How does ageing affects your purchasing prospects?

[gavroche]

Do you feel that, as you get older, it gets harder to justify spending a fair amount of money, new bike for instance, or other things that will not improve your performance due to your body not being as responsive as years gone by? I certainly do and often wish I had gone into cycling when I was much younger instead of starting at 60 and now being 69.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

For a long time now I've spent far more on comfort than speed. Mind you, that's easy enough to justify to myself, but more challenging to justify to my dependents!

 

[Yellow Saddle]

New or old bodies will respond equally to purchased goods. I don't see how that could be otherwise.

 

[BoldonLad]

Do you feel that, as you get older, it gets harder to justify spending a fair amount of money, new bike for instance, or other things that will not improve your performance due to your body not being as responsive as years gone by? I certainly do and often wish I had gone into cycling when I was much younger instead of starting at 60 and now being 69.

Cannot say I have noticed that.

However, I tend not to look at expenditure in terms of "will it improve ... whatever", but, rather, I think, "if I don't spend it, the children will".

My normal reply to my wife, when she is pondering some purchase, is: "just buy it, if you don't, the children will have it spent, before the little curtains have closed, at the crematorium".

 

[welsh dragon]

I have had the same bike for nearly 4 years now and I don't have any plans to buy a new one soon. I am quite old school I suppose and like to get my monies worth out of something. I can't really justify to myself spending that kind of money again let alone trying to justify it to someone else.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I started cycling again 12 years ago after a gap of almost 40 years.

There are two conflicting issues over spending money on a new bike, the first being that I am from a family background where money was tight and I still find it difficult to spend more than I "need", and the second being that I have more money than I need to survive so why shouldn't I spoil myself on something that I enjoy. I like the look of the Merlin Malt G1 gravel bike but, ridiculously, I consider £699 a huge amount, and am hesitating.

I sometimes, like the op, wonder if I should have continued cycling from my early 20s, but on the other hand I played a lot of competitive sport until I was 60, making lots of friends along the way that I still have. If I had cycled I would not have done that to anywhere near the same extent. It does not pay to have regrets over what might have been.

 

[Globalti]

I don't mind spending money where it's needed but I have a strong suspicion of being ripped off, which is why I posted on CC about a month ago about our horror experience with a wierd man who turned out to be the self-appointed high priest of the world of HiFi bullshit.

 

[Racing roadkill]

Personally, I’ve never bought anything cycling related, based on perceived ‘performance enhancement’ only ever on how much easier it will make my rides. I’ve been cycling pretty much since I can remember, I’ve never wanted to ‘smash stuff’, ‘be the ball’, etc. etc. etc. I’ve pretty much grown up with pro cyclists I’ve had nothing but contempt for, as a lot of them have been proven to be cheating barstewards. I have never had any desire to be associated with most of them. However, nice light, well engineered bikes, do make my life easier, and without the pro riders, the tech would not trickle down. As I get older, I want my cycling life to be easier and easier, so I’ve no qualms about spending whatever needs to be spent, in order to achieve it. Any ‘performance enhancement’ is a secondary consideration.

 

[derrick]

The older i get the more i buy. I cant take it with me.

 

[Venod]

I like the look of the Merlin Malt G1 gravel bike but, ridiculously, I consider £699 a huge amount, and am hesitating.

If you can afford it just buy it, I have just spent £1000+ on a new MTB which I took out yesterday and looks as if I have had it forever, mudfest is an apt description.

 

[gbb]

The older i get the more i buy. I cant take it with me.

An old colleague of mine, now sadly departed used to have a saying...
'Live like a rich man.....dont die like one'

 

[Saluki]

In May I bought my Genesis and don’t regret a penny of it. I didn’t worry about my age when buying it.
its more comfy so I ride further and not faster. I am losing speed now but finding more stamina so I have the bike that is best for me.
as I I’ve got older I think that as I have earned my money that I don’t feel guilty about spending on myself.

 

[ianrauk]

You can't take it with you. Money is for spending on nice things.

 

[oldwheels]

I rather fancy a trike which is for sale at Kinetics in Glasgow purely for forest tracks as it has hub gears which are not liable to damage as a derailleur would be. But is is around £3000 which I could afford but the money would be pretty well lost on my demise as my dependents would have difficulty selling for any reasonable price. Being realistic I have no idea what my useful lifespan will be but it must be getting near the end. So far I have resisted and kept well away from the place as if it is in front of me I think I would give in to temptation.

 

[rogerzilla]

There comes a point when you start to expose yourself to ridicule. I've seen overweight septuagenarians turning up for an evening "10" on £6000 TT bikes, which might enable them to go round in 28 minutes 30 instead of 29 minutes. To be brutally honest, no-one over about 35 has a hope in hell of winning a major stage race, so those MAMILs - or, as the Americans would have it, "dentists on Pinarellos" - are fooling themselves if they think they need such a machine. It doesn't do any real harm, though.