the of the year

To be honest they've looked like shite for the last couple of years. I expect your wife has higher standards than mine has.