I agree with most everyone here...it can be done cheap or you can go way overboard. The key thing to remember is that some folks enjoy the expensive stuff of the “hobby” while others don’t have such funds to spend and make due with what they have. It’s like buying a car, some folks can afford a Porsche while others only a Mazda.

My other hobbies are reptiles (ran a business for ten years) which can get VERY pricey. Caging, special lights, water filters and rain systems, heating in the winter and cooling in the summer all add up. I have some snakes that are worth about as much as I paid for my Trek Domane. I know folks who have paid upwards of 100k for certain snakes, which in turn have made them much more money in the long run (by breeding and selling the offspring).

At the end of the day we’re all limited to what we can invest in any hobby. It doesn’t make it more or less fun (unless you consider animal welfare in which case it’s definitely frowned upon to do it on the cheap which tends to equate into sub-optimal housing etc).

I probably spent 8-9k (including kits, shoes, helmets, bike computers etc) on bikes for my wife and I just to get started but then again I’m one of those that enjoys gadgets and likes to buy the right stuff up front so I don’t have to deal with subpar stuff later on. It doesn’t help that whatever I do, my wife joins along (and vice versa) so if I buy a Domane, she gets one too! I want a Wahoo Bolt? So does she. :-P