Bike envy

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Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
Been reading cycling plus again ? I used to read it but found their whole spiel for everything bike related was a bit rich for my budget .
I'll say one thing about Cycling Plus ... They certainly know their tyre levers.

My favourite tyre levers have Cycling Plus written on them. Must have been freebies
 
Most of my friends are well off and have beautiful bikes but I've never found my self envious of them; I prefer my 2018 Ti frame which will hopefully its with my engine is still about the second fastest in my group. About the 3rd fastest is probably the wealthiest but he prefers the classic bike look and rim brakes. He's a far better descender than anybody in the group :-)
 
I'm sure the pilots of the multi-thousand pound plastic rockets road bikes would laugh at me tottering about on my Halfords folder.

But I retired at 47 and most of them will be working for a decade after they die to pay for it all.

Probably they laugh at you no more or no less on your folder than you mock them for riding carbon framed bikes.

Why are people so keen to perpetuate the "us vs them" attitudes in cycling to bikes and kit.

It's all irrelevant bollux.
 

Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
Recent joined a local cycling club and everyone there has modern 5k+ road bikes. I’m the only one running rim brake and 105 mechanical. So how do you deal with coming up against this issue. I’ve no idea where anyone gets the funds to purchase kit like this.

For those of us who have worked all our lives but are now mortgage and child-free, it isn't hard.

I could quite easily afford to spend £5K+ on a bike - our bank balance goes up by about 2-3K per month when we don't have any exceptional expenses. I did spend just over £2K on one 3 years ago. I would like to get another new one, but doubt I could justify it to my wife, and if I did it would be a little over £3K this time. I couldn't justify spending £5K even to myself, because my ability and age means I just couldn't take advantage of the small gains you would get for that extra money.

Ok, I am certainly better off than the average person, but not wildly so, I am sure there are plenty more out there who can reasonably afford to spend that much on a bike.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Probably they laugh at you no more or no less on your folder than you mock them for riding carbon framed bikes.

Why are people so keen to perpetuate the "us vs them" attitudes in cycling to bikes and kit.

It's all irrelevant bollux.

I wasn't mocking them for riding carbon bikes. Until I thinned down the fleet when I moved house I had one myself.

My barb was more aimed at those that get up their own arses about such things, the attitude rather than the bikes, and some people do. Denying it doesn't alter the reality of some folk being like that.

I'm quite happy tottering around on whatever two wheeled piece of crap I fancy and bollards to what anyone thinks. I'm not the one agonising over it like the OP.
 

EckyH

Senior Member
I retired this year at 59
Just and only for that age: now I've got retirement envy - despite that would be still six years away.

Back to bike envy: 17 or 18 years ago on a sportive I slowly overtook two guys who were in full pro kit (team Gerolsteiner) with matching pro bike replicas and either of them surely was in the 130kg+ class, mostly bones and... let's call it "energy storage". I panted a "Hi" at them and thought: "Why do you ride so expensive stuff? You wouldn't be slower on a less fance bike! It's a bit ridiculous."
Then I looked down on my bike and recognised that I was in the same situation with the only difference that the parts on my bike (eg. Suntour Superbe Pro brakes) were 15 years older. Perhaps those guys had very little time to ride their bikes and just wanted to enjoy their time on the bikes as much as possible and part of their enjoyment was to know that they ride very good bikes. An then it dawned on me that I was the ridiculous guy. Lesson learned.

E.
 
I think I have become a victim of it. A couple of my friends that I ride with have nice shiny bikes, not new but several years old so when I happened to see this one on FBMP for a low price I thought I might go for it. I was partly swayed by an old Cycling Plus magazine and some reviews I read on the net. It's not new but 12 years old but looks nice and shiny. I normally buy classic old steel bikes which require some restoration. I only spent £70 on it and some time straightening the buckled wheels so not a lot.

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