[Possumpoint]

Wife was shopping so I was killing some time. Walked into a local bike shop and had the living "S" shocked out of me by the prices of some bikes. Mid to high 4 figures were common. Some of them were priced at what I paid for my first new car but that was a fair number of years ago.

Wow, sure hope they're worth it, I'll never know.

[Gandalfe]

There are so many nice bikes out there with little to no miles on them. Why buy new?

[Possumpoint]

Why buy new, good question. I bought new in August to replace a wore out 20 year old Murry. Paid $209 on sale for a new Schwinn. By no means a bike in the same class as what I saw today but a vast improvement over what I had. Now that I'm more involved in biking then at any other time of my life, I'm beginning to realize that biking has evolve way beyond anything I ever considered. Just looking at the tire treads available on the new bikes today showed the different purposes bikes are being used for.

[rola643]

All of it's expensive. I picked up a pair of Swiftwick - The Best Athletic Performance Socks, Guaranteed yesterday and put them down as fast...18 bux for a pair socks. To rich for my blood.

[Industry_Hack]

Originally Posted by rola643

All of it's expensive. I picked up a pair of Swiftwick - The Best Athletic Performance Socks, Guaranteed yesterday and put them down as fast...18 bux for a pair socks. To rich for my blood.

They're not even the best. That would be Darn Tough.

At one time, my three most expensive two-wheeled toys were my Suzuki, which I paid $6,700 for, my Harley, which cost me $7,200, and my tandem, which cost $8k to build. It's all about priorities.

[froze]

Even though fitness (cardo) is a priority to me, buying or owning expensive bikes is not because I look at things as to how much is it worth down the road...weird, I know! But I don't race nor do I have a need to show off to people on the bike path or streets, so I don't need some fragile carbon fiber wonder bike. But I have been known to go nuts once in a great while.

[photosbymark]

Well I'm old and nearly every bike in the place is more than I paid for my first car. Ok the $450 68 Opel Kadet was probably not as fast as some of the bikes, but it was MINE!!! Now I often find bikes in bike stores that are more than my mom and dad paid for there house. It was a 3 bedroom frame that they spent a whole $7000 to build and had a house note of $52 a month.

Thing that makes it hard to compare is the value of the dollar. The more they print (ok to move into the modern world digitize) the less its worth. I still am not convinced that there is a way to know and be able to compare fairly how much that $8-10,000 bike would have cost had it be possible to build it in 1962. I remember seeing prices of the Schwinn Stingrays and IIRC they cost in the upper 30 to low 40 buck a piece range. Look at the house note though and you can see why I never got one.

[froze]

Originally Posted by photosbymark

Well I'm old and nearly every bike in the place is more than I paid for my first car. Ok the $450 68 Opel Kadet was probably not as fast as some of the bikes, but it was MINE!!! Now I often find bikes in bike stores that are more than my mom and dad paid for there house. It was a 3 bedroom frame that they spent a whole $7000 to build and had a house note of $52 a month.

Thing that makes it hard to compare is the value of the dollar. The more they print (ok to move into the modern world digitize) the less its worth. I still am not convinced that there is a way to know and be able to compare fairly how much that $8-10,000 bike would have cost had it be possible to build it in 1962. I remember seeing prices of the Schwinn Stingrays and IIRC they cost in the upper 30 to low 40 buck a piece range. Look at the house note though and you can see why I never got one.

You never bought a house? Anyway's inflation has hit some products more then others. Housing far out paced the rate of inflation, as did cars. But appliances and electronics have not, in fact they under paced inflation. My dad woudn't even spend $30 or $40 for a stingray so he bought me a cheap $20 Mattel bike! Personally I would never spend over $4500 for a bicycle...I did go crazy once with a bike though, while in England in 07 I visited Derby and bought a custom made Mercian Vincitore spec'd to my wants and desires. The Mercian is a superb bike but kind of wish I hadn't bought it; but at the time I bought it I wanted a nice one of a kind custom built touring bike which is what I got. Then 4 years later I ran into a super deal and bought a 250 mile old 85 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe in mint original condition for $80; so now I decided to use it instead of the Mercian for touring.

[photosbymark]

Yeah I have a house, though now it isn't the investment it once was. My uncle growing up bought a different house moving up each time and selling the house he had at a profit each time. My experience was just the opposite. Real estate does not always go up and I got burned more than once. Still not complaining. Though not things go up the same, there is no question that the value of money has decreased. My dad wouldn't buy me the $30 to $40 Stingray because he couldn't afford it. He got what he could do with what he had to do with. I remember nights hearing them talk when they didn't know I could hear them, worrying about how they could make the house note. One month of a house note now would have paid for over a year of theirs. For many people renting isn't a bad move. Even then if you factored in the interest you paid vs the value of the equity, vs the cost of the loss of revenue from the money you didn't pay in interest, tax deductions, ect and compare that with the cost of renting, for many the comparison would be shocking. It all goes back to fact that the law of supply and demand can not be repealed by Congress. The more of something thats out there, the less its worth.

The other thing that is difficult is finding numbers that are truly fair and do not have a vested interest in their results. The official numbers are tied to many programs that involve official expense and if they raise the inflation number, they have to raise the amount of the checks they write. Makes one take their work with a grain of salt. Food is a key part of what we buy and its prices are rising rapidly, but they leave food out of the computation of the CPI now. Last time I checked, I still eat. The loaf of bread I sold for $.19 as a boy delivering groceries, I bought yesterday for nearly $2.

Still the point you make is valid. Not everyone needs the really expensive bike. You might want one, you may be able to afford it, and it maybe fun to own, but are you really going to ride that much better? Putting me on that bike wouldn't make me a better cyclist. I'd enjoy it, but Id still be a Fred. Fact is the best bike for you is the one you enjoy riding. If that's the 85 Schwinn you got for $80 or $4500 Mercian or any other custom top dollar bike, unless it adds something to the experience it doesn't matter. One day I might buy me one of those old cool Stingrays with the shifter. I am far less stupid now and having a kid now wouldn't be smart anyway. Read somewhere they were going for about $400 or so now or more. There just are not that many of them still around, and the money to buy them is worth less. Do I need a Schwinn Stingray? No but I might do it anyway.

[froze]

I saw one of those real cool Stingrays with the shifter sell for $2,800 on E-Bay some months back! And I didn't accidentally add any zeros.

Actually owning a home is an investment, and as with any investment it has it's risks...that's why it's called an investment. Having said that, owning a home even in a down market is always better then renting if you're going to be in the house longer then a few a years. With renting the payment continues for as long as you live there or until death do you part, PLUS, it will increase in cost every year. With a house the payment will stay the same except for minor increases in taxes and insurance, but at the end of the loan you no longer have a payment as long as you live there or until death do you part. Of course you still have taxes and insurance to pay for but so does the renter, it's built into the cost of the rent plus you still have to, or at least should, pay for renters insurance. So just because you and I (or at least I) didn't buy a house with the sole purpose to gain equity, we did gain the fact the once it's paid for we free up that income to do something else with it. I paid off my house a few years ago and used that money to buy rental property so now I'm getting an income that pays the mortgage, but once that is paid off then it's an income stream. Even though I bought the income property knowing it probably won't go up in value, I bought it with the intentions of keeping it forever so I could have an income from it. This rental property is part of my not keeping all my eggs in one basket philosophy I've adopted.

And while a loaf of bread has gone up so has our income from an average of $6,000 a year to $35,000, so it's almost a tit for tat situation. But I remember when I was kid a low cost small refrigerator for around $300...you can still buy a cheap new refrigerator for that price today. Heck even a real dinky frig in the late 1920's cost $200!! An IBM Selectric typewriter cost around $475 in 1962, you can buy a cheap computer and add a cheap printer for close to that today and be able to do a lot more with it. All in all, food, cars and houses (depending on where you live) have gone up 10 fold in 45 years but our income has not and that's why owning big ticket items today like cars and houses is more of a struggle for us then for our parents.