Is it me, or the folks I ride with, that a bike needs to meet the purpose it's for - not silly money ?

[fossyant]

I have a few bikes, nothing new, and the newest was a 2016 MTB I bought 'shop soiled'. Yes I've got some really nice older stuff from the day's I raced etc etc. But...

If you aren't super fast, and are not competing - just get something 'good'.

From on another forum someone had a "gravel" bike with Zipp wheels, and was asking about slightly fatter tyres for it - my god, you'll be smacking those £1k wheels about all the time if you use it properly, but why need deep section aero wheels on a gravel bike.... eh... you won't be doing 25-30 mph for the benefit.

It's all great having the latest and greatest, but the fastest riders I know just get on with it - normal kit, mid range that you can actually afford to replace if you break it.

And Gravel, what's that, a fat CX bike ?

Just got myself a second hand CX bike (like no bag mounts) - uses normal road 'skinny' wheels, 38c knobbly tyres, nothing else, and it's quick off road. Does the job. Would be a hoot racing it ! Canti brakes stop rather quickly TBH. The bike is a laugh, but sticking £1k wheels on something that will get bashed about... why ? You'll probably not ride it as hard worrying about the 'wheels'. I backed off slightly to worry about a flat at one point, but not for the wheels.

 

[RoubaixCube]

The thing is. The market/industry survives by making you fall for the latest trends. Sometimes the trends are a gimmick like super oversized pulley/Jockey wheels or chain lube that both claim to save you 5w or more useful things like wider rims because wider = more aero.

Otherwise a lot of it has to do with your attachment to the bike and how it makes YOU feel while youre out and about on it or something very simple as "does it look cool?"

people are always going to spend their money one way or another.

 

[wafter]

The thing is. The market/industry survives by making you fall for the latest trends. Sometimes the trends are a gimmick like super oversized pulley/Jockey wheels or chain lube that both claim to save you 5w or more useful things like wider rims because wider = more aero.

Otherwise a lot of it has to do with your attachment to the bike and how it makes YOU feel while youre out and about on it or something very simple as "does it look cool?"

people are always going to spend their money one way or another.

I don't disagree but it's a sad state of affairs that the industry now has such a cynical, exploititive and generally toxic relationship with its customers..

 

[cougie uk]

I don't disagree but it's a sad state of affairs that the industry now has such a cynical, exploititive and generally toxic relationship with its customers..

Nobody's making people buy expensive wheels. Plenty of gravel bikes spend more time on the road than they are on gravel - perhaps deep rims make sense for the owner or perhaps a grand on wheels is nothing to them ?

 

[Hicky]

Wisely(by luck rather than my far reaching intuition🤣), I bought a Surly Cross Check maybe 10yrs ago before the fashion craze.
It’s been used with skinny road tyres and done the job fine, mtb tyres as fff(fatties fit fine) and now is a gravel bike ie has gravel king semi slicks for the canal and child transport duties. A great do it all bike, I struck lucky.
Buy what you need/want if you have the dough if it makes you happy, we live but once.

 

[biggs682]

This is another reason whilst majority of my cycling is done with just me and my bike.

 

[PaulSB]

"I have a few bikes." Given your title and post I would have to ask why? What made you decide you need several bikes? Possibly the same thoughts which lead others to want to buy the latest bit of kit for any one of several possible reasons. There's no doubt in my mind a better bike improves the rider and his/her experience. When I bought my Cervelo 6 years ago I began to get comments from fellow riders basically telling me to back off a bit, I simply hadn't realised this new bike gave me an additional 2mph with no increased effort. I popped better wheels on it a couple of years later and these gave me another 1mph.

Two bikes are enough for me; my Cervelo road bike and my Kinesis gravel/winter bike. To my way of thinking two bikes, plus an MTB if in to that sort of riding, is enough to cover everything unless one competes when more specialised machines will be needed. I don't criticise those who chose to own several bikes and would suggest there is no reason to question how people chose to spend their money. There's too much of this type of criticism in the cycling world.

£1000 wheels on a gravel bike make no sense to me but I've no doubt the rider was able to justify it to his/herself. He/she might conclude in the future it was a mistake but that's simply experience.

 

[Drago]

I'm quite happy to pay out 600 sheets on a set of wheels for my best bikes - DT Swiss being my favourite tipple - on the basis that I weigh over an 8th of a tonne and want them to last at least five minutes.

If someone else doesn't want to then theyndont have to. I don't understand the problem.

 

[Bollo]

 

[Jameshow]

I don't mind guys buying great bikes I can buy them down the line at 1/10 of the price!

Of course an aero bike is faster otherwise the pros would be on planet X Evo etc,!!

But the aero is much more marginal at lower speeds and up hills. If I were living in flat areas aero would have my vote!

But the legs matter just as much., Cannot tell you the number of aero bikes I've beaten on a £400 carbon bike!!

 

[bonzobanana]

Not all expensive bikes are great bikes. I've seen quite a few engineers pick apart carbon fibre frames due to poor manufacturing quality and dangerous construction. I remember Cervelo being extremely poor quality frames from Asia and pretty much junk status. That may not be true now as with most European, US, Canadian brands etc they don't manufacture anything themselves they just choose the paintwork and components and get them built in Asia for them and they may change factories frequently to whoever is cheapest at the time or maybe they would choose a better factory if people have noticed how poor quality their bikes were previously.

A few years ago when I was looking at the bike industry and even translating Chinese text to English from Chinese forums and manufacturing sites you would read a lot of interesting information from their perspective. I remember the Chinese were happy that Bianchi was charging so much for their bikes in Japan when the same bikes under their Chinese branding were so cheap. They seemed to enjoy the fact the Japanese were being ripped off and exploited and were amazed they would pay those prices.

Marketing is all about extracting the most money from people and some consumers are quite resistant and always looking for value and others are more focused on brand as a lifestyle/image type purchase. I've seen so many videos now on youtube where people buy components direct from China from the higher quality factories and configure a bike for around £2K that matches bikes costing £6-10k from a bike shop over here. That is a huge saving if you are prepared to have an unknown brand on your bike. Sometimes the factories in question also make western brands and sometimes they are simply much better than the factories western brands use like Quest Composites which Canyon and Trek use which are mid-quality at best.

My brother gave me his wife's old bike a Exodus Genie as he knew I liked mucking about with old bikes. This was bought some years ago for the princely sum of £30 plus £8 postage with free cycle computer from Sterling House. Just a basic high tensile steel mountain bike with rigid steel forks and V brakes. Strong and safe and every component is easy to replace. There is nothing proprietary about it at all. No butted tubes to be a weak point, I'm sure every tube is plain gauge. The type of bike they send to Africa for various bike charities to give poor people a transport solution. To many here I'm sure a terrible bike but almost indestructible and very comfortable. It has pretty much no value over here so you can ride it anywhere and not have to worry about theft and overload it for shopping etc and all components are cheap to replace. Looking at the bike its pretty much on all its original components though. There is however bar tape wrapped around the stem and handlebar connection so maybe that isn't gripping that well so they improvised a solution. Maybe the chain has been replaced but can't see much else. I don't know how much it was used of course. I can't remember when Sterling House did the £29.99 bike offer I would guess around 15 years ago. Looks like the L39 model here. An ideal candidate for a ebike conversion too as both the main frame and forks would be suitable for a hub motor. The denser steel material would hold a hub motor axle much better, you may not even need a torque arm.

Just making the point bikes don't need to be expensive. It's not the end of the world if a bike is a little heavier and a little slower for the same effort especially if you are trying to get fit and lose weight anyway. Lower gearing compensates for a heavier bike.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Other people have fancier bikes than any in my collection and I don't like it.

They should stop now. It's wrong.

 

[wafter]

Not all expensive bikes are great bikes. I've seen quite a few engineers pick apart carbon fibre frames due to poor manufacturing quality and dangerous construction. I remember Cervelo being extremely poor quality frames from Asia and pretty much junk status. That may not be true now as with most European, US, Canadian brands etc they don't manufacture anything themselves they just choose the paintwork and components and get them built in Asia for them and they may change factories frequently to whoever is cheapest at the time or maybe they would choose a better factory if people have noticed how poor quality their bikes were previously.

A few years ago when I was looking at the bike industry and even translating Chinese text to English from Chinese forums and manufacturing sites you would read a lot of interesting information from their perspective. I remember the Chinese were happy that Bianchi was charging so much for their bikes in Japan when the same bikes under their Chinese branding were so cheap. They seemed to enjoy the fact the Japanese were being ripped off and exploited and were amazed they would pay those prices.

Marketing is all about extracting the most money from people and some consumers are quite resistant and always looking for value and others are more focused on brand as a lifestyle/image type purchase. I've seen so many videos now on youtube where people buy components direct from China from the higher quality factories and configure a bike for around £2K that matches bikes costing £6-10k from a bike shop over here. That is a huge saving if you are prepared to have an unknown brand on your bike. Sometimes the factories in question also make western brands and sometimes they are simply much better than the factories western brands use like Quest Composites which Canyon and Trek use which are mid-quality at best.

My brother gave me his wife's old bike a Exodus Genie as he knew I liked mucking about with old bikes. This was bought some years ago for the princely sum of £30 plus £8 postage with free cycle computer from Sterling House. Just a basic high tensile steel mountain bike with rigid steel forks and V brakes. Strong and safe and every component is easy to replace. There is nothing proprietary about it at all. No butted tubes to be a weak point, I'm sure every tube is plain gauge. The type of bike they send to Africa for various bike charities to give poor people a transport solution. To many here I'm sure a terrible bike but almost indestructible and very comfortable. It has pretty much no value over here so you can ride it anywhere and not have to worry about theft and overload it for shopping etc and all components are cheap to replace. Looking at the bike its pretty much on all its original components though. There is however bar tape wrapped around the stem and handlebar connection so maybe that isn't gripping that well so they improvised a solution. Maybe the chain has been replaced but can't see much else. I don't know how much it was used of course. I can't remember when Sterling House did the £29.99 bike offer I would guess around 15 years ago. Looks like the L39 model here. An ideal candidate for a ebike conversion too as both the main frame and forks would be suitable for a hub motor. The denser steel material would hold a hub motor axle much better, you may not even need a torque arm.

Just making the point bikes don't need to be expensive. It's not the end of the world if a bike is a little heavier and a little slower for the same effort especially if you are trying to get fit and lose weight anyway. Lower gearing compensates for a heavier bike.

View attachment 693197

Indeed; this sums up my problem. I have no issue (within reason) with people spending money on nice, good quality things; and am lucky enough to have some fairly nice toys myself. What I can't abide is the constant consumption of products that are touted as superior or otherwise beneficial by marketing, but are in reality often are quite the opposite.

Many of these modern products are likely to have a far shorter lifespan than older alternatives too (thanks to materials choice, repairability, parts availability or just fashion). I resent manufactuers / marketeers profiting from this cynical, selfish behaviour which prioritises their financial gain above all else; the situation they've created to line their own pockets ultimately being detrimental financially to their end users and environmentally on a wider scale.

Fourty-year-old steel road bikes are still viable now as the material is resileant and predictable, the standards err - standardised and parts widely available. Can the same longevity be expected of the current crop of composite bikes with electronic shifting and propriatory / integrated components? Highly unlikely as nobody will trust the frame material while propriatory standards will be obsolete and parts unobtainable.

Tbh I think / hope we've reached peak consumption, with inflation through the roof, the end of cheap money, economies stagnating and natural resources dwindling. As such perhaps we'll return to a less disposible / consumptive model where people are more inclined to make an informed purchase based on quality and longevity, rather than buying what the marketeers suggest is the next best thing every five minutes.

 

[Drago]

Other people have fancier bikes than any in my collection and I don't like it.

They should stop now. It's wrong.

Geddy Lee has a bigger bass collection than me. Utterly disgraceful.

 

[matticus]

If I had a tenner for every thread I've read about this, I could buy a new (slightly better) bike.