For the novice, cycling is a fun way to spend time outdoors on a beautiful day and get a good workout. As you progress you desire to ride more often, raising your speed and distance, maybe bailing out if weather looks unpleasant. This is when bike upgrades usually occur. When cycling becomes your passion you want to ride no matter what the weather is or what sort of bike you have access to. Many folks will go out in terrible weather on a 20 year old, original component bike. You then start to see your bike as a disconnected extension of your human body. You desire every day to reconnect and hit the road/path. When you reconnect and ride you feel happy, maybe even giddy. You spin so efficiently that you feel like your legs and bike are a high performance engine, and your upper body is along for the ride as the command center. It's a Zen sort of thing. At least for me that's the way it is.

The Zen of Tim