Originally Posted by
Brian Ratliff
You are changing words around. You did not use the word "poser", you used "seeking cachet" and "emulate racers", which amounts to the same thing. IOW, they are "posing" as something they are not. This is not what most of these people are doing.
Nobody wants to emulate racers. They do aspire to the racing culture and they admire the personalities that make up that culture, even if they don't partake. They want to challenge themselves and they want to compete against others; this is the essence of racing and the reason why they buy racing bikes.
You are splitting hairs to the point of absurdity.
OP wants to know what separates $6K+ bikes from $2K bikes. The answer is, about 2 or 3 lbs. Whether that's "important" is another issue. If you've just spent $7K to $13K, the answer had better be "yes." In other words, a rational conversation about the topic is basically impossible if you've already spent the dough.