I'm not buying it (no pun). Why do you think a less expensive bike will wear out in a month (excuse me, every other month)?
I'm with you on this one. The last bike I bought was a Schwinn I paid a bit under $300.00 for by the time all the accessories were included, at the Target store in College Point, Queens (not far from LGA), about 15 years ago. I rode it in New York City, probably an average of 50 - 60 miles a week, until about three years ago when I moved. The bike's still going strong on "loan" to a friend of mine who recently lost his driver's license (DUI).
My first legal job was as a bicycle mechanic / salesman when I was 14. Back then, an average-quality adult bike cost about $60.00 - $75.00. A "good" adult bike went for about $100.00 - $125.00. A really "high-end" bike, of interest only to a tiny fraction of super-serious cyclists and available only through a specialty bike shop, maybe $300.00.
The most expensive bikes my employer (a general department store) sold were in the $200.00 range. I loved selling those bikes because of the commission, but I thought the people who bought them were idiots. They weren't
that much better than bikes that sold for half their price. Better? Yes. Twice as good? No.
Mind you, I was a pretty serious cyclist back then. I used to put on about 50 miles a week on Brooklyn streets just getting to work and back, in all weather. During the summers, I'd make weekend trips from Brooklyn to Jones Beach (about 35 miles each way) a couple of times a month, weather permitting; and I did the Brooklyn to Fire Island trip (about 50 miles each way) at least once or twice every summer.
So I think I qualified as a pretty serious cyclist. And yet I did all that riding on a Schwinn that I bought from the place I worked. It cost me $100.00 after my discount, which would put it in the "good" range for a consumer bicycle by early 1970's prices, but not the "top-of-the-line" range. I rode that bike hard until I went into the service, then my three younger brothers successively rode it as they grew into it, and my father now rides it.
I became a less serious cyclist as an adult. I still continued to ride, but I never bought into the New York City bicycle subculture, which I consider just half a click short of being a domestic terrorist organization. So I guess having been out of the official loop all those years is part of why the prices you're talking about stun me. It's not even so much the prices that blow me away as the magnitude of difference between average and high end.
In my opinion, there just isn't sufficient difference between an average-quality bike and a high-end bike to justify that magnitude of difference in price. Twice the price? Maybe justified. Thrice the price? Extremely doubtful. Anything above that? Unquestionably larceny.
Of course, that's just my opinion, based on my own experience, namely, that I've only purchased three bikes in my life, all Schwinns, none of which ever needed more than ordinary maintenance, and each of which cost < $300.00. I purchased the first Schwinn when I was 14, which said bike is still being ridden; the second for about $150.00 right after I got out of the service, which I rode until it was stolen about 18 years later; and a third Schwinn about 15 years ago to replace the stolen one, which is also still in service, on loan to my drunken friend. That bike was a bit under $300.00 at Target, including accessories.
So now I'm reading here that $1,500.00 is on the
low end for quality bikes these days? Sure enough, my
45 seconds on Yahoo search extensive research bears that out. People do in fact pay $4,000.00 or more for bicycles.
Okay, fine. To each his own. As long as they're not stealing the money, why should I care how other people choose to **** it away? But I also see from a quick search that I can still get what look like perfectly adequate Schwinns -- not top of the line, but perfectly serviceable -- in the $300.00 - $400.00 range. It's hard for me to conceive of a bike being
that much better than one of the Schwinns that it justifies a more than tenfold price difference.
But again, it's really not my business how other people spend their money. If someone wants to plop down $4K for a bike, more power to him. I do, however, reserve the right to suspect that he's an idiot for doing so.
-Rich
This. I've owned about 5 bikes during my adult life, and none of them really gave me that "one with the bicycle" feeling until I went to a store that was willing to spend the time to find the right frame for my body size and dimensions. I learned that all the frames I'd been buying were too big for me, and settled on a 20-inch frame Trek 2000. It's not a carbon frame bike and I wouldn't win any races with it, but it suits me well and I can ride for hours on it without getting overly fatigued. I paid just over $1000 for it in 2000.