My wife spent $1000.00 on her commuter bicycle which was her only bicycle at the time and a replacement to her car... it has paid for itself over the nearly five years she has owned it and for her, a new bike made sense as she has almost no mechanical skills and wanted a bicycle designed for daily use and high reliability.

She rides a Breezer Uptown 8 and aside from regular maintainence and a few rim replacements because of wear the bike has been rock solid and soon after he got the Breezer... she met me so I have been able to take care of her bike for her.

With $3000.00 I could buy ten decent bikes...

My bikes tend to come from the other end of the spectrum as I do have the mad skills to do pretty much anything to a bike.

Until this spring my Trek hybrid was my primary commuter that I picked up used for $110.00 and over the 4 years I had it did a bunch of upgrades with gently used parts... sold it for $375.00 with new wheels and lesser parts than what I had been running.

Over the same time I used my Kuwahara Shasta as my winter bike and foul weather bike and after selling my Trek it has taken over those duties... paid $40.00 for the frame and fork and have run it as a fixed gear, three speed, and now as an 18 speed and would put it's value at about $300 - $400. It is a nice enough bike (handbuilt frame) that I decided to retire it from winter duty.

The old 3 speed wheel set now live on my new winter bike which was cobbled together from spare parts and cost me very little to build... the frame and fork were free and every part is recycled.

Helps that I have a small shop and bunch of decent pare parts.

Winter bike...



Bike for all the other seasons... and my trailer cost me $20.00 as it was free but was lacking a hitch.



Not that I limit myself to just 2 bikes... but a couple seem to handle the lions share of all my day to day riding, commuting, shopping, and errands as I live a car free life.