Originally Posted by
oldnslow2
Many people will say, spending more than $200 on a bicycle is silly.
I stopped for a some food during a ride and the guy at the next table saw my bike and said it looked expensive. I told him it was, so he said how much? $2000? $3000? I told him more.. he was surprised, but if I told him what it really cost he wouldn't believe me.
But a $2000 bike will outperform a $200 bike, by a noticeable amount. I don't believe that a $20 bottle cage will do any better at holding a water bottle than a $2 cage will.
In any case, I should come clean, I recently bought several bottle cages for $3 each, at a bike swap faire in San Diego a couple of weeks ago. But I needed a couple of them in a hurry. If I could have waited 2-4 weeks, I'd have gotten them from China on ebay, for less than $2 each. In any case, I generally buy either plastic or painted Aluminum tubular cages. I usually pay no more than $2 each for the plastic ones, and no more than $3 each for the aluminum ones.
I can't understand the purpose of spending $20+ (heck, I've seen them for over $50 a piece) on Carbon Fiber bottle cages.